THE NEW UNIVERSE AT 40: A LOOK BACK AT MARVEL’S UNWANTED RELATIVE Part 4

 

THE NEW UNIVERSE AT 40: A LOOK BACK AT MARVEL’S UNWANTED RELATIVE

BY MICHAEL HOSKIN

PART 4: WHITED OUT

NEWUNIVERSAL AND UNTOLD TALES

In 2006, Warren Ellis announced he would be rebooting the New Universe with artist Salvador Larroca in the series newuniversal. “Reading the original work,” Ellis told Wizard magazine, “it became clear to me that all the books were attempting to tell the same story, but the effect was muted by half a dozen writers naturally pulling themselves in half a dozen different directions. Newuniversal pulls all these books into a single series, weaving all those stories into one.”

Before newuniversal launched – but after it had been announced – editor Mark Paniccia launched an event titled Untold Tales of the New Universe to celebrate the New Universe’s 20^th anniversary. As Paniccia explained to Comic Book Resources, “We thought it would be fun to go back to the New U one last time before Warren did his thing.”

Untold Tales of the New Universe would include new stories of all eight of the original headliners: one-shots for Star Brand, Justice, D.P.7, Psi-Force and Nightmask; 8-page back-up stories starring Mark Hazzard and Spitfire that appeared in Amazing Fantasy; and an 8-page Kickers, Inc. story that appeared in New Avengers #16 to promote the other stories.

Peter David was the only New Universe writer to pen one of the Untold Tales, returning to write Justice one last time. Despite his apathy towards Star Brand, John Romita Jr. drew the one-shot’s cover. Marshall Rogers also came back to draw the Spitfire story, one of his last published stories. Otherwise, the Untold Tales fell to other hands, including artist Mark Bright (D.P.7), writer and future editor-in-chief C. B. Cebulski (D.P.7), Exiles writer Tony Bedard (Psi-Force), writer Jeff Parker (Star Brand) and writer Fred Van Lente (Nightmask).

Looking back at the New Universe, Mark Paniccia noted, “I think the thing that's been most fascinating for me is to look back at this attempt to create something new from universes that organically happened (Marvel and DC) and see just how difficult a job that can be. It's been tried so many times after with companies too numerous to mention. It ran for 3 years, though, and that's pretty impressive.”

Rather than follow-up on the New Universe in 2006, obeying its real-time rules, Untold Tales of the New Universe set its stories within the imprint’s first year of publishing. Indeed, the Spitfire story was set prior to the events of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters #1! Fred Van Lente used his Nightmask story to finally tie-up the cliffhanger Archie Goodwin had left in Nightmask #4, 20 years earlier.

In his Star Brand one-shot, Jeff Parker went meta; his story, set just before John Byrne’s first issue, featured Ken Connell meeting a multiverse traveler named Arden who learned about Connell through reading comic books about him from another reality (which is to say, Arden did the same research Jeff Parker had). Arden told Connell she’d found the comic books underwhelming. “No one here should really have anything like the power you have, Ken,” Arden stated, “So essentially, nature itself keeps throwing mundane situations and relationships at you… like some self-correcting mechanism.”

Warren Ellis’ newuniversal proved a different take on the New Universe; in this version, Ken Connell received the Star Brand from the White Event while asleep and its destructive power destroys his girlfriend. Simultaneously, Izanami Randall was a female, Japanese American equivalent of Nightmask who discovered an extraterrestrial intelligence existing within the Superflow, a space between universes. Philip L. Voight was introduced as a government agent who hunts and kills superhumans to prevent them from supplanting humanity.

Unlike the New Universe before it, newuniversal didn’t depart from real world history at the moment of the White Event; Ellis’ scripts were peppered with references to divergences from real world history, such as John Lennon being alive in 2006. One character was even seen attempting to diagram when the planet’s divergence moment occurred. There were also minor appearances by characters from the Marvel Universe, such as General Ross from Incredible Hulk, whereas the New Universe eschewed Marvel Universe counterparts. The presence of Marvel’s characters sent a subtle message: Gruenwald intended the New Universe to exist within the Omniverse; Ellis was planting it within the Marvel Multiverse.

