The Invincible Iron Man: Volume One
Which damn well better mean a Volume Two is coming.

For Christmas this year, my sister and brother-in-law gave to me the Invincible Iron Man Omnibus, vol. 1. It reprints his first 45 issues, which covers Tales of Suspense #39-83 and Tales to Astonish #82. Which brings us to...about 700 pages of classic Iron Man. It took me about a week to read through it all for the first time. And I shall now talk about it for...roughly forever.

In the beginning, the idea for the Iron Man was of course Stan "The Man" Lee's. The book has lots of little essays throughout that were mostly taken from other re-printings or books and one of them was Stan Lee, in 1975, explaining how he created the character and what he had been after. But anyway, back in 1963, while he had the idea and wanted to use it, he had so many other series he was writing that he couldn't actually write the issue. So, he plotted and worked with Don Heck on the character designs and has his brother and right-hand-man, Larry Leiber write the issue.

Okay, through with the history lesson. In the beginning, Iron Man was campy as hell, ~patriotic~ bordering on really, really ridiculous and he had no supporting characters. It's hard to advance any sort of plot or depict a character's personality when they have no one to talk to but themselves and the villains. It was going no where for a while and while I normally laugh at comics, when I read these early issues, I was laughing at them more than with them. The depictions of communists are...something I'm trying to not be offended by. They just sort of paint entire nations as filled with nothing but treacherous, evil people which in today's world does not fly. The first time Tony fought, I believe it was the Crimson Dynamo, Tony disguises his voice to make himself sound like CD's boss, saying that he was going to kill him when he returned. And CD immediately defects to the West because "he knows all communists are treacherous." Audiences of the day ate this stuff up, but that doesn't fly in today's world and, I don't know, reading stuff that really dated can be hard to not go, "Damn, that's really dated."

But, you know, anyway its the beginning. They are writing this whole new character who is in a lot of ways, a character that hasn't been done before. He's a millionaire industrialist. He's rich and handsome and successful and a genius and its hard to do something like that and still make him a character people like instead of someone who's just annoyingly perfect, has it all and you can't relate to him. (Specifically, since he has it all and all, they wanted to make you pity him, hence the Shrapnel and Heart Alliance.) But where I'm really going with this is that a book isn't going to be really good until it has some direction and the characters have distinct voices and the creators figure out how to work the premise. And that, that takes some time.

I actually didn't notice at what point that happened. One of the things I'm enjoying a lot about the Omnibus collection is that they reprint the letter's pages. I love reading the letters. When I was a kid, I used to take out all my X-Men comics and JUST read the letters pages, in order. So, one of the letters commented that the writers had figured out where they were going with Iron Man and it had all come together, and I realized after reading that letter, that it HAD. I stopped to think, trying to pin point a change and I couldn't. It evolved over time, getting steadily better until you realize you aren't enjoying reading this for the sake of the history and the backstory and camp, you're honestly enjoying reading it for its own sake. Yes, its still dated and its still silly, but it's not all you see anymore.

Nowadays, I think this actually has something to do with Joey Cheesesauce, most story lines are 6-issues long. Back in the day, stories where usually self-contained. The letters pages actually commented that fans get angry when they have a two-parter. There were a few two parters here and there, but around ToS #70, it was all on-going. Every issue fed right in from the last. I liked that story-telling evolution, but it did make it hard to stop reading. Another bit of evolution was in the floating-now. Early Iron Man happened in real time. Tony would talk about things that happened two years ago and they happened two years ago. Now, its completely impossible to tell when things happened, how long its been, how much you've aged, etc.

Barring any kind of segue, now I'm going to talk about the art. Most of the art was done by Don Heck. And I really liked Don Heck's art. His Tony is one of my favorite renditions. It's the thinness and the slight wave to his hair, I think. The guy who does IIM right now does Tony much broader, with very short, straighter hair. I loved that artist on X-Treme X-Men (Salvador Larroca, not sure I'm spelling that right), but his Tony Stark doesn't ring true.

And then we switch to Gene Colan. Now, Don Heck did the character designs, so you have to figure that no one is going to know what these characters are meant to look like better than him, but if it were possible to do an even better rendition of Heck's characters than Heck, Gene Colan did it. I especially love his Pepper. She's just so pretty and so expressive.

