How would you improve Iron-man? He hasn't had a good run in decades. And despite his dramatically increased popularity due to the MCU, his comics are unpopular.
How would you improve Iron-man? He hasn't had a good run in decades.
How would you improve Iron-man? He hasn't had a good run in decades. And despite his dramatically increased popularity due to the MCU, his comics are unpopular.
Iron Man can't be improved, so long as the writers don't want like iron man. And they don't. Iron man is fine as a concept, but no one writes him as an escapist power fantasy (which is what superheroes are) anymore, every run keeps shitting on him.
His comics have spiraled because no writer since Fraction has been interested in writing an Iron Man run. They have all focused on a big sweeping new status quo, a big definining story. And it's all the same shit, Tony doesn't know how to be a hero, Tony needs to rebuild from nothing, Tony has identity issues. And then that writer just leaves just as the issue is resolved, leaving a new status quo that the next writer ignores for their own big dramatic retcon story. We barely ever see Iron man be Iron man because every goddamn run is too busy doing the same written-for-trade 12 issue arc that sets up the character. Then they leave, rinse and repeat.
Add to that all the absolutely moronic character changes like he's not really the child of Howard and Maria Stark, he's evil now, now he's an AI, now he's a clone now he's married to Emma Frost. Why would anybody stick around and read about this character when the writers just don't give a shit. As flawed as Fraction was he understood that the important thing about an Iron Man book is to see him be a hero, do cool shit, be a rich celebrity and have him run his company. And you will be hard pressed to find any run for the last 15 fricking years that has managed to capture that again.
That's why Iron Man's books are in the goddamn garbage.
I'm really starting to wonder how much of this is on the writer and how much of this is on bad editorial decision-making
I think it's a combination. Sometimes you can track a systemic issue to the editors like with Nick Lowe but I think Tony has the problem of attracting a long row of primadonna writers who are famous for wanting to leave their marks on the books. Gillen was the least offensive of them but he started the "Who are Tony's real parents" thing which was itself a sinkhole of un-fun storytelling for years. Then we had Bendis, Slott and Duggan, all of whom are varying degrees of incompetent and eager to make big sweeping changes just to leave their mark. IIRC Slott was the one who killed off organic Tony and replaced him with the AI put inside a meat body they grew which is probably the most horrifying thing they could possibly have done and yet it's never even brought up anymore because really what can you do with it? It just makes the character toxic and unusable.
What's mind-boggling is that none of these buttholes have looked at Iron Man runs which worked and had very stable readerships like Fraction and gone "maybe we should just try to write Iron Man"
From Ellis onwards, most of the writers Marvel have put on Iron Man have been people they consider "star" writers, but like you say, most of them just want to make their own permanent mark on a book, and most of them don't actually care about just writing a 'normal' Iron Man run. This is broadly true for most Big 2 cape character by now, nobody wants to just write a normal meat and potatoes superhero comic anymore, everyone thinks they're going to write the modern Batman Year One or Kraven's Last Hunt or whatever other evergreen classic they want to emulate, without doing the years of 'normal' stories that make the classics stand out, so every superhero is just lurching from one life-changing event to another.
Iron Man gets it worse than a lot of other characters because Tony Stark is a wealthy white genius playboy. He's everything in life they've been indoctrinated to hate and resent, AND his family's wealth came from arms manufacturing. He hasn't sold weapons since back when the Vietnam War was still on, but writers keep acting like he's only just stopped. They can't help themselves but try to tear him down, emasculate him, or in Bendis' case, try to replace him entirely.
We've had 20 years of Marvel trying to put star writers on Iron Man. We just need a competent writer who likes Iron Man and wants to write Iron Man.
The problem isn't that the writers want to do something big and profound and shake things up. The problem is that they make that their entire run and end on the big resolution.
The big change in status quo should always happen at the START of your run and then you spend the rest of the run showing how it affects the character and how it leads to better stories. Leaving the big resolution for the end is meaningless because you're leaving it up to the next creative team to make your entire run pay off and that NEVER happens. And when these people spend their entire run doing this one arc and each issue feels like just a segment of the whole that erodes the character and reader trust.
Like I can't think of any other solo character who has been treated this badly at Marvel in the last decade. Not even Spidey has, even though the writing on his stuff is garbage. But Tony somehow is the one stuck on the same 12-issue arc, full reboot rinse repeat.
