Iron Man in the 1980s
As we entered into the 1980s, Iron Man continued on its positive streak with David Michelinie and Bob Layton on the helm. As Bob became more involved with the plots he took on inking duties while handing over the pencil work to other artists, starting with Jerry Bingham in issue #131. However, by issue #136, Layton was back on pencil duties until issue #141 when John Romita, Jr. came onto the book as penciler.
While the art work was consistently good, the stories didn’t really have any stakes. Issue #130 started off the decade with a one-off villain of all things followed by the next three issues which was a plot that involved the Hulk. It was your run of the mill “scientists try to cure Bruce Banner with unintended consequences”. This time, the Hulk’s mind was trapped in the body of Bruce Banner. This is the second time this had ever happened, but to be honest it’s not very interesting. Peter David would do a much better job exploring the idea of a Savage Bruce Banner in the pages of Incredible Hulk a decade later.
Issue #133 ends promising fans of Bill Mantlo that they aren’t going to be wrapped up. Which is a weird call out that comes off passive aggressive when I read it, but I could be reading too much into it. If your lost, there was a plot during Mantlo’s run on Iron Man that had a mystery villain plotting against Iron Man. issues #134-135 wraps that up, revealing that it was the Titanium Man, and he stages a proper rematch with Iron Man reminiscent of their first battle way back in the Tales of Suspense days. That all said, the fact that they went back and wrapped up a plot hole — something that was actually quite common in the high employee/editor turn around/missed deadline era of the 1970s — is nice. This attention to detail becomes somewhat of a lost art in the 1990s, so enjoy it while it lasts.
After a fill-in for issue #136, the next three issues was a three parter that brings back Madame Masque that tries to go back and explain why she betrayed Tony/Iron Man to work for her father Count Nefaria and return her to her role as the leader of the Maggia. It’s not a good explanation to be honest. Your typical “I wasn’t good enough for you so I went back to crime” stories, but it is not terrible.
After a rematch with Justin Hammer in issue #141, we get another three parter where Iron Man investigates a small town that is wiped out in an accident. This leads to the discovery of a massive solar collecting space station created by Roxxon Oil. This story is interesting because its one of the first times that Tony breaks out a suit of Iron Man armor created for a specific purpose — independent space travel in this case. Iron Man also faces off against Sunturion, which is Roxxon’s solar-powered answer to Iron Man.
Issue #144 wraps up the Sunturion story quickly so it can jump into finally explaining the backstory behind Jim Rhodes, who had been in the book for a while at this point. The character was played off as being an old friend of Tony Stark and this story traces their first meeting back to the day Tony first became Iron Man. It also answers the pesky question of how Tony managed to get out of the jungles of Vietnam with only a prototype suit of armor with a limited charge. This is yet another story that places Iron Man’s origins to the Vietnam War, something that will have to be generalized later on. If I’m not mistaken rather than the Vietnam War, this would now be the Sin-Cong Conflict, allowing for Tony to still be in Vietnam and in a war. If I ever meet Mark Waid in real life I will kiss his feet for coming up with a retcon that doesn’t have to re-write older stories. That’s how you do a proper retcon. But I digress.
While these stories were all low stakes villain of the week fare, Micheline and Layton were laying some more important groundwork: Building on the supporting cast. For years, Tony had a very weak supporting cast of characters who either left or were killed off. They were building on Tony’s friendship with Jim and his growing relationship with Bethany. They were also establishing a cast of regular employees, which was something that wasn’t really done before this. Outside of Tony’s inner circle we never really got to know any of the staff he would interact with on a day-to-day basis while at Stark International. While these characters weren’t the most complex characterizations, they gave Tony’s business some kind of personality. We had something more than some one guy named Joe that Tony would speak with once and is never to be seen again. You had regular staff doing regular roles. Another interesting thing they did was include Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, as part of Tony’s staff. While there are a few Ant-Man guest appearances in this decade, it’s not as many as you’d think.