More bizarrely, Ellis chose to tie newuniversal into the obscure sword & sorcery character Starr the Slayer, who had appeared in a single issue of Chamber of Darkness in 1970 when creators Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith were still trying to lobby Marvel to pick up the Conan the Barbarian license.

When he heard about Ellis’ newuniversal, Fabian Nicieza joked, “Let me guess: He deconstructed the super-hero myth, and he left before he bothered to reconstruct it?” Nicieza guessed correctly; newuniversal ran just six issues with Ellis and Larroca. It returned as newuniversal: Shock Front with artist Steve Kurth replacing Larroca, but at that time Ellis lost the hard drive to his computer and his scripts after issue #2 of Shock Front were lost. Shock Front, like most of the books Ellis’ had been writing at the time, was abandoned rather than being rewritten from scratch. Marvel attempted to keep newuniversal going, first with the one shots newuniversal: 1959 by Kieron Gillen, then newuniversal: Conqueror by Si Spurrier, followed by a Starr the Slayer mini-series by Daniel Way and Richard Corben, but just as these placeholder titles wrapped up, Ellis informed his readers newuniversal would not continue.

Or, at least, it wouldn’t continue under Ellis’ pen.

ANOTHER WHITE EVENT?!

Jonathan Hickman had evidently been reading newuniversal – specifically that series rather than the New Universe titles. First, he used the Star Brand in a Fantastic Four story where it was wielded by an alternate reality’s Reed Richards. Then, while writing the Avengers, he brought back the Superflow from newuniversal and introduced Earth-616’s counterparts to Nightmask and Ken Connell; while the new Nightmask was an artificially grown man named Adam Blackveil, the new wielder of the Star Brand was Kevin Conner.

In a story titled “The Last White Event,” Kevin Conner received the Star Brand in a violent fashion, similar to Ellis’ version in newuniversal – but where newuniversal had killed Ken Connell’s girlfriend, Kevin Conner was at a crowded college in Pittsburgh when he received the Star Brand; the explosion was said to have killed 3,203 people. This was familiar to readers of the Pitt – the idea of the Star Brand being destructive and poorly-understood by the person wielding it.

Yet while the scope of the deaths in Hickman’s story was less than the Pitt, the consequences were telling. That is, while Kevin Conner continued to stumble and falter in his use of the Star Brand (generally being more destructive than necessary), the 3,000+ lives snuffed out in his origin did not come up again. The Pitt took time to consider the environmental, social and political repercussions of destroying an entire city; even in newuniversal, Ellis’ Ken Connell spent the rest of the book’s short run traumatized from his girlfriend’s death – but in the Marvel Universe, deaths are mere numbers on a spreadsheet.

With New Universe concepts now formally introduced into the Marvel Universe, interest was taken by Al Ewing, who debuted a variety of counterparts to New Universe characters in his series the Ultimates². These included Jim Tensen (instead of John Tensen), Terry Jessup (instead of Tyrone Jessup) and Philip Nelson Vogt (instead of Philip Nolan Voigt).

Eventually, Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers storyline led to the collapse of the Marvel multiverse, setting up the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event. Afterward, a new version of the Squadron Supreme was introduced who were comprised of counterparts of traditional Squadron Supreme members taken from different alternate Earths that had been destroyed in the crossover. Jeff Walters of D.P.7 – using his occasional codename the Blur – took the place of the Whizzer. Sadly, this meant the New Universe had been destroyed (or maybe not; another cast member in Squadron Supreme eventually discovers their reality is intact).

CONCLUSION

Many of the architects of the New Universe have passed on: Mark Gruenwald in 1996; Archie Goodwin in 1998; Gray Morrow in 2001; Herb Trimpe in 2015; Paul Ryan in 2016; Peter David and Jim Shooter in 2025; Gerry Conway in 2026.

