Originally Posted by
Cyke
I suppose I'm misstating myself. I shouldn't have said Tony uses Wakandan tech, but he didn't invent nanotech, the Wakandans did (the tech was also outright named in Black Panther, not CW), and nanotech is a big part of their technology. I don't put it past Tony to create his own nanotech and improve upon it, but since it was a major point at the end of Black Panther that the country would make their tech more available to the world, and that we didn't see Tony use nanotech until Infinity War, I think it stands to reason that Tony learned about nanotech, found it to be innovative, and got to work with his nanotech after learning how it's made/how it works/its mechanics (and as we've seen his work with Bruce, he's a big proponent of sharing knowledge back and forth with intellects that he respects -- and Wakanda has got to be up there).
I mean, for an analogy, Peter Parker invented web-shooters, not Tony. But Tony built web-shooters, too (at least two additional versions), after seeing Peter in action per their conversation in Civil War. Were they upgraded in every way superior to the originals? You betcha, because Tony's smarter than Peter. My mistake in my previous post would've been to say that Tony used Spider-Man's tech to build them, rather than saying Tony was inspired by Spider-Man's tech. But Tony likely wouldn't have gotten the idea for those upgraded web-shooters (nor would he have any reason to build them) if Peter didn't invent the base the originals. Likewise, Tony was impressed by Peter's invention of the web-formula and their tensile strength but Tony took that formula to invent web grenades and ricochet webbing, among other things. Maybe Tony would have invented web-shooters at some point independent of ever knowing about Peter, but Peter's inventions were a big step in directing Tony to the world of web-shooters.
I really can see Wakandan nanotech as analogous to Peter's web-shooters and web-fluid, with Tony seeing what toys came first, then creating his own playthings, improving upon it, and then upgrading it even further, to make his own brand. Moreso, I really don't think that detracts from his genius but rather adds to his genius -- he *is* fundamentally an engineer, after all.