My favorite Tony Stark meta as quoted from my twitter account. Yes, that is timestamped 1 in the morning. I stayed up until 2 writing this. (What else was there to do in May of 2020, really)
Okay let's start with some basic anatomy. Here's a normal chest x-ray (frontal and lateral) beside unused IM2 concepts for Tony's own x-rays. Please note the placement of the arc reactor as beginning within the 4th intercostal space.
Please also note that Tony's x-rays are timestamped 2300 hours, which is 11pm. X-rays at 11pm.
As demonstrated in the next image, you will see that the sternum (also known as the manubrium, that long bone in the center) extends well past the 4th intercostal (between the ribs) space, and, indeed, quite possibly lower than the arc reactor itself does.
Assumption #1: some part of Tony's sternum, if not all of it, was removed to make room for the arc reactor. This is the stupidest possible way I can think of addressing the shrapnel issue, but I digress.
Let's say the reactor is about this big and sits here. Or, at least the metal core.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the metal core of the arc reactor (the housing unit for the magnet) extends at least 5-6 inches into his chest?
Oh, you want proof?
Bam. I'll even be generous and say that her fingers are curled and give you four inches, but it's probably closer to five.
Which means that in the x-rays, the reactor should look more like this
Tony's torso is definitely thicker than that but we're ignoring that, these images never made it past the concept phase.
Anyway, when I mush all this up and account for the fact that it was never supposed to be medically plausible, I'm going to approximate the depth of the cylinder at 4.5 inche, and the surface shape as 2.5-3 inches in diameter. Here's a really good prosthetic image.
Mm. Look at that 2008 camera quality.
Tony Stark likely did not have any sternum left after IM2. This leads me to assumption number 2: the cartilage that connects the rib ends to the sternum likely grew around the housing unit. It would have provided enough cushion to keep metal away from bone, but OUCH still.
For the removal of the arc reactor in IM3 to be even a little bit logical, one of these two things would have had to happen in that surgery.
1: the housing unit was left in his chest, intact, and capped like a pill botte. Then skin was grafted over the top.
2: he was given an artificial sternum. Not a bone transplant, because he would not want to be dependent on anti-rejection meds. it would likely be some kind of medical grade silicone, something that would mimic the function of an actual sternum. Which is allowing the expansion of the chest cavity to, y'know, breathe.
But at the end of the day, the impossibility of removing the arc reactor isn't what frustrated me so much about IM3. It's that the arc reactor has been a symbol of Iron man, of Tony's identity, transformation, weakness, strengths, since the very beginning of the comics. For seemingly no reason, Shane Black took that from him, and THAT is whaat pisses me off.
Stay turned for the next thread, where I remember soft tissues also exist.













