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Iron Man Omnibus Vol. 1

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I never reviewed an Omnibus and I am a little concerned about doing it. After all, it collects what would be in three volumes of Marvel Masterworks and I just shudder at how long this will take me with my regular TPL duties and the smaller trades that come out every week. This is my second Omnibus (I have FF Vol. 2) but the first time I am reviewing one. Let’s see how long this takes me, and how long this whole review will be.

Iron Man is the newest Marvel movie star, having made a load of money so far. To cash in on this, Iron Man is all over the place in Marvel, with two solo titles, two mini-series’ and appearances in many titles. Two of the more recent Premiere edition TPB’s featured Iron Man as well (Demon in a Bottle and Doomquest). This one is the icing on the cake, the Omnibus collecting Iron Man’s first appearance in March, 1963 up to November 1966, over 3 years of Iron Man. At this time, Iron Man was only featured in half the title so each story is only about 13 pages long each. A big change in the title (and Marvel in general) occurred with issue #59 when Captain America started sharing the title with Iron Man. What a great idea, two Marvel heroes sharing a title which in many cases led to their own solo titles. This happened in Tales of Suspense (Cap and Iron Man), Tales to Astonish (Giant-Man/Hulk and then Hulk/Sub-Mariner) and Strange Tales (Torch/Dr. Strange and then Strange/SHIELD).

Just another note before we begin. I mentioned that this combines three different Iron Man Marvel Masterworks editions (Vol. 1 was TOS #’s 39-50, Vol. 2 was TOS 51-65, and Vol. 3 was TOS #’s 66-83 with TTA #82) complete with the original introductions and in a very nice touch (which is concurrent with other Omnibus editions), the original letters pages! I love reading these old letters pages with Stan writing some of his best stuff right here. The letters page don’t begin until issue #59 oddly enough, but then again, when I read the letters page it was the first one to appear in those pages. So, the first volume begins with a little intro by Stan who talks about Iron Man generating the most female fan male of any character. He gives a rundown of the villains in the volume and speaks about the fact that he just had the general plot while someone else actually wrote the script. He also talks about all the artists used during the early days of Iron Man. Don Heck did most of the art on the collection, so all art is by Heck unless otherwise noted. This was a standard Stan Lee intro.

-Tales of Suspense #39- This is your origin. I am sure you know it all by now. Industrialist playboy Tony Stark is in Vietnam showcasing his new weapons when he trips over a bomb, has shrapnel get into his heart, has only days to live, is forced to work on a weapon by the Vietnamese before he dies and instead makes a suit of armor. He calls himself Iron Man, has his ally who worked with him sacrifice his life so Iron Man can power up and stop the tyrant. Iron Man does, and a new Marvel Superhero is on the stage. Don Heck drew this and it looks fantastic, I love his rendering of the Iron suit.

-Tales of Suspense #40- Some time has passed between Iron Man’s first appearance and this (as seen by the different things he has done). He dons the suit to stop some thug but scares a young girl and her mother. This causes him to change the color to gold, just in time to head to a walled in city and stop a humanoid that was actually the devices of an alien plot. Well, it is a Tales of Suspense tale, so aliens were necessary. This was drawn by Kirby, who basically drew everything at this time.

-Tales of Suspense #41- Iron Man makes an appearance at a children’s charity to cheer them up. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange (no, not Stephen Strange), a mad scientist, makes a device to control Iron Man’s mind to free him from prison. Doc plans to take over the world to win his daughter’s affection. Iron Man seeks revenge and breaks into Doc’s island. He takes out all power on the island but is losing power himself. The daughter betrays her father and throws Iron Man a battery to recharge and the island goes up in smoke, with Strange escaping. This was also drawn by Kirby. Iron Man hasn’t found his groove yet, which is tough because it is only 13 pages, but the idea of a man inside the armor and the different gadgets allow for interesting plots to happen. There still hasn’t been a strong villain yet.

-Tales of Suspense #42- Tony’s new disintegrator ray is a hit with the US government, but other eyes want it as well, including the Red Barbarian, a communist threat. He hires The Actor in impersonate Stark and steal the designs. The Actor does, and even figures out Stark’s secret identity as Iron Man! Iron Man shows up behind the Red Curtain and gives false information to Red Barbarian but of course, Red Barbarian thinks Stark is the Actor. When the real actor shows up, Red Barbarian kills him, and the secret is safe again.