>Like I can't think of any other solo character who has been treated this badly at Marvel in the last decade
Iron Fist?
No one cares about Iron Fist outside of being Luke Cage's square white buddy.
One single run of Immortal doesn't change that.
And Immortal was only good because of every character that wasn't Danny.
> We just need a competent writer who likes Iron Man and wants to write Iron Man.
I legitimately think we’ll need to wait for the zoomers raised on the MCU and its centrality of Stark to grow up and enter the industry for this to happen.
I came across an interview with Len Kaminski from 1994
I think what struck me is that if feels like he gave more thought into this than some of the other writers in the last 20 years
>negotiating to use the X-Men for 1994's Crash & Burn storyline
>wanted to reveal Stane International had been building Sentinels
In fairness he probably never got to do that because there was already a canon answer for who was building Sentinels and it was Sebastian Shaw and his Hellfire Club cronies. He did get to have Iron Man fight Hulk, Venom, Thunderstrike and the New Warriors though.
IIRC Michelinie got rid of the cloaking device power in the 80s because he thought writers were overusing it as a plot device and crutch for weak stories.
>I came across an interview with Len Kaminski from 1994
Arguably the last essential Iron Man run.
So long as they weed out the fujos and keep them out, the MCU generation should eventually give us an influx of new comics talent who love the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, people who love Iron Man and want to write him as a hero.
Ryan North loves Tony Stark and IIRC Priest wanted to do a run
>Make Tony wear the 90s War Machine armor as his main armor. Red and gold's outdated. Give Rhodey the Iron Patriot scheme but with the minigun.
>Retcon Tony back into being the biological child of Howard and Maria.
>Get someone with a Wally Wood or Syd Mead level of interest in design to work on the character again. Shit like the Iron Manual is schway. Iron Man should feel futuristic again, in a way that doesn't rely on the asspull of nanotechnology.
>Love interests. Give Tony Black Widow or Wanda or something.
>Recurring villains. Contrary to popular belief, Crimson Dynamo, Mandarin, Hammer, Ghost, Stane etc, are all kino villains. Explore the different powersets of the power armored villains.
>eastern mysticism. Go back to the old school idea of Tony having to deal with problems outside of his purview like Fin Fang Foom or going on an interstellar adventure to face Thanos.
Iron Man should be kinetic. Tony Stark losing his company for the 30th time is boring.
I Am Iron Man from last year is the only good Iron Man book to come out in 10 years
>>Make Tony wear the 90s War Machine armor as his main armor. Red and gold's outdated. Give Rhodey the Iron Patriot scheme but with the minigun.
Anon, no. Let Iron Man look like Iron Man, let Rhodey be War Machine, and keep Iron Patriot for whenever we good Good Norman again.
>Retcon Tony back into being the biological child of Howard and Maria.
Yes, this is overdue.
>Get someone with a Wally Wood or Syd Mead level of interest in design to work on the character again. Shit like the Iron Manual is schway. Iron Man should feel futuristic again, in a way that doesn't rely on the asspull of nanotechnology.
Agreed.
>Love interests. Give Tony Black Widow or Wanda or something.
No. Stop trying to give Tony superheroine love interests, most writers in the last ten years have been doing this, with each one pairing him up with a different heroine, and it's always sucked. Especially not Wanda, when it's finally looking like Marvel are actually going to reunite her with Vision. Give Tony a civilian love interest again, and one that lasts longer than a single run on the book.
>Recurring villains. Contrary to popular belief, Crimson Dynamo, Mandarin, Hammer, Ghost, Stane etc, are all kino villains. Explore the different powersets of the power armored villains.
Agreed, and have Tony's lower-tier villains like Spymaster, Whiplash (bring back the original), Blizzard, etc, band together as a group, in the style of the Flash rogues. But let Crimson Dynamo stay the same guy and let him just be a Russian superhero, and keep Titanium Man as an Iron Man villain.
>Go back to the old school idea of Tony having to deal with problems outside of his purview like Fin Fang Foom or going on an interstellar adventure to face Thanos.
Every superhero benefits from occasional stories where they have to deal with something completely outside of their wheelhouse, but it shouldn't take over the book to the extent X-Men stuff took over the current run.