It’s in the White Event itself that the New Universe proved to be somewhat ahead of its time. In the decades since 1986, many other writers have similarly indicated that, like Mark Gruenwald, they prefer a common point of origin for super-powers in their fiction. Starting in 1987, there was the Wild Cards series of prose novels where all super-powers originated from an alien virus. Nearly all of the superhumans in Milestone’s comics debuting in 1993 obtained their powers from “the Big Bang,” an explosion of mutagenic tear gas. In 1999, J. Michael Straczynski started writing Rising Stars, a comic book series where all the characters’ abilities appeared after a comet landed on Earth. Starting in 2003, Straczynski also wrote Supreme Power, a reboot of Squadron Supreme, but wherein nearly all the characters received their super-powers from manipulation of the hero Hyperion’s DNA; Straczynski even replaced the Squadron Supreme’s speedster the Whizzer with D.P.7’s the Blur. The 2006 television series Heroes opened with super-powers emerging following an eclipse (although the series would eventually decide their super-beings had been around long before the eclipse).

Even in Marvel’s own Ultimate Universe, it would be decided (in Brian Michael Bendis & Butch Guice’s 2008 Ultimate Origins) that all of the Earth’s superhumans (including mutants) were the result of long-ago genetic manipulation. From the Boys to Misfits, it seems more common in today’s fiction for all superhumans to share a common origin, rather than a variety of independent origins.

Although Avengers writer Jason Aaron killed Kevin Conner in 2017, he continued to use the Star Brand in his Avengers stories. For that matter, a version of Ken Connell turned up as recently as 2025’s Battleworld mini-series by Christos Gage and Marcus To. The New Universe’s influence continues to appear in present-day Marvel comics.

“Marvel did not get out of the New Universe what Shooter’s original goal and idea for it was,” Fabian Nicieza opined. Yet Fabian observed many positives that came from the New Universe: “In some ways, New Universe, the comics, was a great fertile testing ground for a lot of people, not the least of which was Jim Shooter, the guy who created it all because it proved his fertile testing ground that he was able to manifest in Valiant. For the rest of us, we got me and we got Ron Lim and we got Mark Bagley, and we had Lee Weeks, and we got a lot of new talent that got an opportunity to hone their skills on books that not that many people were paying attention to.”

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Iron Man: A Retrospective

I'd like to perform a little retrospective on the publishing history of Marvel Comics' Iron Man. Before I start, I'm going to invoke a spoiler warning for Avengers: Endgame.

SPOILERS!

...I'm looking back on Iron Man in part because with the death of Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame, it seems an appropriate season for reflection. Not that his counterpart in the comics is even the least bit under the weather - comic book Tony Stark will live forever. However, let's face it... if there is just one person who is the most influential creator in terms of Iron Man's acceptance by the general public, it comes down to Robert Downey, Jr. and his performance in the last 11 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, not anything which Marvel Comics has published before or since he came along.

And let's take a moment to appreciate that prior to the film, Iron Man was not a huge property. I remember the days when people on the internet questioned why Marvel was still publishing Iron Man other than sheer inertia. The Iron Man series has a fairly uneven history compared to other Marvel properties. For instance, Daredevil had a similarly difficult time finding its footing (in fact, there was a point in the early 70s where Marvel considered merging Iron Man and Daredevil into one book), but after Frank Miller's first tenure on Daredevil the series found a new way to tell its stories which has kept the property more or less consistent ever since. But while fans of Iron Man have their favourite creators and runs (and definitely their favourite armours) I don't think there is one single creative team who figured out how to write an enduring take on the character; to some extent, every creator has tried to veer away from what their predecessor was doing.

I was not a huge fan of Iron Man (series or character) growing up. In fact, most of the series was unread by me until, thanks to the Iron Man movie, I became head writer/coordinator of an Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe publication called All-New Iron Manual. I am extremely proud of that book (it has art by Carlo Pagulayan & Ron Lim! and an armour diagram by Eliot R. Brown!) and I read everything up to that point in order to guide the project. Later, to coincide with Iron Man 2, I headed up Iron Manual Mark 3, a comic so nice, even Robert Downey, Jr. bought a copy!

I resigned from Marvel Comics in 2012 and since then have not really followed what's been going on with the characters (I do check in on certain creators). So, my tour of Iron Man's publication history is only going up to 2012. I've divided the history by writers and I'm going to observe how the character of Tony Stark changed over the years, how his supporting cast developed and highlight a few memorable stories.