-Tales of Suspense #43- Kala, Queen of the Underworld, kidnaps Stark in hopes of forcing him to build a weapon that will bring the Netherworld people back to the surface to rule the world. Stark agrees to do it, but really just builds another Iron Man suit. He battles the netherworlders then brings Kala to the surface where the atmosphere ages her. She returns home to stay beautiful and the threat is ended, for now. I guess they are fine living underground since they’ve never been seen again. This would be the last time Kirby drew Iron Man in the pages of Tales of Suspense.

-Tales of Suspense #44- Stark travels to Egypt where Iron Man is needed for an excavation. They find the tomb of an old enemy of Cleopatra. The body winds up missing and it seems the mummy is actually alive. He whisks Stark away to the past where he becomes Iron Man and aids Cleopatra in defeating the despot. This was a silly little story.

-Tales of Suspense #45- This is a full 18-pages of Iron Man action, up from the usual 13 pages he had been getting. So one of Stark’s trusted scientists tries to steal from Stark and instead of Stark turning him over to the authorities, he fires him. The man returns as Jack Frost, super snowman. He steals some money and then goes to Stark for revenge. He freezes the debuting Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan but runs into Iron Man. Iron Man uses some super-steam and melts Jack Frost and the day is saved.

-Tales of Suspense #46- We’re back to 13 pages and we are first introduced to the Crimson Dynamo, a noted Russian scientist who can control electricity and he is sent after Tony Stark, the leading US weapons maker. Of course, this leads to a fight with Iron Man and the two battle briefly before Tony uses the Red distrust and causes Dynamo to think the Russians are against him and so he defects and will work for Stark. That’s a nice way to play up the Soviet and their “natural distrust” for themselves.

-Tales of Suspense #47- We switch again to an 18-page format and Iron Man must face his deadliest foe ever, the Melter! He can melt iron and has a personal vendetta against Tony, who cost him a license with the government. He melts Stark’s generators to try and put him out of business which draws the ire of Iron Man. Iron Man loses the armor on his arm thanks to the Melter so Tony has a new idea. He makes a suit out of something other than iron (Melter can only melt Iron) and the Melter has to make a quick escape. Stark’s company is saved. Ditko drew this and the next three issues, but this one doesn’t look like his art, it looks a little different from his Spidey stuff and even the next two Iron Man issues.

-Tales of Suspense #48- Mister Pain was the original name of the villain but the Comics Code Authority didn’t like that and we got the much friendlier Mr. Doll. Mr. Pain was no good, but Dr. Doom was fine. Weird. Anyway, Steve Ditko drew this issue and I actually read this one before in the Steve Ditko Visionaries collection. Anyway, Mister Pain has powers exactly like Puppet Master, he controls people through his puppets and mystical clay. He goes after rich people and Stark is next on the list. Of course, when Stark is in the mix you know Iron Man is as well. Iron Man battles Mister Doll and is roundly defeated. Tony knows his armor is using too much power and burning him out too quickly so he creates a new armor and we have the classic red and yellow armor. He dons the new armor and manages to defeat Mr. Doll the second time around. So we are 10 issues into Iron Man’s run and on his third costume. It shows Stan and the writers were evolving and with it their handling of Iron Man as well. He was a very linear character the first few issues but now he is completely fleshed out with Happy and Pepper added to the ensemble.

-Tales of Suspense #49- This is the first time other Marvel heroes appeared in Iron Man. Angel from the X-Men is flying around and gets caught in a nuclear blast near Stark’s company which inexplicably turns him evil. So Angel heads back to the mansion and quits the X-Men, then tries to find the evil mutants to join them. The X-Men try to get the Avengers but no one is available. Eventually, Iron Man must try and snap the Angel back to the side of good and does it by risking his life and falling a great height. Angel saves him and returns to the good mutants. This 18-page story is interesting for many reasons. The X-Men and The Avengers were very young in their runs. Both titles were only 3 issues in by the time this came out, and Hulk had not yet left the Avengers. If you can get your mind around the silly reason why Angel went bad, it is a collector’s item for the early appearances of Avengers and X-Men.