>Let Iron Man look like Iron Man
That's what I'm saying. War Machine armor was worn by Tony originally to battle...the Yakuza? I think. It was a basic back to black kind of armor calling back to the original suit but with the aesthetic of the model 8. Basically Tony's symbiote suit.
I Am Iron Man (2023) by two African dudes. Sleeper hit, surprisingly in depth dive into Tony's history and personality
NTA but that comic is way older than 10 years, anon.
>Crimson Dynamo,
Which fricking one?
yes
Stop introducing new Crimson Dynamos. Have Iron Man editorial stop letting other books introduce random new Crimson Dynamos. Stick with Dimitri Bukharin as the Crimson Dynamo, and stick with him being on the Winter Guard.
Valentin Shatalov was an interesting guy who deserved to be a bigger deal than he was, but he hasn't appeared in almost 30 years now. Galina Nemirovsky was the Dynamo who went rogue from the Winter Guard and worked for the Mandarin, just give her some slightly different identity so there's no confusion, and keep her around to be the villain version.
The last time we saw Galina she called herself Ultra-Dynamo. And Dimitri is still the main guy. Gennady is interesting but he was fricked up by the editorial ban and now it's a bit late to reintroduce him.
>editorial ban
What's this about?
In the 2000s Marvel released a lot of weird semi-canonical limited series with basically no restrictions on the creators. The creators of these series enjoyed a special level of freedom which involved being allowed to decide when/if their series and characters would be continued, basically a kind of creator-owned-lite. This came about because Joe Quesada who had just taken over came from indies and he was very eager to attract creators with a sense of freedom and agency for their creations.
So the Gennady Crimson Dynamo could not be used anywhere without the express permission of his creators. I believe this rule is no longer in effect but since that version of the character was kept out of comics for 20 years nobody is really that nostalgic for him or willing to bring him back now, even if you do work out his backstory which didn't fit into Earth-616 as it was.
616 Tony is fricked. You need a MAX or Spider-Girl/Renew Your Vows style book to get away from how badly they handled the character. Then there's the problem on top of that you need a miracle of a top tier team with enough stroke who are willing to waste their valuable time on a book that'll make them less than if they did literally anything else.
It boggles my mind how there was never an Iron Man MAX series. It's time they made one.
Ultimate IM is the closest you'll get to that
>He hasn't had a good run in decades.
Has he EVER had a good run? To be honest I always thought in terms of comics his were always the weakest of the main OG avengers. Oh sure there was sometimes some okay stories but in terms of ongoing runs?
Layton (either of the two), O'Neil, Busiek/Stern, Fraction, Knauf. he's had plenty.
No. Everything that is hyped as a good Iron Man story would be an automatic skip/for completionists only for other Marvel characters. Machine Man has more comics than Tony not counting team books.
Midwit spotted
He does, but pre 00s
>but pre 00s
He has good post-00s comics
Adam Warren has actual creative ideas, he doesn't fit in well with the time-card punchers at the Big 2.
He should've drawn the book himself
In his own words:
>So, yeahp, the time has come at last: I'm kicking off serialization of my insanely tight layout pages for the 2005 Marvel miniseries Iron Man: Hypervelocity, the first issue of which I wrote and laid out long before an artist had been chosen; of course, the great Brian Denham wound up tackling the art for the project, but I had already rolled with these time-consuming roughs out of, I dunno, sheer perfectionism and unhinged micro-managing.
>Either that, or these layouts represented the sum total of artwork I actually wanted to produce for this project. As I've noted here before, cranking out finished artwork is the bane of my g-d existence as an artist; I like (or even occasionally love) drawing loose, relatively spontaneous comic pages like this, but bog down toute suite upon having to painstakingly render my usual tight and precise completed artwork.
loose!
sex with the computer virus girl
>they ruined Adam Warren lip kino
Adam Warren is serializing the layout pages he did for Hypervelocity on his Patreon if you're interested.
I did not pay for them because I'm a cheapskate.
Iron Man Haunted was fantastic.
the entire Knauff father/son run was kino and better than Eliis' ideas. Best Mandarin fight of all time was in that run. Fraction's good too but the run's pointless after he wakes up from his coma
>He hasn't had a good run in decades
matt fraction
kiron gillen
FILTERED DOT COM TO BOTH OF YOU
>gillen
No
I’d do a Gauntlet esque storyline focused on developing/emphasising his rogues gallery and then have them challenge him individually while reflecting their history, developing or putting more emphasis on their characterisation and defining how they view Iron Man and how he views them
So Immortal Iron Man.