Gene Colan also had this idea of giving the armor expressions. Which is a perfectly good idea and reasonable when you think about all the stuff Tony manages to do with iron, but I don't know..I don't think it works in execution so well. Mostly because the armor usually just has a furrowed brow. But also because no explanation was given in text as to why the latest armor has expressions. It is an iron face mask, after all. Now, I read a little essay that told me that this was going on. Without the essay, I don't know what I would have made of the expressions.

Now I'm going to change gears again and talk about the characters! Starting of course with my main man, Tony Stark. Obviously, he's different from the modern Tony in a lot ways. He desexertsigns and manufactures weapons. He has absolutely no moral issue with this whatsoever. He is not abusing alcohol. I think he drank...maybe once in the entire collection? His identity is secret and he goes to great pains to keep it a secret. His life is tied to the suit, in a way not nearly as fun as Extremis.

But he's still really clearly the same guy. I actually have a lot of trouble putting my finger on what makes him the same. One of the really defining things about modern Tony is that he hates himself, struggles a lot with the things he's done and his super-heroism is some kind of elaborate penance. He makes some kind of comment in Tos #70-something (looking for it, can't find it), where he is figures he'll have to stop being Iron Man soon and during that though, he just sorta stops and is like, 'Who am I trying to kid? What would I do without Iron Man?' That instance really hit me as a Tony is Tony moment. There are other things...he exerts a lot of control over his life and other people's lives. He spends a lot of time trying to get Pepper and Happy together and I just get annoyed with him because he has no right to choose Pep's beau for her, but now I realize, that's just part of Tony being a control freak. And the being a workaholic is definitely there. It took forever before we even saw where he lived.

It's not a foundation for the same character. It is clearly the same person. There are a lot of characters out there that become completely different people under different writers. Nightcrawler, for example, has some pretty major variations. I'm sure Tony's got a hell of a lot of variations under his belt, too, but I think its saying a lot when you can read the 1963 stuff the week after you read the latest 2008 issue and its like you're barely skipping a beat. It's like, FYI, he's healthy now. Okay, go!

That is probably aided by the fact that he has the same love interest in the Matt Fraction IIM as he did in the Stan Lee and co. ToS. I was actually sitting next to my sister when I was reading Pepper's debut issue and I was so excited to see her and my sister was like, "Yeah, we were really feeling her absence," sarcastically. But I was, because Pep is great. Actually, Pepper is one of those characters who changes a lot from writer to writer. Matt Fraction has her extremely witty and laying the verbal smack down on everyone. Stan Lee wrote her with a similar brattiness, but it wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated. The team that wrote the parts of IIM vol. 4 where she appeared wrote her as very different. (She sounded like an idiot hick. Boo. And the part where she wanted to pull the plug on her husband wasn't that great, either. Surely she's noticed he's the series whipping boy by now. If you just waited awhile, he'd be fine but have amnesia or something. Again.)

Having her so focused on ~marriage~ is a little grating, but it was the 60's.

Just keep telling yourself, it was the 60's...

Here's an interesting difference: In the original appearance of the Mandarin, some model honey of Tony's, Veronica Vogue, comes a-callin'. Pep lies and says that Tony is out of the office and can't be reached. Tony later asks her if Veronica had called and Pepper says no. Tony figures that Pep is lying, but is basically fine with it because Veronica was getting boring. In the end, he "punishes" her anyway. (I'm normally not a comic book feminist and think everyone needs to shut up all ready about that damned Mary Jane statue, but all the same, I thought Tony was a total bastard in the end of this issue. What he did in this issue, he actually does a lot in the future and it doesn't bother me so much then because he's trying to be nice, but this time he did it to make her mad and since he didn't even MIND that she was a bitch to Veronica, its just Iron Dickery.)

Recently, Marvel re-did that story, taking a one issue plot and expanding it to a 5 issue mini-series. This time when Veronica Vogue comes a-callin', Pep calls Tony and asks what he wants her to do. His answer: Get rid of her. And Pepper starts lying.

In 45 issues, Pepper Potts was a damsel in distress a grand total of...maybe three times? When Tony is in trouble and needs to call someone, he calls Pep. She's not afraid to be a bitch or speak her mind--she actually went so far as to call the cops on Iron Man--and while she's ~in love~ with Tony and wants to ~marry him~ she is absolutely not blind to his faults and can and will get really fucking pissed at him. The evolution of her relationship with Happy was really great to watch, though a little frustrating, because its obvious she's falling for him for serious, as opposed to her fangirl love for Tony, and she just...doesn't see it. Which is baffling.