-Tales of Suspense #50- The flip-flopping continues as we’re back to 13-pages now. This issue is important for one reason, it is the first appearance of Mandarin. He’s introduced as a fearful foe with 10 powerful rings but not much else in the way of an origin. The US government wants Iron Man to investigate. Iron Man does and has to use all his brains to stop the powerful villain. Iron Man escapes after knocking Mandarin out to recharge and you just knew after reading this that Mandarin was going to be the main villain of Iron Man. Just look at the drawings of the Oriental soldiers to see what a sign of the times thought of them. Interesting stuff.

That ended the first volume of Marvel Masterworks (which was Vol. 20). The second volume (Vol. 45 overall) started with TOS #51 and another introduction by Stan Lee. Stan says that Iron Man is one of his favorites since he embodied all that the hippies hated about the 60’s and put it into one character that was actually popular. He talks about the great villains introduced here (like Black Widow and Hawkeye) and Mandarin making his presence felt again. Stan mentions that Cap battles Iron Man in this volume (which collects #’s 51-65) with #58 being the Iron Man/Cap battle (a foreshadowing of the Civil War perhaps?) and #59 is where the two first share the title. Issue 59 also includes the original letters page (Mails of Suspense). Finally, Don Heck does all the art for Vol. 2 and Stan says he wanted a different look for Iron Man as opposed to the look of FF, Spidey and X-Men.

-Tales of Suspense #51- We’re at 13-pages and we start with Iron Man stopping Common Thug #117 with the help of a tumbler. The contortionist decides, “the hell with an honest living, I can use my lithe body and ability as a master escapist to steal from the rich so I can get richer.” If you can figure out who is at the top of the list, you can step to the front of the line. The contortionist takes on a new identity as the Scarecrow and breaks into Stark’s apartment and steals some new plans. He escapes from Iron Man and Happy Hogan and decides to sell these plans to the Cubans who will give them to, “the bearded one.” Iron Man breaks up the party, steals the plans back, and Scarecrow must escape, vowing revenge. It’s interesting to see in these early stories how often the villain escaped, leaving the window open to reappear later.

-Tales of Suspense #52- Some Russian is pissed that the original Crimson Dynamo defected so the Commies send two spies (one being the Black Widow) to steals the Dynamo armor and fight Stark. Stark manages to hold off the new Dynamo long enough for the original one, Vanko, to sacrifice his life to stop the new threat. Black Widow escaped, however. Most of the issues, more so than any other Silver Age title, played into the fears of Communism and the Cold War. This was another 13-page issues, as they would be until # 56.

-Tales of Suspense #53- Black Widow appears again, gets Stark’s trust, then steals a device accidentally made that can literally move mountains or anything else. Widow uses it to her advantage until Iron Man defeats her, and with her defeat goes the device. Black Widow has now appeared two issues in a row, the first time a villain has appeared in consecutive Iron Man issues.

-Tales of Suspense #54- Stark learns that his missiles have been destroyed over in Vietnam and he goes to check it out. It turns out it is Mandarin who is causing all the problems. He goes to the Mandarin’s lair as Stark then dons the armor to battle ten-ringed villain. Of course, Iron Man is captured and we end with a cliff-hanger!

-Tales of Suspense #55- Iron Man tells Mandarin that Stark is still free and Mandarin loses focus on Iron Man, allowing him to escape. Iron Man destroys the device that has been destroying his missiles and battles Mandarin to a standstill. Iron Man escapes and Stan was really building up Mandarin, they fought three issues now and Iron Man has not had a decided victory. There is a 5-page back-up showcasing Iron Man and his armor and how he puts it on, as well as a Pepper Potts pin-up.

-Tales of Suspense #56- We’re back to 18 pages now, which they promise will be sustained for a while. We shall see about that. So The Unicorn makes his first appearance with a head beam that can do deadly things. It seems this head beam was built by Vanko before he defected. Interestingly enough, we start the issue with Tony going mad and saying he doesn’t want to be Iron Man, goes out on a date (angering Pepper) and just being a dick. He didn’t even drink yet! So Unicorn shows up, kidnaps Pepper and Tony comes to his senses, donning the armor and saving the woman he has affections for but never dare show it. The thing I like about Iron Man so far is that not only do you see him fighting these bombastic villains all the time, but the live triangle between Pepper, Happy and Tony has been great.