Follow along...

Stan Lee (1963-1968) wrote Tales of Suspense #39-98 with writing assists from Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Al Hartley and Roy Thomas, art by Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Gene Colan. So, here's where it all begins - Tony Stark is touring his defense plants in Vietnam when he walks into a booby trap set by the Viet Cong. With shrapnel in his heart, Stark and scientist Ho Yinsen build a suit of armour to keep him alive. There is a lot of important Iron Man history in these issues, naturally, but it is mostly foundational to what comes next. Stan Lee had long been giddy about pitting his comic book heroes against the 'red menace' of communism and no 1960s hero demonstrated that better than Iron Man. Iron Man battled communists in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba! Further, as an industrialist who was building weapons for the government, Tony Stark had a stake in the Cold War which other heroes simply didn't have (Lee also established him as the arms dealer to S.H.I.E.L.D. over in his Nick Fury stories as well as the financier of the Avengers).

It took a while for the series to build a supporting cast and it's still very small at this point; the most important were Harold 'Happy' Hogan and Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, who formed a love triangle with Tony, the sort of thing Lee enjoyed writing. However, Lee eventually decided to bring the triangle to a close by having Happy & Pepper hook up and get married. That kind of resulted in them leaving the series, unfortunately, but eventually nostalgia would cause the Tony-Pepper-Happy triangle to return. The only other notable characters were Senator Harrington Byrd (a gruff J. Jonah Jameson-type) and Jasper Sitwell, who immigrated from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Meantime, there were plenty of notable villains created: the Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, the Melter, the Unicorn, Ultimo, the Black Widow, Hawkeye... the biggest of them all, however, was the Mandarin. The least-appreciated villain must be Tony's cousin Morgan Stark, a fascinating character who surprisingly few writers have taken an interest in over the decades.

A few trends began during this run: we have Tony's first health problems as his armour needs to keep him alive; Tony's 'transistor-powered armour' as the first of many charmingly bad comic book science concepts; Tony repeatedly altering and improving his armour; the first time Tony shares his armour (with Happy); and we have the author leaving in the middle of a story which his successor has to complete (in this case, the Whiplash/Maggia story).

Archie Goodwin (1968-1970) wrote Tales of Suspense #99 and Iron Man #1-28 with art by Gene Colan, Johnny Craig, George Tuska and Don Heck. This, to me, is the first great run on the series. As I was reading through the entire series, I found myself slowing down to enjoy the stories. The storyline in Iron Man #17-19 where Tony's LMD takes control of his life is an amazing read! Goodwin brought in characters like Janice Cord (Tony's new love interest) and villains the Controller, Madame Masque and Midas. In the course of these stories, Tony finally had heart surgery so that his armour no longer needed to keep him alive (however, it left him extremely weak and less-powerful afterward). And if you thought James Rhodes was the first black Iron Man... nope! It was Eddie March, whom Tony tried to make the new Iron Man in issue #21, only for Eddie to have health problems of his own. And in #22, Janice Cord died at the hands of the Titanium Man several years before the Green Goblin would kill Gwen Stacy over in Amazing Spider-Man (one wonders why Titanium Man isn't Tony's #1 enemy, considering how killing Gwen elevated the Goblin to Spider-Man's top arch-foe).

Allyn Brodsky and Gerry Conway (1970-1972) wrote Iron Man #30-44 with art by Don Heck, George Tuska and Herb Trimpe. Here we have the first low point in the series. This run of issues was so bad it nearly got the series cancelled! It includes the infamous 'Mr. Kline' story which had also been dragging Daredevil into the sewer. Kevin O'Brien was introduced as a new supporting cast member and got his own armoured identity as the Guardsman (only to be killed off in one of the fill-ins between creative runs) and Tony's new love interest was Marianne Rogers, a psychic. Yeah, a psychic... However, Brodsky did introduce the villain Spymaster, who would go on to be a major villain throughout the series (with various characters assuming the identity).

