IRON MAN- TONY STARK’S NEW RIDE: THE S.H.I.E.L.D HELICARRIER “THUNDER CHILD”

            (BEST SEEN LARGE IF YOU HAVE CLASS #THREE ALPHA SECURITY CLEARANCE OR HIGHER)

First appearance of the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier “Thunder Child” (“The Mighty Avengers #1 May, 2007. Design/Dialogue by Brian Michael Bendis & Frank Cho)

MS. MARVEL:  “Wow, Tony.”

TONY STARK:  “I know.”

MS. MARVEL:  “What was wrong with the old helicarrier exactly?”

TONY STARK: “It stunk. It actually smelled.”

MS. MARVEL:  “Like cigars.”

TONY STARK:  “And other things.”

MS. MARVEL:  “You know, they invented carpet cleaners.”

TONY STARK: “I’m the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., so I get a new helicarrier.”

MS MARVEL: “Can I have the old one?”

TONY STARK: “I was thinking of tossing it up on Ebay.”

No fictional covert organisation worth its suicide capsules would be without a futuristic airborne headquarters and since 1965 Marvel Comics’ S.H.I.E.L.D  (Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage and Logistics Directorate) has operated a succession of fantastic and fiscally outrageous ‘helicarriers’.

Former S.H.I.E.L.D Director Nick Fury was pretty hard on helicarriers and has written off a number of the expensive flying fortresses over the years.  Since billionaire industrialist/inventor Tony Stark recently became the Director he has worked tirelessly to put his own distinctive stamp on the organisation. Previous helicarriers have been joint efforts, but this one is definitely all Stark’s own work, cheekily featuring a good helping of the streamlined styling and signature red and gold colour scheme made famous by his Iron Man armour. 

I couldn’t wait for this beaut new beasty to show up as a collectible so thought I’d have a crack at tooling up my own. 

My helicarrier is 16 centimetres long and is made from Super Sculpey, an oven fireable polymer clay. The ‘guns’ are made from 1.5 mm aluminium tube and can be swivelled on their mounts. They can rotate 360 degrees in the vertical plane, which means they can service targets in a range of envelopes from air-to-ground/air and even space. With barrels that size I’m assuming they must be something particularly chunky, maybe some kind of hypervelocity, variable load electromagnetic rail gun, but when Tony Stark is involved who knows? Maybe they’re part of some really humungous sound system that can blast out Black Sabbath on cue, or p’rhaps he’s going to build a couple of giant hands on the ends of the tubes! What they’re probably not is..a bluff! Though Stark’s rep would probably allow him to get away with that too. (Now, that WOULD be irony, man!)   

I’ve interpreted the drawing as best I can with only the one admittedly cool drawing to work from. 

Helicarriers traditionally loft their own squadrons of aircraft, often from flight decks that look very much like a standard sea borne carrier’s ‘flat top’. S.H.I.E.L.D has had Vertical and Short takeoff and Landing capable aircraft for some time so I reasoned that the flight decks are probably quite abbreviated and accessible by elevators. I’ve detailed the helicarrier with both paint and letraset rub on transfer as well as some very old stick on ‘line’ tape that I’ve had sitting around for decades and which remains handy for jobs like this. 

Unless the typical helicarrier outrigger engine pods are meant to be added later the engines must be integral to the hull so I’ve placed six exhaust outlets along the keel to represent them. I mean, this is a Tony Stark invention and I doubt he’d just whack ginormous rotor blades on the thing. Probably some seriously humungous repulsors, I reckon.

For the picture I didn't mess with the model too much. Just dropped it onto a blue screen (okay, a scrap of blue fabric) on the outdoor table, photographed the hell out of it, pulled the ship element out in Photoshop, and dropped it into an Aussie sky plate I shot seperately. Fiddled with the lighting a little, painted some foreground cloud in, and did some general digital housekeeping to clean things up. 

I’ve taken the liberty of christening her “Thunder Child” because...well, because I can!

H.G Wells fans will know why, though I dare say that the Thunder God Thor’s mighty brow might be a little puzzled by the name. 

Other favourite ‘skyships’ include: Manta Station (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), Spectrum’s Cloudbase (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons), and U.N.I.T’s Valiant (seen in the Doctor Who episode, The Sound of Drums).

Oh, and the rings painted on the business ends of the guns do NOT denote kills.

Probably.

They're, um, clearance markers so that the helmsman can get a visual check on his proximity to the dock when landing.....

Fair dinkum!

Ahhhhh, Red Hulk, you ruddy maggot. Only went and crashed the bloody thing! On the other hand, what a tax write off Stark's going to get! Wonder who will get the contract to build the new one....$$$$$!!

Taken on: September 16, 2007

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Sets appears in: • IRON MAN- TONY STARK'S NEW RIDE: THE S.H.I.E.L.D HELICARRIER "THUNDER CHILD"

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Camera: Olympus X300,D565Z,C450Z, f/14.7, 1/125 sec, 17.4mm, ISO 50 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Olympus X300,D565Z,C450Z
Aperture:	f/14.7
Exposure Time:	0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length:	17.4mm
ISO:	50
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 7.0
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