Speaking of Happy, this is the first time I read something where he was there and not dying. He's not really the most interesting person in the world thus far. Being in love with Pepper and being Tony's whipping boy are pretty much his only characteristics and he never does anything unrelated to one of those. What are you thinking about, man? Is scoring the hot chick your only motivation? Trying to avoid the next injury and/or kidnapping?

Happy deserves a lot more credit than I give him, honestly. He figured out that Tony is Iron Man. Which shouldn't be hard, but apparently is because he's the only one who managed so far. He's got some obvious insecurity--he's jealous of Tony, he's jealous of Iron Man's place in Tony's life (until he realizes they are the same person), he's not the best looking guy in the world but he's going after the pretty girl. He's nicer, more thoughtful and all around wiser than Tony. There were a lot of moments that made me think, "And that's why Happy wins." He's a great foil for Pepper because he's no where near as aggressive as she is and a much more rational thinker.

It's just hard to get attached to a character when the first story you read is their death. And you when you want his wife to bang his best friend.

Moving on, I like the Mandarin because I like calling him "Mandy." I also like that he is really powerful and not a communist. Because...Iron Man needs some more variety in his life. All the powerful guys are commies and all the nobodies are random, non-political people. But Mandy is a powerful, non-communist, run of the mill megalomaniac, if we can call people with 10 Rings of Power that they found on an ancient alien spaceship run of the mill. Which come to think of it, we can't.

Other reasons the Mandarin is awesome:
1) The first time they fought, Iron Man knocked him down and ran like hell instead of actually defeating him.
2) He does lots of really different things. Rings, missile ray, giant-volcano-born android.
3) Iron Man calls him Mandy to his face.
4) He makes me think of oranges.
5) One time, Jubilee blew up his house.

I actually don't have any reasons why the Crimson Dynamo is awesome. I'm mostly just confused because he defected to the West and then he died. But I'm pretty sure he is currently a member of Iron Man's rogues gallery. It'd be nice if that was explained in say...The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus vol. 2?

I do have reasons why the Titanium Man is awesome, though. And that is, he's never actually fighting for any goal other than the glory of defeating Iron Man. They are utterly pointless fights for the sake of fights. It's refreshing, honestly.

I also like the crazy one shot people from the way beginning when it was cheesy as hell. Iron Man defeated Kala, Queen of the Underworld by convincing her to get married. There was Dr. Strange, whose name was later recycled and reused for the Master of the Mystic Arts. There was Mr. Doll, whose name is really not fear-inspiring, but Tony had to build a new armor because of him.

Tony usually fights terrorists now. Or other superheroes. (Iron Dickery!) Life was more fun when he fought colorful villains. Actually, life sucked for him because life sucks when you're Tony Stark.

One instance in particular comes to mind, Tony has gotten exactly what he wanted and is rather crushed and wondering why he isn't happy. Well, gosh, Tony, when what you want is the girl you love to hate you, its no wonder you're miserable when you get it! And just like that, I segue into relationships!

I had expected certain things about relationships thanks to what I had read online and I was really wrong on both counts. First off, I had thought that Tony didn't become interested in Pepper until after she was with Happy. Second, I had been under the impression that Happy and Pepper's courtship was very short.

Tony's interest in Pepper was actually handled phenomenally poorly. After several issues of apparently finding her to be little more than a minor annoyance, he started waxing poetic about how in love with her he is, how because of his heart problems he could never marry her like he wants to and how for her own sake, he needs to find her another man.

I...really, really hate it when characters just love each other out of the blue. Pepper's feelings I accept based on the idea that its 90% lust and 10% he's-rich-and-famous. And its all fine and dandy and never actually happened the way she fantasizes. And its the fantasy vs. reality that makes it interesting. When she doesn't know him that well and just works for him, she wants the glamour of a relationship with him. When she gets past the glamour and knows him as a person, its weird and she doesn't want to go for it anymore, though there is still a level of attraction. In the current comics, it's a fantasy in he's built up in his head for Tony, too. She's his ~dream girl.~ But I don't think Tony is someone who could fall in love this hard based on a fantasy. The fact that it came out of no where bugs me, and it flies in the face of all his previous actions towards and thoughts about her.