-Tales of Suspense #57- Tony and Pepper head to a fair when Iron Man must step in to stop a Ferris wheel from falling. A marksman sees this and is jealous. He dons a suit, names himself Hawkeye and says he will get attention, too. On his first night out he stops a burglar, then he’s accused of the crime! He runs off into the car of Black Widow, who promises to help him. Black Widow sends Hawkeye out to fight Iron Man, but Iron Man gets the better of him. Black Widow is knocked out in the process so Hawkeye saves her and runs off. This would be the last full-length solo Iron Man story in these pages.

-Tales of Suspense #58- Captain America costars in this full-length title. Kraven and Chameleon arrive at Stark’s facility and Iron Man immediately takes out Kraven. Chameleon, however, impersonates Capt. American and sends Iron Man out to fight the real Capt. America. The two fight until the rest of the Avengers show up and clear things up.

-Tales of Suspense #59- Black Knight shows up to cause problems in Iron Man’s life, and although the fight was never in question, the real story here was Iron Man losing his power again and needing to recharge. He needs his full suit on all the time now in order to survive and tells Pepper and Happy that Stark has gone away for awhile. The letters column makes its first appearance here. This would start the 13-page stories that would continue until the end of Tales of Suspense.

-Tales of Suspense #60- So Stark is considered missing and everyone is suspicious of Iron Man, including the Avengers. Iron Man goes into hiding but comes out again to stop a returning Hawkeye, attacking Stark Industries at Widow’s urging thanks to Stark’s disappearance. Iron Man defeats the archer while Black Widow is taken back home against his knowledge by the Russian spies. The letters page was remarkable considered a letter referring to African-Americans as Negro’s, and Marvel’s approach to showing them as equals. It was truly a sign of the times.

-Tales of Suspense #61- Iron Man is caught in Stark’s office and Pepper and Happy retire due to their boss being missing. Iron Man goes to Stark’s house (well, his house) while Happy shows up and Stark has to hide in bed with only his head being seen. The world now knows Tony is back, and Mandarin takes this opportunity to use a new satellite and destroys Stark’s house. The world thinks Stark is dead now, and Iron Man traces the beam back to Mandarin and arrives on his home turf. He is captured and faces impending doom, but, next issue my friends, next issue.

-Tales of Suspense #62- This is the Mandarin origin story, and how he found the powerful rings of an alien dragon in its spaceship and used them. He is a descendent of Genghis Khan, as well. Iron Man will eventually escape and defeat the Fu Manchu imposter (their words, not mine) and save the day. This is a good origin of Mandarin, but something that would never work in the films.

-Tales of Suspense #63- Iron Man battles a villain known as the Phantom, another jealous employee of Stark’s who wants to ruin him and become famous on their own. This was just a by the numbers tale, definitely not the height of Stan Lee’s writing prowess.

-Tales of Suspense #64- Black Widow returns with another costume and again convinces Hawkeye to take on Iron Man. Hawkeye and Black Widow kidnap Happy and Pepper and Iron Man must save them. You know, you can’t do a lot with only 13 pages.

-Tales of Suspense #65- Some stooge steals Iron Man’s new costume and goes around with it, and he knows Iron Man is Tony Stark since he found the armor in Stark’s briefcase. Stark has to put on the old gold outfit and outwit and outhit his foe. He gets the better of him and the man in the costume goes crazy and thinks he is Iron Man, and forgets Tony’s secret. Well, it’s been only 27 issues and only two people have uncovered his identity, one went crazy and the other died.

That finishes off the second Marvel Masterworks volume. The third volume starts with a nice introduction by Tom Field, a comics fan and Gene Colan biographer. He talks about the ever-changing cast of Iron Man’s early years, with Heck handling most of the art but Colan eventually taking over. He mentions one fascinating bit of trivia, that Don Heck modeled Pepper on actress Ann B. Davis, who later played Alice in the Brady Brunch. Interesting.

-Tales of Suspense #66- Iron Man showcases a new submarine to a new character named Senator Byrd, who will cause havoc in Iron Man’s world, as he wants to get the military contracts away from Stark. So Iron Man goes underwater, uncovers a plot by Attuma to destroy the oxygen on Earth to imprison everyone. So Iron Man defeats him but has to destroy his sub to do it, but now he can’t tell the Senator since no one saw it and no one would believe it. Happy quit at the beginning of the issue, too.

