Product Description: Iron Man's first few years of activity took him through three sets of armor and his first several showdowns with such archenemies as the Mandarin and the Titanium Man - plus confrontations with major menaces like the Chameleon, Count Nefaria, and the Mad Thinker! Dictatorships across the world, beneath the sea, under the earth, and through time itself fall before the Armored Avenger's awesome array of apparatus! Guest-starring Captain America, the X-Men's Angel and more! Featuring the introductions of Iron Man's most infamous foes-turned-friends, the Black Widow and Hawkeye! Collects Tales of Suspense #39-83 and Tales to Astonish #82
Who? or what, is the newest, most breath-taking, most sensational super hero of all...? I have read many Iron Man comics over the years, mostly from the '70s and '80s. But I had never read the very earliest Iron Man stories, so with the release of the Iron Man movie, I decided to finally do so. This huge book reprints the first 40something Iron Man comics from Tales of Suspense #39 - 83. The earliest stories here are a bit gimmicky, with most issues featuring Iron Man pulling out some new device that just happens to be the perfect thing to defeat the villain with (and most of those early villains are pretty lame). But the series started to improve when Stan Lee took over the complete scripting duties, instead of just providing the plots. The series steadliy improved and reached a high point with Tales of Suspense #69 - 71 (the epic first battle with Titanium Man). From that point on, the series was about as good as anything else Marvel Comics was publishing. This book is a bit pricey, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than tracking down and buying the original comic books.
Great Collection! But here we go again? This book gets 4 stars, but Marvel gets 2 stars for releasing another collection that may not continue.
Here is yet another collection of the first issues of Iron Man by Marvel Comics. If you've seen the MARVEL MASTERWORKS Iron Man series, then you've already had a taste of what's in here.
This contains the first appearance of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #39, but re-colored today, very generically, not matching the coloring of the original issues. So it's not really an exact reproduction, but it's still pretty good.
It is very nice to see so many issues represented in such a lush volume, but as I said before, they did this with the Marvel Masterworks series and then discontinued it, well in fact, they re-released the SAME TWO volumes about 5 years after the initial release. They did this with the Marvel Essential Iron Man as well; printed two volumes, then reprinted the same two and discontinued the series.
Are we to get the same treatment with this new Omnibus series? Although this covers a good 45 issues of Iron Man's earliest exploits, there is much, much more to read about, and I hope Marvel will no drop the ball once again.
Marvel's marketing choices aside, this is a VERY nice intro to Iron Man, for new and old fans alike. This effectively doubles the amount of full-color reprints of Tales of Suspense, so even Masterworks owners may want to get this.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
