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SpaceX hired the man that designed the ‘Iron Man’ costume to make its spacesuits

It's going to be badass

SpaceX hired the man that designed the ‘Iron Man’ costume to make its spacesuits

Back in 2012 when Marvel movies were still something of a novelty, Jon Favreau was attempting to find a real-world figure to lend some 'realism' to his new project, Iron Man.

When developing the character with Robert Downey Jr, the actor suggested they sit down with Elon Musk - creator PayPal and CEO of Tesla (the electric car company changing the world) and SpaceX (the rocket company changing space). The real-life billionaire genius would act as the template for Marvel's fictional billionaire genius.

Now, some four years later, Musk is guiding this Marvel link full circle: SpaceX has just employed Jose Fernandez - the Iron Man costume designer - to look after the creation of the company's latest space suits.

"I didn’t know what SpaceX was and I thought it was a film," Fernandez told Bleep Mag. "Then I realized it’s an actual space program. They were looking to get a suit built for Elon to look at for the program."

Fernandez has had a hand in some of the most iconic super-suits of cinema, with his most recent works including Batman and Wonder Woman from this year's Batman v Superman and Black Panther from Captain America.

"They had two weeks to present the suit to him and I told them I couldn’t do a full suit in two weeks but that I may be able to do a helmet," said Fernandez. "There were four other companies working on bids as well and at the end of the process, he hated everything except the helmet. I worked with him for six months and at the end of that, we created a suit that they are now reverse-engineering to make functional for flight."

Fernandez's suit won't be unveiled for another few months, but it's set to fulfil a pretty awesome brief: "He wanted it to look stylish. It had to be practical but also needed to look great. It’s pretty bad ass. He kept saying, 'Anyone looks better in a tux, no matter what size or shape they are,' and when people put this space suit on, he wants them to look better than they did without it, like a tux. You look heroic in it. It’s an iconic thing be a part of."

For an idea of just how heroically badass SpaceX's suit could look, here's a roundup of some of Fernandez's best work.





Wolverine - X-Men 2

[Via: Bleep Mag, Ironhead Studio]