9/20/2023 0 Comments Iron wars ironmanFor convenience sake I’m just going to refer to it as “Armor Wars II Redux.” The trade paperback collection of these issues, due out in October, is reportedly going to be titled “Armored Vengeance.”īy the way, Layton previously had a synopsis of his original plans for “Armor Wars II” posted on his website. Bizarrely, Marvel did not actually give these four issues an overarching title. Hence the numbering of these issues, which see Layton, once again co-writing with Michelinie, presenting their take on “Armor Wars II,” based on his original plot. That story commenced publication in Iron Man #258. At the last minute, John Byrne came on-board to do his own version of “Armor Wars II” with Romita Jr. Then Layton was offered the opportunity to work at Valiant Comics, and so also dropped off the book. The two were going to do a sequel to “Armor Wars,” and got so far as producing a prologue which ran in issue #256. Layton was planning to remain as writer and inker, paired with penciler John Romita Jr. Michelinie had just departed from Iron Man. For the reasoning behind this, we have to look back to the year 1990. These four issues are rather oddly numbered issue #s 258.1 thru 258.4. However, it ended up sitting unused until now, when Marvel presumably decided it would make a good tie-in for the third Iron Man movie. Well, actually, their latest four part story was written & drawn roughly two years ago, and was originally going to be released as the miniseries Iron Man Forever (much in the same vein as the Chris Claremont-helmed X-Men Forever). Michelinie & Layton have reunited once more to chronicle the adventures of Tony Stark. In contrast, Tony’s self-centered, destructive behavior in the original “Armor Wars” really did feel like a natural progression of the character. I’m specifically thinking of the entire Civil War crossover. Or, worse yet, had Stark acting like a villain because the plot required him to assume that role in order to get the story from Point A to Point B. I think a lot of subsequent writers have taken the negative aspects of Stark and magnified them. Under their pen, Tony could be a flawed, selfish, controlling figure, but underneath all that he had a good heart and the best of intentions. While it is true that Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Don Heck created Iron Man, I really think that it was Michelinie & Layton who truly defined the character of Tony Stark, making him a fully developed, three dimensional individual. They co-wrote what are generally considered three of the all time great Iron Man stories, “Demon in a Bottle,” “Armor Wars” and the “Doomquest” trilogy. The team of Michelinie & Layton had two historic runs on the ongoing Iron Man title (issue #s 116 to 153 and #s 215 to 250) plus a handful of subsequent miniseries and specials. Ask almost any long-time Marvel fan who the all-time greatest Iron Man writers are, and chances are very good that the names David Michelinie and Bob Layton will be mentioned.
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