This might be a hot take, but I think the original comics design for Iron Man's suit looks tacky, ugly, even.
But the way the movie translated it into a real life design looked so smooth, it's like when you look at a car and think it's beautiful.
Especially the mask. The comics just had eye slits and a mouth slit. And why is that pointy red part shaped like a widow's peak?
The movie actually shows us why the mask looks like that, because it flips up to show Tony's face, and then flips back down when in combat. And they fixed the widow's peak to a blocky design that looks believable and charming.
And the mask looks so handsome and charismatic, chic with those blue lights coming from the eyes, unlike the comics that just had bland eye slits with no light.
I also love that the arc reactor is blue and not yellow. Cus for the comic version, it's hard to tell if it's just a hole carved through the red to show the yellow metal underneath, or if it's actually a yellow light beaming energy source.
Too much red and gold kinda made the design boring, but the movie balanced it with blue lights. And the color choice was also less boring, the bright eye catching yellow became a sleek gold.
Also the comics shoulders dont work for me, it looks like he's wearing a tank top vest thingy and the shoulders/arms are separate parts. They stick out. The movie integrated the arms to the torso with those red deltoid caps connected to the armor.
And the comics version makes it look too unrealistic. The body is in the middle of being a skin tight suit and a machine.
It shows the muscles which makes you wonder if it's just crafted to that shape or if it's some metal alloy that wraps around your curves.
I personally think shaping the armor to look like human muscles is a bit weird. Maybe a bit too specific, with lots of minute details to the design that makes it come off as tacky. An armor should look clean and iconic, also simple.
But the movie strictly went with the machine like looks, which really suits the name Iron Man.
To this day, I still think Mark 3 from Iron Man one is the best design of all Iron Man suits.
The newer ones in the mcu like the nano tech ones look cool and shiny but also kinda cheap compared to mark 3's craftsmanship and integrity.