-Tales of Suspense #67- Count Nefaria has a bone to pick with Iron Man and uses his new Dream-Catcher device, causing Iron Man to fall asleep and force him to fight villains from his past (and they are reaching deep here). The catch is that if Iron Man loses in his sleep, he dies in real life. Iron Man knows that even if it is a dream, he has to fight back. Iron Man wins, Count Nefaria’s device explodes and Happy comes back to work for Stark.

-Tales of Suspense #68- Nefaria enlists Tony’s cousin to take out Stark and he will do it by using a device to make Tony see things. This causes Tony to be seen by the public as crazy. He dons the armor to try and get to the bottom of this when real aliens actually show up. Iron Man stops them, and his cousin confesses the whole thing, clearing Tony’s name. This was a slightly odd issue. Maybe it was because Stan didn’t write it? Al Hartley took over writing duties for this issue.

-Tales of Suspense #69- This is the start of a three-part story featuring the first appearance of Titanium Man. In Russia, a commissar demands a suit be made for him out of titanium for the sole purpose of taking on Iron Man and defeating him. He makes his debut and challenges Iron Man to a public bout. Iron Man commits to it, an old flame of Tony comes back with vengeance on her mind, and the battle begins, with Titanium Man leading Iron Man to a landmine field.

-Tales of Suspense #70- We get a recap page (using panels from the previous issues with different colored backgrounds, which they own up to on that page). The fight continues with Titanium Man taking round one, due to Tony’s rocket boot getting busted in the course of the fight. The first 15-minutes end and they get a bit of an intermission. Tony goes to find his new transistor but it was stolen by his old flame to get Tony’s attention. Tony asks Happy to get it for him, and he does. But Happy was too late and the second round started. Happy runs in and gets seemingly killed helping Tony.

-Tales of Suspense #71- Tony, with the new transistor, and angry over the death of his friend, makes an ass of Titanium Man and defeats him. Pepper is upset about Hogan but the good news is that he’s alive, but in really bad shape. After Tony wins he goes back home to recharge, and Pepper, not seeing her boss at Happy’s side thinks of Tony as cold and machinelike. The wedge between Pepper and Tony is now wider than it has ever been. Stan had a great knack for writing great action stories while keeping threads like these alive and growing every issue.

-Tales of Suspense #72- Iron Man returns home, a hero, but can only think of Happy. The jilted lover from #68 goes to Mad Thinker to find out Iron Man’s true identity and this is a standard Marvel hero vs. villain with robots tale where Iron Man outsmarts the Mad Thinker. This would be Don Heck’s last work on the title, and he had quite a run, working on 28 of the first 34 issues.

-Tales of Suspense #73- Oddly enough, there are no credits listed here, wait, there they are, all the way at the bottom. Stan and Roy Thomas share writing duties here, and art is by Adam Austin, the pen name for Gene Colan. So Happy is kidnapped by Black Knight, Iron Man goes to his castle to save him and although Happy is saved, Iron Man is left at the castle with his power quickly failing. I have to say, Heck’s worse was very good on the title, but Colan is just something else. It almost reminds of Steranko’s Marvel work with the unique panel layout and the crispness of his work.

-Tales of Suspense #74- Iron Man is dying in the castle of the Black Knight and his only course of action is to call Pepper to come pick him up. She does and Stark learns that doctors are using an experimental device on Happy, one that turns him into a mindless brute called, “The Freak.” Mostly a set-up for the next issue, and with 12-page stories, it is tough to fit in a complete story each time.

-Tales of Suspense #75- Iron Man must battle his best friend, one who has become a strong freak. Iron Man lures Happy to his lab to try and reverse the procedure but the machine he’s using is killing Tony.

-Tales of Suspense #76- Tony suffers through the machine killing him and Happy is saved, though he has lost his memory. Stark goes back to his civvies and is taken by police to see Senator Byrd, who earlier demanded Stark be brought in for questioning. Of course, while Stark is in the police car, Mandarin kidnaps him by teleporting him to China. Mandarin has a new foe for Stark to face, Ultimo.

-Tales of Suspense #77- Tony escapes from the clutches of Mandarin and dons the armor where he has to battle Ultimo, a monster born of a volcano. Iron Man can’t quite stop Ultimo and things back home are going badly for Stark. Byrd shuts down Stark Industries due to Tony not appearing in court.