Mike Friedrich (1972-1975) wrote Iron Man #48-81 with art by George Tuska, Bill Everett, Jim Starlin, P. Craig Russell, Arvell Jones and Chic Stone. This run of issues includes a number of fill-ins. The series didn't have too many running subplots in the 70s, many issues were 'done-in-one'. Still, Friedrich brought out some memorable stories - obviously, #55 which introduced Thanos & Drax the Destroyer is a pretty significant episode in Marvel Comics history. Friedrich also introduced Firebrand and his sister Roxanne (Tony's new love interest) and brought back Happy & Pepper, complete with the love triangle despite their marriage. Friedrich also featured a number of stories where Tony had to deal with labour unrest and student demonstrations, plus Tony's company expanded significantly as for the first time we saw the company's offices in Detroit, Cincinnati, Seattle and such. Unfortunately, his promising 'war of the super-villains' storyline with the Black Lama came down an immensely goofy finish where the Lama turned out to be an alternate reality Gerald Ford.

Bill Mantlo (1976-1978) wrote Iron Man #86-115 with art by George Tuska, Keith Pollard, Carmine Infantino, Keith Giffen and John Romita Jr. Bill Mantlo's 'run' is full of all kinds of fill-ins and it's hard to tell where his run really 'starts'. Of course, I have to mention Mantlo's fill in during Friedrich's run: in issue #78, Mantlo penned a tale where Tony witnesses the impact of his weapons in Vietnam and, struck by the horror of it, determines to get out of weapons. It was a pretty major development for a fill-in story and it began to set up Tony as someone who no longer blindly championed technology but who would wrestle with the effects of his inventions on the world around him. Mantlo tried to set up his own creation Jack of Hearts as Iron Man's protege but it didn't pan out; he also brought in Kevin O'Brien's brother Michael as a means of bringing back the Guardsman and he created the memorable villain Arsenal.

Bob Layton & David Michelinie (1978-1982) wrote Iron Man #116-157 with art by John Romita Jr., Carmine Infantino, Sal Buscema, Jerry Bingham, Alan Weiss, Joe Brozowski, Luke McDonnell and Alan Kupperberg (also inks by Bob Layton). Here we have the first tenure of Layton/Michelinie on the book and they're probably ranked #1 to the majority of Iron Man fans. In their hands, the supporting cast exploded as, for the first time, Stark's company seemed to have a life beyond Tony's office - new characters like Mrs. Arbogast, Bethany Cabe (Tony's new love interest), Vic Martinelli, Yvettte Avril, Artie Pithins... even Scott Lang (Ant-Man) would chime in from time to time. But the most important addition to the cast was James Rhodes, Tony's personal pilot. Rhodey could handle himself in a fight and after Layton & Michelinie established him as being adjacent to Tony's origin story, it pretty much guaranteed he'd be moving on to big things in the series. Michelinie & Layton brought an increased emphasis on Tony as a businessman, not only by pitting him against S.H.I.E.L.D. in an attempted hostile takeover, but by introducing the new villain Justin Hammer, a corrupt businessman who challenged Tony on a different level. Basically, any writer since Michelinie/Layton who didn't use Justin Hammer instead used a different character with the same purpose (ie, Obadiah Stane, Kearson DeWitt, Sunset Bain). Michelinie & Layton are also beloved by fans for introducing armours for special environments, such as the stealth armour. But their biggest influence on the character was felt in issue #128, the first time Tony struggled with alcoholism, a major addition to his character which gave him a new physical weakness to replace what the heart injury had once done for him.

Dennis O'Neil (1982-1986) wrote #158-208 with art by Carmine Infantino, Steve Ditko, Luke McDonnell, Mike Vosburg, Don Perlin, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe and Mark Bright. O'Neil's run is best known for promoting James Rhodes to the leading role (from #169-199), but is also remembered for introducing the villain Obadiah Stane and the red & silver armour (in issue #200). O'Neil wrote virtually every one of Michelinie & Layton's supporting characters out of the book and brought in the twins Clytemnestra & Morley Erwin as the new supporting cast (Morley died in #199 and the next creative team turned Clytemnestra into a villain, then killed her). Personally, the highlights of this run are issue #182 where Tony finally seeks help for his alcoholism and #192 where Tony earns back Rhodey's friendship.