Anyway, the artwork was consistently and good nearly every issue, most likely due to Bob Layton’s finishing work. However, John Romita, Jr’s work was really starting to shine by this point. He was still drawing in the Marvel style as this was before he developed his own signatures, but it’s still some great work. There is only one thing that really stands out as odd during this run: Every black character looks the same. Obviously somebody on the art team didn’t have a whole lot of experience rending African-Americans so Jim Rhodes will often look indistinguishable from any other black guy they draw. I couldn’t tell you who the culprit was, my eye for artwork isn’t that good. All the artists involved continue to get better and evolve their craft with time so I guess it’s a moot point. It’s just an odd thing I noticed.
An iconic story from this run was in issues #149-150, which saw Iron Man go up against Doctor Doom. In the ensuing battle the pair find themselves sent back in time to Camelot where they remain trapped until working together to get back to the present. This story idea proved so popular, it was revisited a few times and has since been dubbed the “Camelot Trilogy”. During this run of stories, Bethany Cabe went off on a secret mission and ended up getting arrested as a spy in West Germany (another topical reference) This results in Iron Man going on a rescue mission in issue #152-153. This story showcases a new suit of stealth armor. This is the last time a writer would come up with a special use armor until the introduction of the War Machine armor in 1992’s Iron Man #281. It’s an interesting gimmick when done in moderation and indeed it was only done on occasion until the 2000s when gimmick was used quite regularly because you can sell more Iron Man toys that way, but I digress. Another change was the abrupt end to Tony’s relationship with Bethany Cabe when it is discovered that her husband is still alive.
Cabe was the first romance Tony had that wasn’t a shrieking violet, damsel in distress, mentally ill, or all of the above. So her departure as Tony’s love interest is a disappointment, particularly since writers seem to have a habit of pairing Stark up with broken or unavailable women for a long, long time. It seemed like they were going to build onto this story, but it was an issue that was later tackled by other writers so Cabe wouldn’t be shacking back up with Tony any time soon.
Speaking of a long time it would be a while before we got some good stories either as David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and John Romita, Jr. would all move off the book. Michelinie went on to work on a number of Marvel’s licensed books (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) on top of one-off issues of other titles and some creator-owned material on Marvel’s Epic imprint. He would return to the book in issue #215, but we’ll get into that later. We have to talk about what came about before Michelinie and Layton’s second run on Iron Man.
In the typical Marvel fashion, a character cannot be built up without someone eventually tearing him down. Writing duties shifted to Denny O’Neil who would work primarily with artists Luke McDonnel. However, there was a smattering of one-off artists including comic book legends Carmine Infantino (issue #158) and Steve Ditko (issue #160). That said, there is something off about Luke McDonnel’s work. There are all sorts of issues with perspective and proportions. Compared to the consistency of John Romita, Jr. and Bob Layton there is a significant step down in quality. During this time, Denny O’Neil spins a tale where a business rival named Obadiah Stane succeeds in a hostile take over of Stark International, driving Tony back to the bottle. This time around, rather than a quick resolution, Tony’s problem drinking is stretched out over months as he loses his business, has to resign as Iron Man, and is reduced to living on the streets. During his absence, Jim Rhodes takes over as Iron Man to carry on his legacy.
After some forgettable one-off stories, O’Neil and McDonnel get into their first major story arc, which I will be calling the Obadiah Stane saga. It starts in issue #162 and runs into issue #200. Where as David Michelinie maintained a delicate balance between slowly building a story and keeping up the action, O’Neil is about as subtle as a bull in a china shop. The changes are so sudden and with barely enough buildup. It’s built up at such a frantic pace that there is not much time for these stories to really build up. Suddenly there is a guy attacking Stark International. Suddenly, Tony has a new love interest. Suddenly, this is all part of a complex plot to take down Stark International. The only “slow reveal” involved is the identity of the mastermind, a new character named Obadiah Stane. One might argue that a previously established villain might have been a better choice for the guy who took down Stark’s business, like — you know — Justin Hammer.