The main issue is that you have a character who would ostensibly be best written as a "Futurist", in a universe with a sliding time-scale that won't commit to advancing. This also drags back characters like Reed Richards. Thor works because most of his plots are callbacks to antiquity, Hulk is perpetually dealing the the problems of himself, Black Panther has already achieved his "future state", Spidey is endless soap opera. As has been pointed out, anyone with enough talent to write a true March of Progress would just use that talent somewhere better than floppy comics.
Tony gets mistakes for Dr Strange so has to make magic armor to fight against magic people
They need to clear up the fact we're on Tony Stark four or five just in 616. It's too fricking messy.
they should make a story where they merge all the Tony's together Hackman style
>they should make a story where they merge all the Tony's together Hackman style
I think they should but it should also like not be a big event or even a major storyline. Just something to kick the new run off with, Tony going "Oh yeah Kang manipulated my timeline so there were a bunch of weird versions of me. One wasn't Howard and Maria's kids, one was an AI. But now they're all merged back into me." And then that's that, you never speak of it again.
Or hell dismiss all those weird plots in Bendis and Slott's runs and the Crossing as alternate Tonys that flickered in and out of existence.
I would make Howard Stark Iron Man, and have him be one of the world's leaders. Then, I would "Kill" him before letting his son Tony become the Iron Lad. And eventually, Iron lad would become Kang the Conqueror
>Then, I would "Kill" him before letting his son Tony become the Iron Lad
Why not just the new Iron Man? Iron Lad's an ass name. Teenage Tony in the cartoon was still called Iron Man. Just do that.
>Last run tried to do a back to basics approach
>Someone went "frick that, let's get Tony involved in mutie affairs"
I honestly never took Tony as someone that gave a shit about mutants.
Same thing's happening with JMS's Captain America. Exploring more of Steve's past and contrasting his past actions with his future self in the first arc which was just standard Captain America stuff, now he's saving a bunch of mutants because some interdimensional godlike entity thought it was the most important thing to do for some reason. I get that they're doing it to reinforce that he's a selfless person that helps everyone, but they didn't need to take that angle with mutants again.
Just make Tony balance corporate matters, while preferably not losing his fricking company for the hundredth time, with his heroics and having one cause problems for the other.
I think these are both parts of a wider problem with Marvel trying to get more people reading X-Men books by getting mutant stuff in every other book and hoping people will want more. Part of it is also people who are or recently were X-book writers like Duggan, Wells and Orlando being less invested in other Marvel work than they were in their X-books, and being unable to stop themselves wiping mutant ass all over the other books they're writing and expecting people to like it.
Instead all it's succeeding in doing is making fans of those other characters angry and resentful that they can't just enjoy the books they want to read without getting X-Men all over it. It's worse than a book you like getting dragged into an event you're not interest in, because at least you know the event will be over soon.
One of the reviews I saw even brought up how making the patrons mutants just felt like a strange turn and that they should have just been a group of freaks that get ostracized for one thing or another like their appearance, strange powers, or they belong to a group that have been long looked down upon in some societies. Initially, they were just some freaks holed up in some strange pocket dimension posing as a theater, alright, we find out that the lady that runs that pocket dimension propositioned Cap and wants him to find individuals that would be responsible for positively changing the world so her brother can't corrupt/kill them, cool, also all of the people he's saving in that pocket dimension just happen to all be mutants and apparently all of those positive change agents Cap is looking for are mutants, too. Like, frick off, the premise was fine when it was just a mish mash of weirdoes that can't be clearly defined as to what they are, and it's up to Steve to save them because that's what he does, but then they just straight up said "yeah, they're mutants, they're hated, they're mega important to the fate of the world, now go save them" and my interest just dropped like a rock.
The reason for the Iron Man stuff is that Duggan wanted to write Iron Man and was also one of the three core Mutant writers but you're not wrong either. The Krakoa era started to slip in sales as early as 2021 and had trouble attracting new readers so Marvel was really invested in spreading mutant stuff around so you'd get pulled in via other titles. It didn't work, of course, because the problem with long-running narratives that span HUNDREDS of back people just get daunted unless they were in on it at the start or within the first year or two.
