Avengers 4 will take off after the events of Avengers: Infinity War will come to an end. According to Joe Russo, the MCU will see pretty drastic changes in Phase 4. This means that the Avengers will have had gone through a lot after Infinity War. This includes meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy and teaming up with them to fight the Mad Titan Thanos. The team-up will result in the geniuses of Earth like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner getting to know about alien-tech that the GOTG use, and vice versa. It only makes sense that Tony will make a few upgrades to his armors by implementing this alien-tech in them.
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This also seems to be the case, as a recent photo of Tony’s arc reactor from Avengers 4 hints at such a possibility. The reactor seems to be made from a material that is certainly not from Earth. It is entirely possible that Rocket or Peter Quill introduced Tony to this kind of technology. Whatever be the case, the arc reactor opens up an opportunity for the Bleeding Edge Armor to make an appearance in the MCU. But before we proceed to that, one might ask:
What Is The Bleeding Edge Armor?
The Bleeding Edge Armor was the first armor powered completely by repulsor technology. The armor is kept inside Tony’s body until mentally commanded to form any structure or shape upon Tony’s skin.
It consists of nano-machines that can change their properties depending upon the structure commanded, and can transform into clothes and different armors. Due to the capability of transformation, it can repair itself and is almost invulnerable. The transformation depends entirely on Stark’s imagination, such as a boxing glove or even a sword. Apart from that, it also provides a 360-degree panoramic view around Tony through installed cameras.
Now that we know what this armor’s capable of, let’s proceed back to exactly why it’s significant to the MCU. Y’see, the BEA has already been teased before in Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Doctor Strange.
BEA In The MCU
An interesting Easter Egg regarding the BEA came from Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange, portrayed by Rachel McAdams, when she used the term “bleeding edge” during a conversation with Stephen Strange. Bleeding edge is a term used for technologies so new that they have a high risk of unreliability, and was formed to indicate a greater advancement than “leading edge” or “cutting edge.” In this case, it might be a possible nod to Tony Stark’s Bleeding Edge Armor from the comics. This may be more than just a usual comic book reference though, because it has been teased in Age Of Ultron as well.
Remember when Hawkeye was gravely wounded at the start of the movie? Dr. Helen Cho cured him with some kind of nano-technology. Bruce Banner then claimed that she was creating tissue.
“This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are going to be left in the dust.”
“That is exactly the plan.”
