Essential Iron Man

Rating:
Summary: Essential Iron Man volumes 1and 2
Review: The Iron Man volumes of the essential series while interesting only get better in Volume 2 as Stan Lee moves onto other titles and the stories are better than some of the artwork.I have found this with other volumes with Stan's stories he just gets into better improved stories and before you know it he leaves the title. But having said that they are informative and as it says on the tin essential reading for Iron Man fans.

Rating:
Summary: A must for every Iron Fan.
Review: The original "Tales of Suspense" issues that feature Iron Man (#39 on up) are out of sight, cost-wise, especially if they're in good shape. So what do you do? Buy this Essential book! Sure it's all in black and white, but who cares? It's only fifteen bucks for Iron Man's very first adventures!

The dialogue is cheesy, the villains are cheesy, and the art is cheesy, but in this case cheese is good! See: the first appearances of classic IM villains such as Mandarin, Crimson Dynamo, and the Titanium Man! See: enough Cold War propaganda to recruit 1000 Marines! Perfect for story buffs, not collectors.

Rating:
Summary: Two thumbs up!
Review: This book is well,pardon my pun but,essential for anyone new to Iron Man comics!They cover the early adventures of Iron Man,and of course reviel his,and his emimies origons!It contains over 20 issues! After reding about these characters you will want to pick up the current issues for sure,just to see what things are like now.

Rating:
Summary: Fun in a Can
Review: This delightful volume collects the Gene Colan-drawn Iron Man stories from the mid- to late-sixties, as well as several well-drawn follow-up stories by EC artist Johnny Craig and golden-age artist George Tuska. In my opinion, Colan drew the most "invincible" looking Iron Man of the character's 40-year history. Just look at the cover of this book: Feet splayed 2 yards apart, armor a foot thick, IM looks like he was drop-forged and cold-rolled into a steel juggernaut who could stop a nuke without blinking. The stories by Stan Lee and Archie Goodwin aren't deep -- lots of stories contrasting IM's super-hard exterior with the fragility of the man inside -- but are entertaining nonetheless. Tony Stark, a more heroic and smarter version of Howard Hughes and the living embodyment of the military-industrial complex, battles his opposite numbers: Communists and men who have augmented their abilities with armor or other weapons. Throughout, Colan delivers ever more dynamic art that mixed cartoony exaggeration with realistic shading and chaotic choreography. If you enjoy action, wit, melodrama, and the sheer terror of running low on battery power, this book will give you hours of fun at the economy rate.

Rating:
Summary: The Golden Avenger returns in another great collection.
Review: When I first started collecting the Marvel Essential volumes last year, among my favorites was Iron Man Vol. 1. I had known so little about the character (I caught one of his UPN shows once), but I found out enough in those first 34 issues of Tales of Suspense to learn that Stan Lee had succeeded again in creating a fantastic superhero who nonetheless possessed all of the problems and faults of any real-life human being.

I finally got around to finishing Vol. 2 recently and I must agree with the blurb on the back as it was "armored action at it's best". The book kicks off with ol' Shell-head's fateful final battle with the Black Knight (so I finally know what happened to BK in that flashback in Avengers Vol. 3), then it's on to a battle with his transformed best friend Happy Hogan as the Freak (would we name a comic character that now?), his first encounter with the Mandarin's pet colossus Ultimo, a memorable scrap with the Sub-Mariner (where the heck is Namor's Essential entry?), two more multi-issue epic brawls with his commie-counterpart Titanium Man (one is set across Washington, D.C., the other in 'Nam), a tense abduction by the Mysterious Melter, the grand return of the Unconquerable Unicorn (in a svelte new costume), and even a confrontation with an enraged Hulk (or is he?). This volume also sees the welcome departure of Tony Stark's underachieving tragic love interest Pepper Potts (who was actually an average-looking woman in her first few issues until she just transmogrified into a ravishing beauty queen like all the other comics have) and the arrival of a more interesting and unique character in the form of Jasper Sitwell, nebbish secret agent and Stark's liason to SHIELD. Since doomed romances were just par for the course in Marvel's Silver Age, Jasper gets a great one when he pursues the affections of affluent socialite Whitney Frost, only to discover that she's ... well, I won't spoil it for you.

These early Iron Man stories work and work well like so many early Marvel tales because of Lee and the rest of the bullpen's wise focus on pathos-inducing characters and plots that are well-grounded in the human experience. Stark is a fine superhero figure because he used his own inherent talents to design a fantastically powerful battlesuit; he wasn't bitten by radioactive animals or pushed into a chemical soup. Also, even though the world sees Stark as a wealthy and enviable bon vivant and playboy (and at Iron Man as being nigh invincible) they both live literally heartbeat to heartbeat with a secret debilitating injury, worried that the end could come at any time.

