While Tony Stark may have created countless versions of his powerful Iron Man armor - always updating the suit to take on new threats - it turns out the X-Men actually have the ultimate futurist beat when it comes to variety. Tony has admitted in the past that he approaches every problem in terms of how a new suit can fix it, but while his solutions tend to involve better armor or a new kind of weapon, Marvel's mutants face a far more diverse set of problems.
The truth was revealed in Peter Milligan and Mike Allred's X-Statix #6. A series far ahead of its time, X-Statix used superheroism as a metaphor for celebrity, touching on themes of sexuality, race, and mental health. The team themselves were as concerned with fame as helping others, and often had to hide the truth of their identities and powers from the media. For several team members, this involved wearing special costumes which allowed them to better control or harness their abilities.
The issue begins with Charles Xavier helping X-Statix member Venus Dee Milo search for her family, who she recently found out were sent to another dimension when her powers first emerged. When the search fails, Xavier and Venus move on to other matters - a special suit Xavier has created so that Venus and teammate Mister Sensitive can be intimate despite their powers. On their way to inspect the suit, they pass through a hall of costumes, which Xavier confirms is just one of many workshops dedicated to creating custom armor for Earth's mutants.
Later that night, the hall of costumes is raided by a mysterious villain who is eventually revealed to be an interdimensional parasite taking the form of Venus' cousin Jamal due to her trauma. The villain combines several of Xavier's suits, revealing flight capabilities, Doctor Octopus-esque prehensile limbs, and many different kinds of energy projection. X-Statix are able to defeat "Jamal" (and rescue Venus' family from their extradimensional exile), but only after Xavier reveals a new suit adjusted for Mister Sensitive's recently elevated power level - something the X-Men's leader reveals he already had on hand, just in case.
The challenge and scale of Xavier's custom suit operation is difficult to imagine, given he seems to be developing armor for every known mutant who needs it, including theoretical suits to compensate for increased power levels and quality-of-life costumes for personal, non-superhero use. X-Statix reveals a few secrets about how the X-Men really operate, but Xavier's many hidden workshops are one of the most fascinating. The story shows that Professor X is constantly putting his wealth and genius to work not just outfitting superheroes, but helping individual mutants cope with infinitely varied powers, from having hyper-sensitive skin to being a literal cloud of unstable energy. Fans knew that Xavier had helped his own students - equipping Cyclops with a ruby quartz visor to control his optic blasts, for instance - but X-Statix shows the X-Men's operation works at a scale that would make Tony Stark blush.
Iron Man may have created some impressive armor (even if some suits, like the Godkiller and Godbuster armor, technically weren't built by Tony himself), and even helped replicate the Avengers' abilities in the non-canon Avengers: Tech-On, but Xavier's attempt to build custom costumes for countless mutants, each with unique powers and needs, is orders more ambitious. Despite this, it makes sense that with access to genius mutants like Beast, Forge, Trinary, and Jumbo Carnation, the X-Men's tech variety would outshine that of Iron Man, who is famously touchy about anyone else even having access to his designs. In terms of raw power, few inventors in the Marvel Universe can hold a candle to Iron Man, but when it comes to miraculous feats of engineering, the evidence provided by X-Statix suggests the X-Men actually deserve Tony's crown.
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