Iron Man

At the suggestion of Aleistar in the main Marvel Comics thread, I've decided to start a thread for everyone's favourite Super Villain ARMOURED AVENGER.

As I was saying in that thread, I took a look at Tony Stark: Iron Man (first on Scans Daily) and then through Totes legals means y'all, and found it entertaining.

I rather like Tony's latest armour in it. Especially the Wings (because I don't think Tony has every used wings on his armour before).

I think that's why I like Iron Man: I love seeing him constant upgrade his tech and come up with newer and newer stuff.

Not bad for a dude who cause two Armour Wars and two Civil Wars huh?

...Totally a Supervillain.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jul 19th 2018 at 8:48:52 AM

Ay, I inspired a thread. Guess I can cross that off the bucket list.

Maybe it's because I have an admittedly adamant dislike of Slott because of his Spider-Man work, but I'm not too interested in the Fresh Start soft reboot yet.

Also, who is your favorite Iron Man villain? Maybe it's because sort of grew up with it, but I really enjoyed the Armored Adventures version of the Mandarin. Avoids the Yellow Peril connotations that the Mandarin usually has without whitewashing the character. Adding a more personal relationship with Tony is also a plus.

Edited by Aleistar on Jul 19th 2018 at 10:55:36 AM

Fair enough.

A lot of people are understandably wary of Slott, but Rob likes what he likes so lets see where it goes.

Bumping this up to answer 's question (and to get more posts in this thread).

...You know, I don't really have a favourite Iron Man villain. I liked the character himself, but there's no villain that really sticks out to me. I've always preferred the man himself.

...I guess maybe Crimson Dynamo. Not real reason. I just remember one comic where he and Tony swapped minds.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jul 31st 2018 at 11:27:25 AM

The original Obadiah Stane was excellent! I also liked Justin Hammer in Demon In A Bottle. Also, is it just me or does Iron Man have fewer major recurring villains, compared to say, Cap or Spider-Man? Because I was actually trying to think about this and I realised that it was kinda difficult to - Tony's villains don't seem to loom as large for him as compared to other heroes.

What are people's thoughts on the first two issues of the current run thus far?

Re: favorite Iron Man villain...

Y'know, I think the thing that's interesting about Iron Man is that his classic rogues gallery, while underwhelming by traditional measurements, has a surprising amount of depth. He doesn't have a lot of brilliant mastermind villains who can go toe to toe with him...but he has a lot of villains who can interact with his world and threaten him in different ways. Blizzard as the wayward youth that Tony thinks he can save was a great angle; Blacklash was very versatile whether he was in his hitman role (where he was very good at targeting Tony in ways that he could actually hurt him - he couldn't beat Iron Man in a straight up fight, but he could kill an employee or a dozen) or in his role as field commander of the B-Team; the Controller is a little gimmicky and dumb, but it's actually neat to see a mind controller who is more brutish than devious and his origin is a good evil mirror for Stark; the differences between Justin Hammer and Edwin Cord and Obadiah Stane are pretty admirable, each having a different flavor to their corporate antagonism. Force was more interesting as an ally than an enemy, but he was a pretty good evil counterpart when he first jumped to the Iron Man book.

But...when it comes down to the actual, all-time best?

The Ghost.

Unlike the others, he actually could fight Iron Man evenly - no matter how advanced Iron Man's armor gets, he's still not going to have an easy time with an intangible foe who is also loaded with Batman-esque gadgets. He was clever, surprising, relentless, and had an ideology that logically pitted him against Iron Man on a long-term basis.

But then there's the biggest missed opportunity...the Living Laser.

When the Living Laser first moved from Avengers foe to solo Iron Man villain, he was brilliant. He was like a Bond villain for hire - intelligent, powerful, calculating, but also beholden to his employers and ruthlessly looking after his own well being. It's a shame that that blend of mastermind intellect, world-beating power, and mercenary motivations only really showed up in one story before he devolved into a Practically Joker loon, because, in my view, he truly could have been the villain who usurped the Mandarin as Iron Man's archenemy. But, well, clearly someone felt that he should just be Joker from Dark Knight Returns instead...

The thing is, I really don't think that Iron Man works when he's saving the world against the Mandarin or Fin Fang Foom. When I read through more of his history, I always found myself more drawn to the smaller stories, the stories where it was a given that Iron Man was, in fact, invincible - but the challenge before him wasn't a fight so much as a complex situation. Blacklash setting Stark buildings on fire while trying to get at an employee in witness protection was a way better read than the Mandarin trying to take over the world with a dragon. The best old Iron Man stories, to me, are the ones where he's down in the weeds and fighting over pettier business against the likes of Ghost and Force.

Y'know I'm curious if its possible to turn Iron Man into a more science-fictional comic. I suppose it would have greater focus on the technology he uses, and the fallout from that.

"I always found myself more drawn to the smaller stories, the stories where it was a given that Iron Man was, in fact, invincible - but the challenge before him wasn't a fight so much as a complex situation. Blacklash setting Stark buildings on fire while trying to get at an employee in witness protection was a way better read than the Mandarin trying to take over the world with a dragon."

I suppose that this is what I'm thinking about, but with more S Fnal drama. Heck, they should consider bringing in a science-fiction writer to try writing Iron Man.

Maybe someone like Orson Scott Card!

...oh wait