In short, bravo once again Marvel for releasing the absolutely wonderful Essential line and reintroducing so many classic Silver Age stories at a very low cost to all of us who weren't around the first time. According to Amazon, volumes of Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, the Hulk, Tomb of Dracula, the Defenders, Thor, and soon-to-be cinema darlings the Fantastic Four are set for release this year. They can't come soon enough for me.

Rating:
Summary: Billionaire Tony Stark first becomes the Invincible Iron Man
Review: When the Marvel universe exploded and there were suddenly multiple Spider-Man titles and countless comic books devoted to mutants of one sort or the other, I gave up reading dozens of Marvel comic books each month and just kept up with two titles: "Daredevil" and "Iron Man." The latter selection was pretty ironic because I had ignored Iron Man for years. Outside of the story of his origin, I never read very many of these early stories from "Tales of Suspense," issues #39-72, collected in "The Essential Iron Man, Volume 1." In fact, if I picked up an issue of "Tales of Suspense" in the Sixties, it was to see what Captain America, the other half of the title before each was given its own title, was up to.

My problem was never with the character. I thought the idea of inventor Tony Stark coming up with and continually upgrading and specializing his Iron Man armor was a pretty good premise. The whole rich playboy bit was nothing special (the tradition goes back to Bruce Wayne/Batman and Britt Reid/The Green Hornet), and it was not until Stark became an alcoholic that his normal side became really interesting. I also though the weak heart bit was rather unnecessary, except that it provided an unnecessary rationale for why Stark did not let some healthier and heavily insured younger guy do the death defying heroics.

My problem was that I never really liked Don Heck as an artist. He was competent enough, but when the competition is Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, John Romita, Neal Adams, and Jim Steranko, it is hard to hold up to artistic comparisons month after month. Heck does most of the pencils in these "Tales of Suspense" stories, although Kirby does several issues as does Steve Ditko (with Heck usually doing the inking in those instances). For that matter, Stan Lee often does just the plot for these comics, leaving the actually scripting to others (including younger brother Larry Leiber).

A lot of these early stories put Iron Man in a Cold War context, which made him rather unique as a Marvel superhero. Iron Man first appears after Tony Stark is captured in Vietnam and his early villains include the Red Barbarian, a top Red general, the Crimson Dynamo, his Soviet counterpart, and the Mandarin, who is apolitical but lives in Red China. But you will also find American villains, such as the Melter (an obvious threat to a guy in armor) and even an early villain called Dr. Strange, who is not to be confused with the Master of the Mystic Arts. Meanwhile, Tony Stark, his best friend and loyal associate Happy Hogan, and the beautiful Virginia "Pepper" Potts, are getting more and more entangled in their own little unrequited love triangle.

Another thing I did not like about these early comics has to do with the 10-page stories we had to put up with for Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, and Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., during the Sixties. Actually, until issue #58, we were getting 13-page stories or longer for Iron Man until Captain America showed up for good (the two actually fight each other in that issue before sharing the magazine officially in the next issue). It is not surprising that the early, longer stories are better. But it was not until Happy and Pepper married and got out of the picture, the major subplots had to do with the business problems of Stark International, and Iron Man got his own comic book, that this title reached its heyday. Hopefully we will get beyond a Volume 2 with "Iron Man" so you can see this is indeed the case.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Iron Man....'nuff Said!
Review: While some people may knock the Essentials series for many things, including lack of color and cheap paper, I find that the compact form and cheap price far outweighs any of those points. In fact, the stories in these comics and the portable, read anywhere, form of this book are excellent for us folks who just want to read (or re-read) the tales of our beloved Marvel Heroes. The stories in this book begin simple, but evolve quickly, forming the psyche of the tormented Tony Stark and, eventually, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan. Without a doubt a classic character, this is the perfect way (apart from tracking down the original comics) to enjoy Iron Man!

Rating:
Summary: Classic Iron Man....'nuff Said!
Review: While some people may knock the Essentials series for many things, including lack of color and cheap paper, I find that the compact form and cheap price far outweighs any of those points. In fact, the stories in these comics and the portable, read anywhere, form of this book are excellent for us folks who just want to read (or re-read) the tales of our beloved Marvel Heroes. The stories in this book begin simple, but evolve quickly, forming the psyche of the tormented Tony Stark and, eventually, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan. Without a doubt a classic character, this is the perfect way (apart from tracking down the original comics) to enjoy Iron Man!