I guess my overall dislike of Obadiah Stane is the fact that Denny O’Neil created one of the shittiest gimmicks. Until he is full revealed in Iron Man #167, Stane is the leader of a group calling themselves the Chessmen because they are all themed after chess pieces because, you see, Stane is playing a game of chess with Tony Stark. Except for his motives are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I don’t know what O’Neil was trying to accomplish here since chess is a game of precision and all of Stane’s plans are mostly about brute force. The only thing that is subtle about any of this is Tony’s seduction at the hands of Indries Moomji, one of Stane’s operatives. Regardless, by the end of it all, you - as the reader - are going to get sick of the ham fisted chess analogies in this story. The big reveal of Obadiah Sane is also quite anti-climatic as well and when we first see him in issue #167. He looks like a bargain basement version of Destro from G.I. Joe, which is being too kind to the character. For some reason O’Neil also decided to give him some vague Buddhist undertones for reasons? The guy had a metal bindi on his forehead and Buddhist prayer beads around his neck. Other than the esthetic there’s not really anything Buddhist about him.
Anyway, this is all a round about way to push Tony Stark off the wagon and make him an alcoholic and have his life spiral out of control. Now, I know I was critical about David Michelinie for not using the full potential of Tony Stark’s alcoholism, I am also not a fan of how Denny O’Neil handled it. Sure, he brought it up to the next level but it seems to really miss the gravity of addiction. I wonder what O’Neil was trying to accomplish with this story. About a decade earlier he had penned the iconic Green Lantern/Green Arrow story “Snowbirds Don’t Fly”, you know the “My Ward Speedy is a Junky!” story that tackled the issue of drug addiction. Was Iron Man’s relapse into alcoholism an attempt at recreating that level of acclaim? Was this kind of the expectation at this point in his career? I couldn’t tell you and I don’t really care overly much about O’Neil’s career to go digging for answers if I were to be honest with you.
Whatever the case may be, Tony Stark’s dive into alcoholism goes pretty deep. He loses everything: Being Iron Man, his company, his fortune, his self-respect and the respect of his peers. By issue #172, he has run out on his friends to live on the streets and booze it up while Jim Rhodes takes over as Iron Man. More on Jim in a moment, I want to get into the nitty gritty of the Stark alcoholism plot. Which basically resolves itself by issue #184. We have a few issues where we see Tony’s rough live on the street, particularly in issues #178 and 182. During this time he befriends a homeless woman named Gretl, who also turns out to be pregnant. The final story ends with Tony and Gretl trying to survive a night on the streets in the middle of a blizzard at the same time Gert is having her baby. The story ends with Gert getting fridged by mother nature and Tony and the baby living long enough to get put in the hospital. A few issues later, Tony’s dried up and he and his pals suddenly move to California to start a brand new company.
We’ll get into the foundation of Circuits Maximus in a minute, I want to circle back on the whole addiction storyline.
Tony’s fall from grace is written in an incredibly heavy handed way to the point of absurdity. Through my own experiences with alcohol abuse, I know that the descent into self-destruction is a much slower and less obvious, especially to the individual dealing with addiction. It creeps up on you in subtle ways that can’t be noticed until suddenly, it’s a big problem that can’t be avoided. That said, comic books are not the medium of subtlety, especially when it comes to important issues and I can admit that in order to tell a compelling story, you need to speed things up a bit and — at the end of the day — for an important character like Iron Man, there is a point where the status quo needs to be restored.
That all said, while the issue being dealt with is very serious, and I’m quite sure that O’Neil was intending to be dead serious, the execution reads like a farce. Maybe this is because I am looking at this story from the perspective of someone in the 2020’s, but watching Tony’s alcoholism arc reads more like a rich white guy playing tourist with addiction. He’s slumming it with the most vulnerable people in our society and only decides to turn things around when somebody else dies. The fact that he’s able to go “I learned my lesson” and is literally given a brand new company to start is absolutely ridiculous and kind of obscene.