>because the problem with long-running narratives that span HUNDREDS of back people just get daunted unless they were in on it at the start or within the first year or two.
I don't think it's really that, so much as people don't want to see what's going on in other books mucking around with other characters. I want to read about Iron Man or Captain America. I don't want to see another section of that universe's problems start becoming their problems, too, and the issue is that mutants drag along a TON of problems wherever they go.
I meant that the gimmick failed because nobody wanted to read all those extra books, as you said.
Oh right, yeah it failed for a myriad of reasons, which is why I don't understand why they're doubling down on it. There were already only like 3 books I could even give a shit about, but I found out that they're just going to go deeper into that rabbit hole for them given the previews on the solicits, so I figure that I'll be working on my Steam backlog until this shit dies down in a year or two.
Just let Priest write him. He's been asking to since the 90s, whatever he wants to do with the character can't be any worse than anything we've seen post Knaufs
agreed
Gotta love how company have writers who are actually good and they just put them in a corner somewhere.
Frick you, Superior Iron Man was a good run
it's sad that the only grace iron man has gotten in his entire career including his broken abilities at certain points is the way rdj portrayed him because there's no way to recommend comics that they'd enjoy the same way
the ideas and seeds are and have always been there but the writers can't get out of their own way
oh and the arcade game
him and vision are the characters to play in the arcade game
Emphasize his rogues gallery
Emphasize his supporting cast
Iron Man is a major part of 616 but remind people he has his own corner of the world for himself like every other notable hero
If I had to do a run, I'd make it about Stark reconnecting himself with old friends to see where they have been after all these years and it culminates with his crazy ex with psychic powers showing up
Not talking about Emma by the way
Thoughts on Fraction's run? It's the only Iron Man I've read and enjoyed
Make him an alcoholic again and have him be sad about war crimes like a Tom King comic. People seem to eat that shit up.
I am actually reading Michelinies Iron Man second run for the first time and I am really enjoying it. Its fun, doesn't moralize too much, has enough adventure and civilian life. A very nice mix between his company life, leisure and superheroing. For me its a perfect book, so far I like it even more than my previous Marvel favorite Excalibur (1988)
I can't imagine anything close to this happening again, maybe Ryan North could do something like that based on what i read of his FF. I also enjoyed Mckays Strange, but from what I read his writing style is not relaxed enough, too many themes, lessons.
I think everyone would enjoy a relaxed run, that's what RDJ brings to the character even if the material is more serious, like in Avengers 2, Endgame, etc. He makes us believe it all can be done, and the troubles are just blimps along the way. That's how Iron Man should be written, it should balance light with the dark, but keep the can do attitude. But its a problem with most comics right now, constant raising of the stakes and emotional turmoil... Its not fun to read, I want to relax, not to have a lecture or experience negative emotions. I think comics rarely do that well, and it is not what I am looking for in this medium.
>maybe Ryan North could do something like that based on what i read of his FF.
North is literally the biggest person I trust with Tony since he genuinely seems to love to the character and is excited to work on that upcoming VR game
Been a giant Iron Man fan since ‘97 and I’ve thought a lot about it
>title the comic The Iron Man
>tone close to Massamune’s Ghost in the Shell manga
>political/corporate intrigue shit
>Stark’s main arc about how he’s dealt with the PTSD of going from pampered life to watching people explode with his weapons and being held captive and tortured by being Iron Man
>the Iron Man armor itself is a billion dollar piece of machinery, not something that he can just whip up in an afternoon
>the armor is more along the lines of a mech than a suit of armor
>B plot for first year is someone shotgun old (modular armor and back) Stark blueprints all over the dark web so you have gangbangers making makeshift Stark weapons
>it was Riri who’s now the big mob boss of Chicago
People don't want to read a comic about a villain unless it's a hot woman
They get rid of Tony and all Iron Man characters and then start fresh. With a female Iron Man. And not a fugly dyke one. A real hot one with huge breasts. breasts big enough that she has to put a noticeable boob plate on her armor . And she has to be naked underneath the armor for some reason and every time she takes off the armor it takes six panels with varrying shots of her.
