HACK SMITH

"Real-Life Tony Stark" James Hobson Talks Proto Sabers, Content Creation and Engineering His Way to Making Comic Book Concepts a Reality

- Aron Vaughan

Growing up, I was determined to become the world’s first superhero. How hard could it be?

I spent my days transforming my basement into a real-life Batcave, to the exasperation of my parents, and exploring the mechanics of automatic grappling hooks.

Twenty years later, I still have not fulfilled my dream of becoming the world’s first superhero, but there is one man who is getting pretty close.

James Hobson, better known as The Hacksmith, is an engineer and content creator based in Ontario, Canada, who brings movie, video game and comic book concepts to life. Referred to as “the real-life Tony Stark” by many, Hobson is the closest thing to Iron Man in the world today. Since his first major build, an exoskeleton from the 2013 sci-fi movie Elysium, Hobson has created some of the most well-known gadgets and weapons in comic book lore, including Thor’s hammer, Captain America’s magnetic shield and even the world’s first working retractable lightsaber.

Hobson has collaborated with some of the top content creators in the world. He recently provided a working lightsaber to Jimmy Donaldson, the man at the helm of YouTube’s highest-earning channel, Mr. Beast. His social media presence has skyrocketed since his early videos, amassing over 12.4 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

Although I fell short of becoming the world’s first caped crusader, I did recently get the chance to speak with The Hacksmith himself about some of his heroic achievements featured on his Make it Real series on YouTube.