Customer Reviews

The Many Armors of Iron Man

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Any fan of Iron Man, espescially the classic stories, will enjoy this book. I highly recomend it. It is actually a collection of stories featuring the Deep-Sea Armor, Stealth Armor, etc... In my opinion the multi-part story featuring the Space Armor is worth the price of admission alone.

For someone who hasn't the original issues and wants to have a collection of stories with Iron Man's different armors from the classic era this is a good find. The book starts nicely with Iron Man's origin story from issue #47 and continues with the Space armor from issues #142-144. Issue #144 for those with short memory features again the Mark-I armor along with the first meeting between Tony Stark and Jim Rhodes. Next comes issue #152 with the Stealth armor featured only in 6 pages and issue #153 in order to not let the story of the previous issue unfinished. Issue #200 follows with the first appearance of the Silver armor and the confrontation between Tony Stark's Iron Man and Obadiah Stane's Iron Monger. The closing story for this book comes with issue #218 and the Deep-Sea armor.

A nice addition to this book would be the Stealth armor's more prominent appearance from issue #229 and the return to the red and gold armor from issue #231 but since these are included in the Armor Wars book the publisher optioned not to have the same stories in two different publications. Maybe in the future we'll see an updated edition along with the more recent armors.

The book is a paperback, not a hardcover as the Demon in a Bottle book, with glossy paper and beautiful colours and every issue is featured with it's original cover.

The Many Armors of Iron Man is just as the title implies: a collection featuring stories that demonstrate the various armors of Iron Man over different eras. The Stealth Armor, the Deep Sea Armor, the Space Armor, the Hulk-buster Armor; it's just about all here. There is a variety of talent behind the issues collected here, including longtime writing duo David Micheline and Bob Layton, as well as Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita, Jr., and the great Denny O'Neil. While this TPB features all this variety, there really isn't a whole lot else to really recommend it. It is worth a look at the very least for new fans to see all the historic Iron Man designs, and worth a look for older fans that just want to refresh their memories, but as a whole, there just isn't enough here to hold one's attention for very long. Worth checking out definitely for all Iron Man fans, but whether or not it's worth picking up is a different story.

The Many Armors of Iron Man collects various issues from Volume 1 that is the first appearances of some of the more prominent and well-liked armors. Featured are stories that include the debuts of the Stealth Armor, the first Space Armor, the Silver Centurion, Deep Sea armor and an issue that is a re-telling of the origin.

The collected issues, be they stand alone or part of an arc, are entertaining so they are not selected just for a gratuitous armor appearance. One of the best things about this collection is that many of these issues are now hard to find. Issue #200 is difficult as it is considered one of if not the best single issue of the character in his nearly fifty year history (and would likely run you half the cost of this collection or more).

This is a rather neat collection because it does not contain one specific arc, and if you are just getting into the character, it is a very good read helping to introduce some important moments not to mention shows an evolution in the armor technology. As I mentioned earlier the issues included are entertaining so it is a good collection to have regardless of its theme.