Ivan Vanko

## Biography

Ivan Vanko was a Russian physicist and the son of the disgraced scientist Anton Vanko. When Vanko's father died penniless due to the actions of Howard Stark, Vanko swore his revenge against Stark's own son, Tony, and the whole Stark family for all the ruin and humiliation suffered by him and his own father, designing armor similar to Iron Man in order to publicly defeat him adn destroy the reputation of his own family. Although his first attempt failed and he was then arrested, Vanko eventually joined forces with Justin Hammer, who had recruited him to build the Hammer Drones which Vanko stole in another attempt at Stark's life until he was finally defeated by the combined efforts of War Machine and Iron Man. In a final bid, Vanko sacrificed himself in a desperate attempt to destroy the Stark legacy.

## Powers and Abilities

### Abilities

**Expert Combatant:** As a result of his upbringing and prison sentence, Vanko is a hardened individual who is well-versed in combat. Because of his brute strength, he was able to easily subdue his cellmate during his prison escape, as well as snap the neck of a guard with apparent ease. Vanko also managed to kill two trained armed guards tasked to him by Justin Hammer and was able to challenge Tony Stark in his Mark VI armor for a short period of time.

* ***Whip Mastery:*** Vanko is highly proficient in the use of his two electrified whips that are powered by an Arc Reactor. Vanko relies on his whips for long-range combat. He is versed enough in fighting with his whips to capture both Iron Man and War Machine at the same time.

**Master Engineer:** Though he did not invent the Arc Reactor, Vanko was resourceful enough to duplicate it with limited materials. Upon receiving access to more resources at Hammer Industries, Vanko was able to secretly design a Mark II armor for himself, as well as create several Hammer Drones that took the combined efforts of Iron Man and War Machine to stop.

**Genius Intellect:** Vanko possesses a strong intellectual mind as a result of his scientific background and his father's tutelage. From his efforts to duplicate the Arc Reactor, Vanko was able to deduce that Tony Stark was dying of palladium poisoning.

**Manipulation:**Upon escaping prison, Vanko was able to manipulate Justin Hammer into allowing him to make more Iron Man suits. Although Hammer wanted more man-operated suits, Vanko turned the suits into drones which were secretly under his control and was able to deceive Hammer about their functionality until he was ready to activate them.

**Expert Computer Skills:** Upon being shown Hammer's Iron Man prototype suits, Vanko easily hacked into Hammer Tech's software to which Hammer believed was highly encrypted. Also, whilst Tony Stark had J.A.R.V.I.S. to operate the Iron Legion, Vanko instead possessed the knowledge to slave the 'Hammer Tech drones' to operate by themselves, as well as operate War Machine's suit against his will. It took the efforts of Black Widow, an accomplished hacker, to eventually overthrow Vanko's influence over War Machine and the Hammer drones.

**Tactician:** Upon creating his first Arc Reactor, Vanko entered the United States to make an attempt on Tony Stark's life at the time when he believed him most vulnerable. Vanko determined that even if he lost the fight, that the after-effects of Iron Man being challenged by similar technology and Stark's deteriorating health would mean his effort wasn't in vain and that Iron Man would lose his reputation.

**Multilingualism:** Vanko is fluent in Russian and speaks English with a heavy accent, using the latter language to communicate while in the United States. He frequently used Russian to insult Justin Hammer.