Particularly when we never really find out what happened to Gretl’s baby. Gret asks Tony to make sure the boy gets brought up, yet when we see him again in issue #199-200, Tony dumped him in an orphanage. This orphaned baby, who undoubtedly has fetal alcohol syndrome, is going to struggle for his entire life, but Tony gets to have a second chance. Tony doesn’t give it a second thought. The only time he thinks to check on the kid is when Obadiah Stane tries to kidnap the baby later. After that, he doesn’t bother checking up on the kid. You know how I know this? Invincible Iron Man #500.1 has Tony recounting the story at an AA meeting. This is how he sums up the situation:
Emphasis added.
When Tony is about to recount how Gertl was pregnant and had her baby that night he stops and goes “y’know what? It doesn’t matter.” and then goes on to talk about how he had a bunch of treatable illnesses and almost lost two toes, my god, what a fucking tragedy!
Gee Tony, don’t you think that a baby being born an orphan might actually be a relevant point to make when talking about the dangers of alcoholism? That’s kind of an important thing to mention.
It really says a lot about Tony (and perhaps the writers) that this orphan baby is just forgotten about while Tony experiences literally no effort to regain his own wealth and status. From issue #182, Tony Stark ends up getting full redemption not even 20 issues later and all it cost him was ignoring an orphan with FAS.
You would think that a competent writer would have come up with a backstory where Tony has been supporting the baby so he gets a good chance at life, but when Matt Fraction was given the opportunity to revisit this pivotal moment in 2011 he just shrugged and said “it doesn’t matter.” Which makes Tony come off as an even bigger addiction tourist. “Hey, what happened doesn’t matter because I beat drinking guys, I’m Tony Stark and I’m an alcoholic, now clap you fuckers!” I get that most writers traditionally don’t know how to write stories around a baby, but most of them have the common decency to have them be stillborn (see: Invisible Woman, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Ross, etc.) At least when Wolverine decided to look after an orphan, he checked in on her just often enough to rescue her from ninjas and mystics every once and a while.
The problem with Denny O’Neil’s run here is that it tries to hit too hard and doesn’t really take much time to consider the consequences and when later writers recount it later they turn it into a feel good story about how Tony overcame addiction while also poking fun at the stupid ideas they had for the character in the 90s rather than dwell on the more uncomfortable aspects of this storyline.
As to what Iron Man was doing during this period, the stories are incredibly sloppy. The fights don’t make any sense, the art is terrible, there are flubs in continuity, and the story is directionless. O’Neil was clearly more focused on the Tony-as-an-alcoholic than anything else and every other aspect of these stories suffers because of it. They were presenting Rhodes as the new Iron Man, yet they weren’t giving us stories good enough to like it. Also his utter disregard for Tony’s life spiraling down the drain betrays the strong bond of friendship that was developed by Micheline before him. In fact, Tony’s whole supporting cast was tossed on the wayside and abandon him for no reason other than they quit their job. Everyone turns into such assholes to Tony, a stark (pardon the pun) contrast from issue #128 when everyone was trying to help Tony clean up his life.
Look, I get it, sometimes when others have to deal with the bullshit caused by your addiction, they’ll give up on you. But the sudden turn these characters take is sudden and uncharacteristic. They are also abandoned in favor of two new characters — Morley Erwin and his sister Clytemnestra — who, honestly, were never really developed overly much except that they are both scientists and Cly hates it when Morley calls her “sis”.