But, all the same, I can't lie--some of my absolute favorite parts of the entire collection were Tony and Pepper being adorable. The absolute best moment? Iron Man is drained of his power, can't even stand up, its only a matter of time before his heart gives out. He calls Pepper, who at the time doesn't know its Tony. She's at the office and takes one of Tony's cars because its the fastest and she figures he won't mind. Drives out to where Iron Man told her he was. And he reaches for her and clings to her and she has absolutely no idea that its Tony or that he thinks he's dying and she drags him to the car. And because its his car, its supped up to recharge his batteries and life is fine and dandy for Iron Man.

Even still, when Pepper did decide that she hated Tony, and that she REALLY loved Iron Man, and I had to close the book because I couldn't shake a fictional character. And I said, "Pepper. You love Happy. You love Happy."

I really like watching the evolution of Pepper and Happy's relationship. The way they get closer and closer to each other as time goes by and really just seem to have created their own little universe of the two of them is really sweet. Especially when you read so much one right after the other and watch every little step from Pepper being disgusted at the thought of them going out to Happy being able to easily suggest they go out dancing and getting an enthusiastic yes. Even though Pepper is fixated enough on her fangirl love that she thinks they are just friends, its obvious in their body language and they way they do so much in tandem that they aren't. Its the foundation for something that's already happening and she's just not letting herself see it.

In IIM vol. 4, Tony told Happy that he was the only person who ever made him feel like an idiot. And I don't know if Tony ever felt like a fool when he was with Happy in the early comics, but part of me hopes he did. I'm not sure either of them really ever realized in those days how much wiser Happy was than Tony. And even though Happy definitely never saw it, he was always probably a much happier and more satisfied person than Tony was. Their relationship is very strong, but I think also very uneven. Hopefully, after Happy stops working for Tony, the balance of power shifts to be balanced. But Tony always needs that person who is not like him in any way around, to keep him grounded and make him remember the difference between the world in his head and the actual world. With Happy and Steve both gone, he really doesn't have that anymore, which is not so good for him.

I'm not sure how I got this far without talking about armor. Damn. Okay, first things first, when I read the phrase, "I have a very expensive suit of armor with roller skates" in Civil War, I thought Tony was kidding. When I read the Demon in a Bottle Collection and he declared his roller-skate maneuver to be his best ace-in-the-hole, I was surprised, but figured that on the whole, his roller skates wouldn't be that important. I mean...they are ROLLER SKATES.

And I was really, really wrong. Tony Stark loves his roller skates. There is probably not a person, be them real or fictional, that as found more uses for roller skates than Tony Stark. Damn. Seriously.

I'm not really a fan of the very early designs. I like the grey better than the gold ones, but all the single color designs were so bulky that they felt more like a robot than a person in a suit. The stream-lined red and gold feel much more heroic and you can see the definition of his arms and legs. It's like..now there's a person in there. I really can't stand the mask with bolts on his face, though. Not good. Cluttered, maybe?

Speaking of cluttered..no, not even going to try a smooth transition. I love reading the letters pages. I think I mentioned that earlier. I've been writing for 3 and a half hours, I no longer remember what I already wrote unless it was on my outline. The letters pages are very often very sweet. For a long time, Iron Man shared ToS with Captain America and most of my favorite letters were actually about Cap. There was a woman who was a mother of three sons and when she was a child, she used to read 40's Cap and now--in the 60's rather--her oldest son read the new Cap stories and she thought that was great. There was a kid who wrote saying that he loves Cap and his math teacher loves Cap and they both stayed after school to read, and the kid brought his new Cap and the teacher brought the 40's Cap. The student asked that Marvel send his teacher some Marvel Stationery. Really cute stuff. I love it.

It's also interesting to see them actually TAKE the suggestions the readers make. People asked for the old armor to fight the new armor and they did it. I think nowadays, you couldn't risk something like that. People might want to sue for taking their ideas and not giving them any money. It's like how popular authors are advised to not peek at the fanfic being written about their series because they don't want to risk being accused of stealing.

People are crazy. They'd write to ToS and talk about other books, they'd write just to point out spelling mistakes. Story mistakes, okay. Sometimes they trip up pretty badly. Like how DOES someone steal Tony's suit when he can't ever take off the torso portion or he'll die?

Okay. I have an insane dedication to Iron Man. That has been established. I think...these are pretty much all my thoughts after reading the Omnibus once through. Subsequent readings shall likely yield more.

But probably not this many.