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The U.S. Army Asked Walt Disney to Build Iron Man Suits

The U.S. Army Asked Walt Disney to Build Iron Man Suits

When you watch Walt Disney’s earliest movies, what do you see? A visionary dreamer gifted with joyous imagination? A shrewd businessman who knew how to capitalize on his country’s love of shiny things? Well, if you’re the U.S. Military, you saw a guy who could raise up the first army of super soldiers. That’s according to a newly released memo, which shows that, following Disney’s very impressive animatronic bots he displayed at the New York World’s Fair in 1965, the Army approached him, asking if he could create exoskeletons—the golden goose of military science. The memo suggests that Disney maybe try to build a suit that would help the wearer lift “1500 pounds to a height of six feet and carry that load twenty-five feet in ten seconds.”

Walt Disney, ever the charmer, simply wrote “NO” in a red pencil. The Army had the last laugh though. Disney bought Marvel Comics in 2009, and Iron Man was the first superhero movie to have Disney’s stamp on it so, in a way, they ended up designing an exo-skeleton after all …

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