In this 30-second sneak peek of Iron Man 3, Iron Man is facing quite the conundrum! Watch:
Okay, so here’s the situation: Air Force One blows up or something and 13 people fall out of the plane. Iron Man asks his internal computer “Jarvis”—which is pretty twee for Iron Man, but let’s ignore that for the moment—how many of the falling people he can carry, and Jarvis says “four, sir.”
“OH, BOY” is right! However, I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem. SO LET’S CROWD SOURCE IT! How can Iron Man pluck 13 people out of the sky when he can allegedly only carry four? Put your solution in the comments, and read mine after the jump!
MY SOLUTION:
So first of all, obviously, Jarvis is full of shit. The Iron Man suit is capable of lifting one 170 lb. man at hypersonic speed, but it can only lift four people total? BULLLLLLLLL SHIIIIIIIT. Jarvis is like my lawyer—always advising me to take the “safe” route. Fuck you, lawyer. Anyway, this is how you save 13 people falling through the sky with one Iron Man suit:
Get everybody to climb on to Iron Man’s back, and pile up. Iron Man will put his hand and feet thrusters down (as in the “downward dog” yoga style position), turn up the juice and slow their descent—hopefully over some water or something soft like a mattress factory. BOO-YAH! 13 people are saved.
He could fly down super fast and collect 13 trampolines to put underneath each person.
He could call the Hulk?
It’s possible that none of these ideas are any good, and you can think of a better one. SO DO IT ALREADY, SMARTY-ASS!
He’s obviously going to grab the nose of the plane and scoop them all up like it’s a big ol’ game of jacks.
How about he lands ahead of them then uses his repulsors to juggle them all until he catches and gently lets down each one of them, one at a time? Because as it turns out, Iron Man is also a master juggler.
It’s simple math. If you divide 4 by 13 (and I’m pretty sure Iron Man has a built-in calculator) you get 0.30769. This means that Iron Man can carry 30.769% of the mass of bodies that’s falling. He should be able to collect the head, neck, and collarbone of each person (using some laser thingy for this purpose) and rush them to Reed Richards’s laboratory at Four Freedoms Plaza in Manhattan where they could be attached to android bodies which Richards undoubtedly keeps handy for just such an eventuality. Easy-peasy.
Barring that, he could just save the hot babes.
Marshall the individuals into a migrating geese formation: first, do a skywriting “V” to get everyone on board; second, carry the lead “bird” on back (clear of thrusters) building a chain of 6 on leader’s left ankle, 6 on leader’s right ankle, then a gradual lateral descent into the nearest emergency landing haystack all the while straining “must . . . ignore . . . inner-critic!”
Simple, just use the Bat-Emergency-Parachutes from his utility belt.