Iron Man, also has a stint where he is taking gig work like the Heroes for Hire so he can help fund the Erwin’s new business venture. This happens around the time that Tony decides to sober up and he joins them as they drive out to California. This leads to one of the worst Zodiac cartel stories even written. Where Taurus — aka Cornelius Van Lunt — tries to blow up Iron Man with a bundle of TNT like some Looney Toons character. We also get intorduced to a new villain named Vibro who is.. not very interesting. This whole time Luke McDonnel’s artwork just gets even more sloppy. It doesn’t start looking better until Ian Akin and Brain Gavey replace Steve Mitchell as inker. They make his artwork at least look half decent.
During this time, O’Neil baked in a reset button on Jim Rhodes becoming Iron Man. A faulty cybernetic uplink has been giving him really bad headaches. This puts Tony in a “will he or won’t he” moment for a number of issues as he decides if he is going to take over being Iron Man again as Jim becomes more and more aggressive. It’s not until Obadiah Stane decides to start trying to finger fuck Tony Stark again that he realizes that he has to become Iron Man in issue #199-200.
In issue #195, O’Neil decided that these headaches weren’t a physical ailment, but a psychological one and that it all stemmed from Jim being jealous of Tony Stark being a hero. Making Jim’s motivations for continuing on with being Iron Man being out of envy kind of diminishes Rhodes as a hero and it feels like they are taking away Jim’s agency to be a hero in his own right, something later writers will correct when Jim later becomes War Machine.
That said, the final battle between Stark and Obadiah Stane is sloppy where a lot of story elements seem poorly crafted. For example, in issue #199, Jim prevents Stane from kidnapping Happy Hogan along with Tony’s other friends an allies. Despite this, Happy is depicted as a prisoner in issues #200 and 201 with no explanation. Also, Tony — apropos to nothing — goes from searching for Bethany Cabe to checking in on Timothy Anders without being told that Stane was going after those closest to him. It’s all just some sloppy plotting. This story could have used some stronger editing to make it cohesive, otherwise we the readers have to No Prize ourselves an explanation for these inconsistencies.
One thing I will say about the final chapter of this arc, is that I am a real fan of Iron Man’s red and white “Centurian” armor. It was the next logical progression in updating Iron Man’s technology and look. I also like that it strayed from the usual red on gold color scheme. One might argue that Tony was overpowered at this point, indeed it seemed like he had a gadget for everything during this period, but I much prefer an overpowered Iron Man than the times his armor comes off as being inefficient, such as in the 60s and 70s when it was constantly breaking down or running out of power. Having Tony adopt new technologies and figuring out how to use them effectively is always a more interesting story than him scrambling to find an electrical outlet to plug into mid-battle. Knee-capping his armor at every turn was just redundant by this point. Tony Stark is at his best when he is innovating, not when he’s busy trying to keep his armor running or saddled with an unnecessary health issue. Unfortunately, later writers didn’t get this memo, but that’s a story for another time.
Another welcome addition at this phase was the addition of Mark Bright as regular artist on the book. It is a huge step-up in quality after the inconsistency of Luke McDonnel.
Denny O’Neil continues his run from here with a body swap story that takes far, far too long to resolve. Before blowing his brains out, Obadiah Stane did a mind-swap between Madame Masque and Bethany Cabe and it takes until issue #204 before the obvious situation is figured out and resolved. Reintroducing Bethany Cabe to the regular cast also seems like a wasted effort as, once back in her own body, she runs off to resolve things with her husband, who has relapsed back into drug addiction and refuses to get clean so she leaves him. Whatever Denny O’Neil had planned going forward never came to be as writers changed again. There were a few fill-in issues here and there, but for the most part it was Danny Fingeroth and Howard Mackie pinch hitting with a number of fill-in artists here and there before the return of David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and Mark Bright.
