Marvel Gold. Iron Man 3 The man who killed Tony Stark

The Marvel from the late 60s is one in which Stan Lee had been delegating the work of writing the Casa de las Ideas series for some time except in cases where Stan “The Man” was reluctant to quit (especially with The Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spiderman). A new generation of writers, championed by the very young Roy Thomas was settling into the publishing house. In 1968 a small editorial earthquake occurred that opened the doors even more to new screenwriters. We are talking about the end of the limitation on the distribution of comics that had forced Marvel to only being able to publish 8 titles a month (until 1964, then expanded to 16 from 64 to 68). The distributor, Independent Newsowned National Periodical Publicationsthat is to say, DC Comicsand attempts to “limit” competition had collided with the overwhelming success of comics in the 1960s. Marvel. In 1968, Marvel signed a new distribution contract with Cadence and immediately, bimonthly titles became monthly and the 2-in-1 formula as Strange Tales ended up divided into separate collections (Captain America and Hombre de Hierro then).

The Invincible Iron Man Thus it became its own series, with a practically new creative team in Marvel. This is what we find in this Marvel Gold. Iron Man 3: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark what includes The Invincible Iron Man #2-25 and which is done, for the most part, by the writer Archie Goodwin and the artist George Tuska.

Goodwin had already begun to take care of the Golden Avenger in the last issues of Tales of Suspensetaking advantage of those numbers plus the special Namor/Iron Man and the #1 of this new series, to close the last story raised by Stan Lee. With the beginning of this volume, Goodwin is already entirely responsible for the plots in addition to, of course, the dialogues. The screenwriter had experience working at the Warren publishing house, but Iron Man would be one of the jobs that would open wide the doors of the two big companies, including carrying out important editorial work at both Marvel and DC during the decades of the 70s and 80.

The differences between the style of read and that of Goodwin They are clear. The second is less bombastic and overloaded but is also more concerned with building medium and long-term plots, giving the comic a sense of narrative with a more modern sensibility. On the other hand, in this new stage, a lot is lost when it comes to the villains, an aspect in which Lee always demonstrated prodigious creativity and which ends up resulting in one of the weakest points of the stage of Goodwin. The plots of each individual issue are the least important (in general), plot excuses to develop really interesting subplots such as the evolution of Madame Máscara/Whitney Frost or the strange relationship that is created between Tony Stark and Janice Cord. I say that the superhero plots are the least important because, with some exceptions that I will comment on, they limit themselves to repeating quite hackneyed tropes such as the communist villain (again the Crimson Dynamo, the Unicorn), business rivals (Drexel Cord), villains of others. heroes (Gladiator, Red Ghost), or just generic bad guys without much interest (The Crusher, Night Ghost, Lucifer, the Mercenary). Again, as an exception, mention the creation of the Controller, who would become part of the rogues gallery not only of Iron Man, but also of Captain America and the Avengers in general. Another aspect that does not convince me about these numbers is the role of Jasper Sitwell and SHIELD, which is less integrated into the plot than what will be seen in the 70s in the Hulk series.

The ideas of Goodwin that he barely remembered and that are capital for the story of Iron Man, such as the changes in the armor – converting the helmet into something more similar to a mask of malleable material, changing the “transistors” for circuits – but especially, freeing Stark from the burden of his heart problems by installing a synthetic one. And what to say about the #22-23 in which Stark considers stopping being Iron Man and hands over the mantle to… a black man (not Jim Rhodes, of course). A story ahead of his time, without a doubt. But, without a doubt, the best story in the volume is, in addition to being intelligent, a crazy point. I’m talking about the #9-10 and #17-18 in which, after the Mandarin guesses that Tony Stark is Iron Man, the hero uses a Simulacrum Endowed with Life to deceive the villain and preserve his secret identity. The funny thing is that the SDV will believe that he is the real Stark so much that the real Stark will doubt whether he is the original, giving rise to an espionage plot that is as solid as it is creative.

As for drawing, we have veterans from other publishers such as EC Comics, Johnny Craig and above all, George Tuska. The styles of both are not too different; with Tuska It feels like the finishes are better, especially on the characters’ faces. The debut of Tuskawhich will be in the title for a decade or so, takes place in the #5clearly a test number for the artist but which he achieves, thanks to Goodwinnot be a fill-in disposable but a good science fiction story in which Iron Man travels to the future. Although it is pleasant to see, the drawing of Tuska is not the one of Gene Colan (former lead artist of Iron Man), lacks expressiveness and energy. At times, he seems to be reading a pre-Silver Age comic.Marvel.

Volume 2 of this compilation of the original adventures of Iron Man was published in 2020. This third installment was published in 2023. The future of the Marvel Gold is insured according to Panini but the frequency, unfortunately, does not seem to be one per year. At the end of the day, we may think, there are too many collections to release one volume a year. The Spanish market is not the North American one. Of course, the next volumes of Iron Man, for my taste, present stories that are much inferior to the ones we can read in this volume. The hard life of the collector

The best

• The subplots and their development

Worst

• Villains