And she controls the armor with a pair of joysticks that are inserted into her vegana and butthole.
Tell me more
Just write a fricking Iron Man comic. Not him losing all his money/company again, not going into space, not trying to redefine his family, just armored suit action/espionage with a dash of moral crises like Armor Wars.
Make him crazy like Howard Hughes
>The Way of the Future...
Two options:
A writer who fricking loves capitalism and is willing to make him Richie Rich with lasers. No apologism for warmongering, he makes guns for the Good Guys TM and insures them with his fists. There is no one working at the Big 2 with the neccessary credentials.
Option 2, the one Redditors would love, just make him Rick, the nihilistic alcoholic tech-god who’s smarter than everyone else and always has a backup plan.
Detroit Steel armor was pretty cool.
What is the appeal of Iron Man?
He's a cool exec with a heart of steel and Iron man with jets ablaze flies and shoots with repulsor rays.
James Bond but with more powerful gadgets (and worse self-control when it comes to alcohol)
Ok, hear me out.
Captain America was in the same state as Iron Man. People didn't want to write him, so they used him as a political mouth piece, and it sucked.
Then, JMS came and wrote Steve as Steve Rogers from the 90's, put some supernatural element into it and made him act as Captain America after, what, 20 years?
So all they need to do is find some JMS who want's to write Iron Man and give it to him. Then we will have Tony being Tony again and Iron Man being a capitalist futurist Elon Muschen Super Hero again.
Iron Man is a hero?
I like the ultimate iron man
He's unironically toxic for the current "market". He's a supergenius white billionaire. He'll never get a good run again because
>unlike Batman, running his company is important to him and no writers are smart enough to write boardroom dramas
>he's a straight playboy which means he's a heccin toxic cis male
>nobody is smart enough to write /m/ porn currently
He's condemned to be constantly getting shitty runs redoing DiaB, with him being a pathetic, emasculated b***h and the personality of a 10s hipster trying to be RDJ. Iron Man died a long time ago OP...
>Iron Man died a long time ago OP..
1995 in fact. 616 Iron Man never came back it's been replacements ever since.
So did Franklin morph Iron Lad into Iron Man?
He fused teen Tony into an adult Tony that he created from memories of what the "real" Tony was like. So the Tony who came back from Franklin's bubble universe was a weird fusion of two different Tonys, neither of which is the original
So Tony's been screwed since the Crossing.
Yes we are on Tony four or five.
Comics are lame and gay anyway. Give me an Iron Man manga and we're good.
Because right now Iron Man is as uncool as a superhero can be and that's because writers don't commit to his character, and that's because the idea of a millionaire playboy who doesn't give a shit, clashes badly with their stupid liberal ideologies.
In a serious setting, Iron Man should be written as an extreme capitalist right winger who doesn't give a shit about pointless social struggles. Who dates young women and has plenty of sex. A guy who drives luxury cars and owns planes.
But above all, a guy who takes no shit from anyone. Not even women. Even less from women actually. He should always be the alpha with any women. Tell Carol to frick off if she wanna be smarty ass.
That would make Iron Man cool. Of course, even suggesting this to those onions boys would take them cry on the spot.
>In a serious setting, Iron Man should be written as an extreme capitalist right winger who doesn't give a shit about pointless social struggles.
Iron Man has literally never been that outside of weird one-shot AUs. It's a common joke that Stark could never have stayed a billionaire in the first place because even back in his original ToS run in the 60s he cared way too much about his employees and about his integrity as a person. Stan has been quoted as saying that he took Iron Man as a challenge to take the least cool idea for a superhero (a rich capitalist playboy nepo baby) and make him a compelling character.
This is exactly why all his runs are shit. Look at Superior Iron Man. That run was actually iconic because they did commit to this concept.
Iron Man was never written as the poster boy for emasculation. Stan Lee never wanted that for the character
I would retire him
And have any legacy character to take his place?
Riri Williams obviously.
I'm surprised Tony doesn't have kids yet.
They can't let the white rich man get married and leave his money to an heir, he needs to spread it to heckin diverserinos from the projects who are entitled to them you chud!
What does Tony Stark actually wants anyway?
Can we get a run where Stark doesn't lose his company AGAIN? It became a gag by the 90s.
Do Armored Adventures again