Iron Man in 1968
The X-Men has Magneto. Fantastic Four has The Coming of Galactus. Iron Man hasā¦ The Coming of Whiplash??? What is up with this janky rogues gallery? The Unicorn, huh. I will get flack for this, but Iron Man has one of the worst rogues galleries.
The year starts out with an extended storyline, and I tend like those over one-shot stories, but thereās little to recommend here. I suppose the brief interjections of SHIELD are cool, but itās such a small break from this mundane storytelling.
A big comic event happens just before the midpoint of the year: Captain America breaks his lease and leaves the title he had been splitting with Iron Man. As of issue 100, Tales of Suspense becomes Captain America. Iron Man is shunted off to a one-issue comic with Namor, and then branches into a new series.
Is it better? No, just longer.
As the series continues to degenerate into mediocrity, it becomes harder and harder to write about it. The status quo is boring as the side characters are more-or-less shunted off for extended periods of time. The rogues gallery lacks personality or drive. But, at the same time, nothing is terrible. Colanās pencil work is normally immaculate here ā even when thereās the occasional uninspired page, it still looks twice as good as just about anything out there in this period. The plots are pretty serviceable, and thereās some hope in the recent infusion of SHIELD into the stories.
Otherwise, eh.
Side note: I took one glance at the cover of Iron Man #3 and immediately thought, āyeah, an EC artist had to have drawn that.ā Called it. Fill-in artist Johnny Craig drew the infamous Crime SuspenStories issue that got us the Comics Code Authority.
Second note: As society is becoming more comfortable with the idea of timeline branches, the rusty old concept of linear time paradoxes starts looking quaint. āOh no, but if I die in the future, it will cause me to disappear in my future and impact future events!ā Thatās basically the fear in Iron Man #5, as time buffoonery is at play.
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