Essential Iron Man, Vol. 4 by Gerry Conway

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


If there's a word to describe this book, "inconsistent" would do it. It collects 23 issues of Iron Man with a variety of writing credits though Mike Friendrich has the most. This was a time of transition for Iron Man. He'd been created by Stan Lee as a weapons manufacturer, someone who left wing college students would naturally hate. Yet Lee set out to make the character likable. However by the 1970s, liberal fans and writers were tired of having to look at someone who did things they disagreed with politically as decent human beings, so the focus began to shift Tony Stark and Iron Man away from his roots.

The result is somewhat uneven. At the book's height, it includes Issue 54 which, while silly in itself, introduced Moondragon and Issue 55, the crown jewel of the book, introduced Thanos. The first half of the book has a fascinating storyline where Tony gives Kevin O'Brien the Guardsman Armor, only for the Irishman to turn evil and help manipulative evil corporate overlords try to undermine Stark. He's driven in part by his crush on Stark's girlfriend Marianne, and part by the Guardsman's armor that ends in tragedy. Marianne is a fascinating character and probably one of the best early Tony Stark girlfriends: an ESP-powered sensitive soul that makes a nice balance to Tony's iron-edged personality.

That brings us to the negatives after he and O'Brien died fighting over her, Tony drops her like a hot potato, and the writers aren't content for her to be dropped, they want her to suffer as we see her undergoing trauma counseling and eventually sanitarium. We then return to the well of Pepper Hogan who was bored living at home and decided to sign up to be Tony Stark's assistant, reaching the conclusion that totally abandoning her husband for weeks on end and disregarding his feelings is what being a liberated woman is all about. She still loves him but she'd rather do it from 1500 miles away. Happy's behavior is only slightly less jerky and irrational, making this a very annoying feature.

There are just some really bizarre and forgettable villains. It's odd to have Iron Man up against occult villains and dated villains that just screams, "It's the 70s man." like Firebrand, Mikas, or Priness Python. Thankfully, the Mandarin does return though in a very odd form. Plus Iron Man begins to barnstorm, leaving New York in the middle book for California, and then fighting his last few battles in Detroit.

Overall, this is a very tough book to like. There are some good spots and enough interesting to make this mediocre, but Iron Man at this point in its history was a book that was abandoning its original premise and didn't know what it was going to be about, and constantly shifting things around in ways that were more annoying than entertaining.



View all my reviews