Bob Layton & David Michelinie (1987-1990) returned for a second run in Iron Man #215-256 with art by Mark Bright, Bob Layton, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jackson Guice, Denys Cowan, Alan Kupperberg, Paul Smith and John Romita Jr. (also inks by Layton). In some respects, this run is a lot like the earlier Michelinie/Layton run: most of the supporting characters whom O'Neil wrote out were brought back, Tony regained his company, Rhodey stopped wearing the armour, Justin Hammer was back, new special environment armours were introduced and Tony eventually went back to the red & gold colours. However, they didn't simply rehash what they'd done before: they brought Tony through one of his most controversial arcs in what they called 'Stark Wars' but which everyone else calls 'Armor Wars' (#225-231), in which Tony obsessively hunted down both villains and heroes wearing armour, trying to prevent his designs from taking lives. They also critiqued Tony's love life as his latest girlfriend Kathy Dare shot Tony in the spine, crippling him. Although Tony regained his mobility by the end of their run it set in motion major complications for the character. Like many creative runs on Iron Man, this one had some problems going on in the background - Bob Layton was supposed to continue writing the series solo, but instead they brought in a new writer...

John Byrne (1990-1992) wrote Iron Man #258-277 with art by John Romita Jr., Paul Ryan and Mark Bright. John Byrne was in the middle of his 'corporate Namor' material in Namor the Sub-Mariner at the time so this was an interesting choice... it was also something to see John Romita, Jr. return to this series with his own art style now fully developed. Most of Byrne's run was taken up by 'Armor Wars II', which, despite the title, had nothing to do with the earlier storyline. The story concerns Kearson DeWitt going after Stark for revenge (and in a nice twist, Stark has no idea who DeWitt is or what he wants revenge for). The microchip in Tony's spine from the end of Michelinie/Layton's run turns out to contain a weapon designed by DeWitt to seize control of Tony's nervous system. By the end of the story, Tony is a nervous wreck... I mean, he's barely able to walk. Byrne also wrote a major Mandarin storyline which tied his origin into Fin Fang Foom (seriously!) and revealed his ten rings belonged to space dragons who now wanted them back... I have no idea why they left them unguarded for several hundred years, frankly.

Len Kaminski (1992-1995) wrote Iron Man #278-318 with art by Paul Ryan, Kevin Hopgood, Barry Kitson, Tom Morgan, Tom Tenney, Steve Ellis and Dave Chlystek. Kaminski came to the book in the middle of the 'Operation: Galactic Storm' crossover with the Avengers but he very quickly became a fan-favourite writer - for a long time, he was the only serious rival to Michelinie/Layton in the fan community. Much of Kaminski's run simply revisited earlier ideas like new special environment armour (eventually he introduced the modular armour which could refit for special situations), Rhodey becoming Iron Man again and the conclusion to Tony's nervous system woes. I really admire him for seemingly killing off Tony Stark, but never tricking the readers, who knew from the outset that Tony was still alive; most comic book writers would have tried to trick the audience. Anyway, Kaminski did a great job of maintaining and building on the supporting cast from the Michelinie/Layton years, reestablished Rhodey as War Machine, introduced Veronica Benning (Tony's newest love interest) and even brought Happy and Pepper back into the cast. In retrospect, this was a very stable time for the series, with no sense of the tumult which would follow.

Terry Kavanagh (1995-1996) wrote Iron Man #319-332 with writing assists from Dan Abnett and James Felder and art by Tom Morgan, Adriana Melo, Hector Oliveira, Sergio Cariello, Jim Cheung, Mark Bright, Jim Calafiore, Dave Hover, Marc Campos and Joe Bennett (basically, Kavanagh never had a regular penciler). And here's what most fans would call the worst creative run on Iron Man. Kaminski evidently fled the series rather than write this story, in which the Avengers crossover 'The Crossing' unmasks Iron Man as a murderer who had been a sleeper agent for Kang for years and begins killing off members of the Avengers (well, unpopular members, anyway). The crossover ended with Tony making a heroic sacrifice while his college-aged self from another reality became the new Iron Man. Pretty much the only people who enjoy these comics are of the 'I like it ironically' school. The entire experience left a bad taste in fan's mouths and I don't recommend they be read by anyone other than researchers.

