MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY
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"A WILD-RIDE ACCOUNT" —The Hollywood Reporter
"EPIC" —The New York Times
"INDISPENSABLE" —Los Angeles Times
"DEFINITIVE" —The Wall Street Journal
"SCINTILLATING" —Publishers Weekly
“FASCINATING” —GQ
"AUTHORITATIVE" —Kirkus Reviews
"GRIPPING" —Rolling Stone
"PRICELESS" —Booklist
"A MUST FOR ANY SUPERHERO OR POP-CULTURE FAN" —NY Post
"ESSENTIAL" —The Daily Beast
"A SUPERPOWERED MUST-READ" —USA Today
"REVELATORY" —The Miami Herald
"AS FULL OF COLORFUL CHARACTERS, TRAGIC REVERSALS AND UNLIKELY PLOT TWISTS AS ANY BOOK IN THE MARVEL CANON" —Newsday
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Unfinished Business
Stan Lee flew to New York for the official announcement. Since Avi Arad’s ascent at Marvel Films, Lee had distracted himself with projects like Excelsior Comics, a modest-sized imprint of titles to be packaged from the company’s West Coast offices. But most of his public appearances of late—like popping up on Conan O’Brien to promote Best of the Worst, a low-budget book of trivia and one-liners—were the extraneous gestures of celebrity life, and had little to do with current Marvel Comics business. Now he returned to his old rah-rah mode: “We’re matching some of the best talent in the industry, with some of the best characters in the industry, to change the status quo and create the stuff of legends!” he beamed to the gathering of journalists at the Grand Hyatt on Park Avenue. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Iron Man would now be created completely by the California studios of Jim Lee and Liefeld. The news that Marvel was removing control of its characters from its own staff and handing million-dollar contracts (plus profit sharing) to those who’d recently walked out on the company was, in the words of one editor, “catastrophic to morale.”
Even the fictional world of the Marvel Universe was being disassembled. For a multi-title event called “Onslaught,” the outgoing editors, writers, and artists of The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Iron Man were charged with implementing their own obsolescence. The heroes would be destroyed, and then re-created in a “pocket universe,” an alternate world where Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld’s reimagined versions would take over. The “Heroes Reborn” titles, as they would be called, would be renumbered as #1 issues for the first time since the 1960s. Other titles—including Thor, Doctor Strange, and Silver Surfer— would be canceled outright.
(Text from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story)
MARVEL COMICS, 1962
“Stan Lee is introducing a new character in TALES OF SUSPENSE—Iron Man! This goes on sale Dec. 10th. Watch for it.
Also on sale Dec. 10th—an entire mag devoted to THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN! You won’t want to miss this one.
Stan also has a new war mag in the making—SERGEANT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOES. This one won’t be out until March 5th, but don’t you forget it!
Starting with issue #91 of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, Joe Sinnott (who inked FANTASTIC FOUR #5) will be drawing The Mighty Thor. I think you are going to like his work.”
Judy Walsh sure had the inside track at Marvel Comics.
Iron Man #86. Art by George Tuska, Vince Colletta, and George Roussos. Words by Bill Mantlo. Lettering by John Costanza.
EA TH’S M GHTI ST HERO S!
Color acetates for Avengers #141.
“Come on, ‘Iron-Man’!”
Marvel Mystery Comics #12, October 1940. Art by Steve Dahlman.
Thor, Daredevil, Conan, Captain America, Iron Man, and Wolverine as…turtles! By Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, 1984.
Declassified at last! The Avengers charter!
I totally don’t buy that Hulk signature.
The first of many political punches thrown between Iron Man and Captain America. From AVENGERS #172, February 1978. Pencils by George Perez. Inks by Pablo Marcos. Words by Jim Shooter. Lettering by Denise Wohl. Colors by Phil Rachelson.
Iron Man in the 1980s. From Marvel Age Annual #3.
IRON MAN’S INTERVENTION, STARRING THE AVENGERS
As if I can’t have a drink
or two in the morning,
before risking my life
for people who don’t
know my name.
As if I can’t enjoy
a bottle of Chianti
and a smooth woman
when I’m not disarming
warheads in mid-flight
over the Atlantic.
As if the bottle of Johnnie
Walker you found, half-
empty, in my briefcase
implies I’m not capable
of defending New York
from shape-shifting, green
men from another world.
A man at Starbucks shoved
me during morning rush.
I stumbled over chairs,
fell. With my suit—
my marvelous iron prison—
I could pop his head with a flick
of one finger. But without it,
I’m just a man lost in the city.
Meanwhile you walk
down streets with a cowl
or cape the only difference
and you’re transformed—
the man underneath as real
as the one slamming villains
into concrete. You think
I need a drink to get in
the suit. But you’re wrong.
I need it to get out.