-Tales of Suspense #78- Iron Man finishes his fateful battle with Ultimo, and he uses the volcano to defeat him. He then steals a Chinese jet fighter and returns home to see his factory is shut down.

-Tales of Suspense #79- So Tony is bummed his factory is shut down, and gets an emergency recharge in the building where Pepper and Happy live. He goes out for a stroll and ends up having trouble find him, to the tune of Krang and Lady Dorma. Iron Man shoots the ship away and in the process draws the ire of Namor, who was after the ship himself. Namor confronts Iron Man, who had flown to Stark Industries, at the end.

-Tales of Suspense #80- This is the big fight between Namor and Iron Man, fantastically drawn by Colan. Stark tricks Namor into sending him to a certain room so he can recharge and when he leaves the room, Namor is gone and the police are there. Namor had gone for a deep to recharge himself and is ready for round two. This is continued in Namor’s book, Tales to Astonish.

-Tales to Astonish #83- This is an interesting issue, as Gene Colan drew the first two pages, then Kirby handled the rest. I loved Colan’s art, but man, Kirby just rules all. He draws fight scenes like no one else. It’s just a great fight and when Namor sees Krang’s ship, he flies away. Stark makes a fateful decision, to go to Senator Byrd and tell him Iron Man’s secret.

-Tales of Suspense #81- Iron Man goes to Washington to tell his secrets but Russia doesn’t want Iron Man’s secrets to fall into the hands of their political opposites, the US. So Russia sends out Titanium Man to deal with Iron Man and Titanium Man, in his new suit, gets the jump on Iron Man by issues end.

-Tales of Suspense #82- Pepper and Happy are on hand to see Titanium Man and Iron Man battle, and Iron Man has the upper hand until Titanium Man captures Pepper.

-Tales of Suspense #83- The blow off fight sees Iron Man free Pepper, then finally dispatches his foe as everyone (including the president) watches on TV. Happy regains his memory at issues end and we’re at the end of this volume.

-The Bottom Line- First let’s talk about the extras. Not only do you get the original Marvel Masterworks introductions, you also get three other essays. One is a reprint of Stan talking about Iron Man from the “Son of Origins of Marvel Comics,” book. It’s interesting to hear Stan talk about the comic with the backdrop of Vietnam and it being fully turned on by Americans at this point. Parallels to Iraq can be seen from our eyes, and its scary that history is repeating itself right now. Bob Layton talks about how Iron Man influenced his career and how he loved working on the book. Finally, Nick Caputo throws in an article celebrating the vastly underappreciated Don Heck. You also get the alternate covers to ToS #’s 41, 48, and 55. 48 and 55 featured changes thanks to the Comics Code Authority (#48 had Mister Pain become the incredibly lamer Mister Doll and #55 shortened Mandarin’s finger nails) but 41 was a little strange. The original cover is the one you see on #42, but with the Russian being named Doctor Strange. No one knows why they used the name for a different character so it’s a mystery lost to time. We get some splash pages, too: ToS 70, 71 and 75. Finally, you get the original covers for Marvel Collector’s Item Classics #’s 1 & 3-28 as well as Marvel Super-Heroes #’s 28-31 (including two #29’s). Those titles all featured early Iron Man reprints.

This is the first time I’ve reviewed an Omnibus and I have to say that I am incredibly satisfied. It is amazing to see Iron Man grow over this collection. It’s also an interesting dynamic seeing the issues go from 13 pages to full-length to its final count of 12-pages once Cap started sharing the title. The early issues sees Iron Man really trying to find his niche, with one-off villains who never appeared again and were slightly unbelievable even in Marvel terms. Finally the comic found its voice by the end of what was the first volume, with Heck staying on as the artist. Iron Man finally started getting his own villains, his own nemeses, foremost being Mandarin and, of course, a range of Communist bastards. The second volume starts really going fleshing out with the supporting cast and by volume three we really hit a groove, with Gene Colan just killing on the title. The 12-page story format makes sure that everything in there is needed, and there are very few unneeded scenes or panels. They are amazingly quick reads and the long story threads that develop are just amazing. It’s really a great collection. It starts off a little bumpy (after the origin) but once we get past the campy villains and the supporting cast is really fleshed out, you have a tremendous run of Iron Man. I was never an Iron Man fan, but I never enjoyed this title more than what I read here.

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