Jim Lee, Scott Lobdell & Jeph Loeb (1996-1997) wrote Iron Man #1-12 with art by Whilce Portacio, Ryan Benjamin, Jim Lee, Terry Shoemaker and Ed Benes. The entire family of Avengers titles were brought low by 'The Crossing', causing them to dwindle in number instead of thriving, which is supposed to be the point of a good crossover, y'know? So, along came Jim Lee & Rob Liefeld, who rebooted the Avengers & Fantastic Four characters. These comics didn't do much more than provide a cushion between the despised 'Teen Tony' stories and the next revamp, basically clearing the ground for...

Kurt Busiek (1998-2000) wrote Iron Man #1-25 with writing assists from Richard Howell and Roger Stern and art by Sean Chen, Patrick Zircher, Mark Bagley and Tom Lyle. This is an interesting mix of nostalgia for the Lee & Goodwin years which, at the same time, tried to move the series forward. Tony sets up a new company as an independent contractor, which basically turns him into James Bond with power armour. Sean Chen's armour design was great, but it was disappointing to see the Happy-Pepper-Tony triangle brought back yet again. Highlights included Rumiko Fujikawa (Tony's new love interest), Tony becoming an AA sponsor to Carol Danvers and the obscure Machine Man villain Sunset Bain established as a villainous female counterpart to Stark. Lowlights included Tony discovering his armour was causing him new health problems, only for him to fix the problem within one issue; coupled with that was Tony using a telepathic weapon to erase people's memories of his secret identity, all of which seemed like a misguided effort to de-complicate Tony's problems instead of escalating them - not good drama.

Joe Quesada (2000) wrote from Iron Man #26-30 with art by Sean Chen and Alitha Martinez. Quesada basically wrote just one story (although he hung around to co-plot with Tieri as he assumed full writing duties), but it's a pretty good one: 'The Mask in the Iron Man' had Tony's armour become sentient, turn against Tony and finally sacrifice its life for him. It's something of a retelling of Archie Goodwin's LMD story and it brought back Tony's heart problems. I think it works well, as long as you ignore the follow-up story.

Frank Tieri (2000-2002) wrote Iron Man #31-49 with writing assists from Joe Quesada and art by Alitha Martinez, Paul Ryan, Keron Grant, Udon Studios and Chris Batista. So, this one is a pretty despised creative run. Initially fans were interested but around the time Tony's never-before-seen best friend Tiberius Stone had an affair with Rumiko, the knives came out. Keron Grant designed a new suit of armour whose introduction was supposed to be an exciting revelation, but which was ultimately so unpopular that over in the Avengers, creators would go out of their way to avoid depicting Tony in armour. Tieri also brought back Ho Yinsen as the leader of a floating city full of Iron Men, then revealed it (and the sentient armour) were all a plot by Ultron. Oh, and for part of the series Tony changed his name to 'Hogan Potts' and worked at an office job. Let's move on.

Mike Grell (2002-2003) wrote Iron Man #50-66 with writing assists from Robin Laws and art by Michael Ryan, Ryan Odagawa, Mike Grell, Ivan Reis and Alan Davis. This run has been pretty much forgotten by fandom, although it is here that Tony Stark finally went public as Iron Man, a development which will probably never be rolled back (thanks to the movies). The new armour designed by Michael Ryan was much liked, but almost no one remembers Grell rewrote Tony's origin, shuffling it to eastern Europe instead of Vietnam. This all happened during the Bill Jemas era at Marvel Comics where almost every comic would tell stories in six-issue arcs and super-villains, team-ups and crossovers became somewhat scarce. There's not too much that's flashy about these stories and Grell wound up leaving mid-story.

