World Famous Comics: Essential Iron Man, Vol. 1 (v. 1)
Essential Iron Man, Vol. 1 (v. 1)
By: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber Publisher: Marvel Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Marvel Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 512 Publication Date: October 15, 2008 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: Inventor, business-man, playboy...super hero! Gravely injured in combat, billionaire genius Tony Stark saved his own life by designing a life-sustaining shell - the hi-tech protective covering that transformed him into the invincible Iron Man! Now, the world believes him to be Tony Stark's personal bodyguard. In this dual role, he faces boardroom intrigue and super-powered menaces. A modern-day knight in armor, he fights injustice wherever it rears its ugly head! Collects Tales of Suspense #39-72.
''The Real IronMan'' Another hit from the house of ideas.Again Stan Lee writes about what he knows best---- super-heroes. Along with artists and letterers Marvel has added one more super-hero to their list of great reading. Make mine Marvel!
Oxidized Iron The Iron Man idea is great, and Iron Man has lasted a while as a first tier Marvel hero, though often falling to the fringes of the first tier he would always return with strong story arcs such as Stark's alcoholism. These first stories though are fairly weak for a variety of reasons.
Appearing in Tales of Suspense, the length of these stories runs from 12-18 pages, not the complete 24 of a solo character in his own title. The abbreviated length really does make a difference in regards to plot and character development. For a while, Iron Man took over 18 pages of the comic, before sharing it with Captain America when his page count went back down to 12. Even having 18 pages as opposed to 12 or 13 makes a difference in story quality. The short length makes any one shot story almost a vignette, and requires the stories of substance to be multi-issue.
Villains. A hero is defined by his villains. A hero is made great by having powerful and threatening villains. Unfortunately, again due to space constraints, Iron Man has only second tier villains. The Mandarin, The Black Knight. The only two that really develop into something better are The Black Widow and Hawkeye. That is one of the upsides of this collection, the first appearances of Marvel universe mainstays Black Widow and Hawkeye.
The science. It's a comic book, so the less said about the science the better. But it is hard to have a willing suspension of disbelief when the science is so laughable. I'm not sure Stan Lee had any idea of what a transistor was when he wrote these.
After all that you probably wonder why it gets three stars. Iron Man himself does get some development and follows the successful Marvel formula of a flawed hero. We see both Tony Stark evolve, and we see the early evolution of the Iron Man armor. Once Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts are introduced we see his personal growth and anguish, albeit shown through a corny love triangle. The 3-4 issue story arcs are also reasonably good, showing the improvement the series would achieve once Iron Man got his own title.
Not great, but not bad. Just average with bad points and good points.
Essential Ironman Vol. 1 Just got this book and man am I disappointed! Oh, it's thick enough, lots of content. And the graphics are clear, and its dimensions are nice. But... I expected it to be all in color like the original comic issues, but only the COVER was in color! 600 pages of comic issues in black & white?!! This sucks! What was the stupid publisher thinking?! Reading comic books starring superheroes should be seen in their colorful costumes,. Seeing Ironman not in gold and red, or the hulk not in green but in sepia tones sucks!!!!!!!! I am hugely disappointed.
Must have for Marvel readers WOW, what else can be said about this collection of original Iron Man stories. I read all these as a kid, but like most kids of my time my mother threw them all out. Well, even though the originals may be worth many thousands at least you get to read the original stories once more. Too bad they are not in color the only draw back.
Classic or Dated? This early Iron Man stuff probably needs two reviews to do an honest job. Old-time comic fans will appreciate this collection of these early stories and the introductions of so many classic Iron Man enemies. The 1960s writing is a nice bit of nostalgia, and the art by people like Steve Ditko and Don Heck is very fun to look at.
But to a younger person, perhaps coming to Iron Man from seeing the movie...not so much. The stories and enemies will seem hokey and the "red menace" stuff will lack the meaning it had to people my age who lived through the Cold War.
I love the marvel essentials series, but let's face it...these are pieces of nostalgia. Early marvels were pretty poorly written stuff. Once Stan Lee established the formula of a hero who whined and carped about his personal life all the time, it became formulaic very quickly. These stories fit in that mold, 18 pages of fighting some communist and a few panels of Stark whining about the metal plate on his chest.
If you understand what you are getting this is a great inexpensive way to grab all these early Iron Man comics...but I wouldn't buy it for a kid.
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