Michelinie would bring back the status quo, Tony Stark would be back as a leading businessman, now helming Stark Enterprises a brand new company. Things would basically go back to form as though Dave and Bob hadn’t left the title for a few years. The sudden shift back is incredibly abrupt. In issue #215-216 alone, Tony Stark’s space station becomes uninhabitable due to a bio-weapon being released, the AIM plot line is wrapped up by everyone getting killed off and Boca Caliente being liberated, Clytemnestra Erwin does a complete 360 character switch into a bad guy who is also summarily killed off. Lastly, the returning creative team ditches some of Iron Man’s new innovations, namely his cloaking device. Basically, anything Michelinie and co could get rid of off the bat was done. The only thing that didn’t change, at least not right away, was the Centurion Armor which I guess was still popular enough that they were forced to keep it for a little while longer.
They would also briefly have both Jim Rhodes and Tony Stark acting as Iron Man in tandem, but this is only used to dispose of the spare suit of Iron Man armor kicking around. Which was too bad, because having both Tony and Jim acting as Iron Man at the same time could have made for some interesting stories. We won’t really get to see two Iron Men working at the same time until Jim becomes War Machine in the next decade.
At any rate, while things returning to some kind of status quo is an eventuality for any long running comic book series, the abrupt nature in which Michelinie and Layton deserted plots, developments, and supporting cast during O’Neil’s run on the book are just way too abrupt. Just hard hitting the reset button in two issues seems, at the very least, unintentionally disrespectful to the team who was there before you were. I didn’t like Denny’s run on Iron Man in the slightest, but I thing there could have been better ways of dumping plots other than mothballing the space station with a super-virus and having a lethally uncharacteristic personality change, but I digress.
However, this a product of the time, where a sudden change in writers was more common, leaving the incoming writer with the task of doing house cleaning before getting started on what the actual stories they want to tell. I’m kind of glad that Marvel is more structured when it comes to changing creative teams. Allowing one hand to know what the other is planning in the future and they can wrap up whatever isn’t going to be explored any further by the incoming team. Well, usually at least.
Anyway, Michelinie and Layton’s second run on Iron Man would also see the return of the corporate espionage themes in the book, where Iron Man faced corporate threats like Spymaster, the Ghost, and Justin Hammer. This was all setting things up for the most ambitious and iconic story arc of their Iron Man work.
The Stark Wars, aka the Armor Wars, was an eight issue epic that ran from Iron Man #225 through 232. It begins with the discovery that others have stolen Starktech and been using it without his authorization. This results in Iron Man going after everyone using his tech — friend or foe — and shutting them down. This doesn’t endear Iron Man with the rest of the world and results in Tony’s first major ideological conflict with Captain America. This ultimately does away with the Centurion Armor and Tony creating a new model of his classic red on gold configuration.
However, from there, things kind of start fizzling out in my opinion. After a strong showing with Armor Wars, things kind of get back to normal without much in the way of repercussions. Iron Man doesn’t face any real consequences for his actions. Using his secret identity, Tony makes it seem as though his “bodyguard” went rogue and is subsequently replaced with someone “new”.
Things kind of a take a turn for shit when Michelinie introduces a new romantic interest named Kathy Dare. She dates Tony for a bit and becomes obsessed and starts stalking him. This ends with her shooting Tony and confining him to a wheelchair. Tony then becomes dependent on wearing his Iron Man armor in order to maintain his full mobility. This is just an unnecessary medical issue that is reversed a few issues later in Iron Man #248. I guess this was supposed to be a commentary on how people with disabilities face discrimination in society but just like the alcoholism plotline, it resolves itself to quickly it just seems like Tony Stark is a privileged person slumming it since his money is what gets him out of this jam.
Michelinie ends his run with a sort-of Acts of Vengeance tie-in that saw him and Doctor Doom brought into the future as a follow up to the Camelot storyline. David would leave the book, leaving Dwayne McDuffy to continue the Acts of Vengeance crossover.
That’s about all I can really say about Iron Man in the 1980s. It was a mostly good run but the steep decline in the quality of stories was beginning to show. Things will spiral into some of the worst stories ever written in the coming decade, but that’s a story for another time.