John Jackson Miller (2003-2004) wrote from Iron Man #73-85 with art by Jorge Lucas and Philip Tan. Miller seemed to be a huge fan of the series and filled his rather short run with all kinds of references from across the series, bringing back not only Michelinie/Layton cast members but also stuff which had been left dangling since the Kaminski era. Miller chose to make Tony Stark the US Secretary of Defense, making the book more overtly political than it had been in the past. It might have been an interesting change for the character but it didn't last very long. Miller only really got to tell one story with Tony as SOD, and while I think he wrote a compelling take on the Iraq War, artist Philip Tan's choice to draw the Kurdish female revolutionary Vitriol in T&A poses really worked against the tone of the story.

Warren Ellis (2005-2006) wrote Iron Man #1-6 with art by Adi Granov. This story, 'Extremis', really should have been a limited series. Incredibly, it took 18 months for all six issues to ship! By the end of it, Tony had his body rebuilt by the Extremis technology, turning him into a post-human able to link into virtually any computer. This made Tony ridiculously powerful. I fondly recall a phone conversation I had with Eliot R. Brown while making The All-New Iron Manual where I explained to him how Ellis defined the Extremis powers. Brown scoffed at Ellis' 'pseudeoscience', told me how it was all wrong, then explained how he'd achieve the same ends using ideas extrapolated from real science. I told him to go for it; I doubt my editors noticed. Anyway, Granov had been painting covers for Iron Man since the Miller run but his visuals in these stories wound up having a huge impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the comics, Ellis' Extremis would hang around for some time to come and his characters Maya Hansen & Sal Kennedy remained in the supporting cast for the next team.

Daniel and Charles Knauf (2006-2008) wrote Iron Man #7-28 with art by Patrick Zircher, Roberto de la Torre, Jackson Guice and Carlo Pagulayan. This creative run started off fairly modest, but by the end, I found I really enjoyed the Knaufs. The shadow of Marvel's 'Civil War' event hovers on their work, as it was during their run that - due to the machinations of Mark Millar - Tony Stark became director of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is kind of an amped-up version of what John Jackson Miller tried to do during his run. In the midst of that, the Knaufs had Tony deliver a mercy kill to Happy Hogan at Pepper's request, which just makes Tony and Pepper hooking up seem all the more wrong-headed. However, they delivered a fantastic Mandarin epic wherein the Mandarin tries to obtain Extremis for himself; it turned out to be the Knafus' farewell to the series.

Matt Fraction (2008-2012) wrote Invincible Iron Man #1-33 & 500-527 with art by Salvador Larroca. This series launched while the Knaufs' book was still coming out so Marvel could see if the Iron Man movie would increase people's interest in Iron Man comics. As it turns out, nope, but the Fraction/Larroca series wound up becoming the principal ongoing title and they remained together for many years, easily the most consistent creative team in the series' history. There are ups and downs in this run, but I think most fans are down with the 'World's Most Wanted' storyarc (#8-19), where Tony loses control of S.H.I.E.L.D. to Norman Osborn and is hunted around the globe by Osborn's resources while his mind slowly unravels. It included Pepper donning her own armour as Rescue and made Tony & Pepper a couple (plus Tony & Maria Hill, for both of the people who wanted that). Fraction/Larroca introduced a number of new threats for Tony based on relatives of long-dead adversaries, like Obadiah Stane's son Ezekiel and Justin Hammer's daughter Sasha. The crossover 'Fear Itself' (which was written by Fraction) threw the book off its game, but Fraction & Larroca did a fine job overall.

And that's it; since 2012, the writers have been: Kieron Gillen (2013-2014), who, bafflingly, decided to retcon Tony's parentage, making him the son of some S.H.I.E.L.D. agent instead of Howard & Maria Stark, a situation I'm sure someone will fix eventually; Tom Taylor (2014-2015) who wrote the 'Superior' Iron Man; Brian Michael Bendis (2015-2018), who eventually killed off Tony and replaced him with two Iron Men - Riri Williams and Doctor Doom - then brought Tony back before jumping ship from Marvel Comics; and Dan Slott (2018-), the current writer.

As I said before, I didn't care too much for Iron Man initially. Thanks to going through the series, however, I came to really appreciate the character. I enjoy him the most when he's heroic, but flawed; savvy in technology, blind to his shortcomings; pitted against villains who challenge him physically and mentally; and supported by a cast of well-developed characters.

All covers taken from The Grand Comics Database.