Inventor, business-man, playboy…super hero! Gravely injured in combat, billionaire genius Tony Stark saved his own life by designing a life-sustaining shell – the hi-tech protective covering that transformed him into the invincible Iron Man! Now, the world believes him to be Tony Stark’s personal bodyguard. In this dual role, he faces boardroom intrigue and super-powered menaces. A modern-day knight in armor, he fights injustice wherever it rears its ugly head! Collects Tales of Suspense #39-72.

5 Responses to “Essential Iron Man, Vol. 1 (v. 1)”

1. Scotman says:

   April 23, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Essential Iron-Man Volume 1

   For those of you who have no clue who Stan Lee is (and yes, there are people like this, as shocking as that may seem), you would do well to read the early adventures of Iron-Man from the 1960s, written by Stan Lee, art by Don Heck, Jack Kirby and other great artists, in this compilation Essential.

   The Essentials are reprint books that are black & white reproductions of the early stories of these superheroes. This is a cheap way to get the style of writing and the art of the time, read some exciting graphic storytelling and take a peek at the history of Marvel Comics.

   This is a collection of Iron-Man’s first appearance in Tales of Suspense 39 and goes to issue number 72

   Since these are from the sixties and mostly boys were reading these issues, there’s bound to be some sexist writing. Example, Iron-Man is told by his girlfriend (while as Tony Stark, millionaire playboy) that Iron-Man would look great painted gold “so his appearance matches his golden deeds!”

   Stark later paints his costume gold and remarks, “Wow, what a difference! Leave it to a woman to figure out an attractive appearance!” Oh boy!

   Meet Gargantus the Giant One, or stories about Soviet spies. Meet Kruschev, and sneaky Pentagon plots against the USSR. Kirby’s art in Kala, Queen of the Netherworld is very cool. The man knew how to draw villianous women. Slinky!

   Marvel prided itself on writing real life stories intermixed with the superhero’ing, and these issues are no exception. Pepper Potts follows Tony around wherever he goes. “How can such a walking dreamboat be such a hard-headed boss??”

   And my favorite villain, The Mandarin, as only Don Heck can draw him. Silly stuff too, like Happy taking pictures of Pepper Potts in a swimsuit, but he laments “I’ve been out of film for the past hour! But I’d be nuts to tell Pepper!”, as she slinks around posing for the camera.

   Silly, charming and fascinating — The Invincible Iron-Man!

   OK, you know who Stan Lee is now, right?

   Other Marvelous Marvel Essentials:

   Essential Iron Man, Vol. 3 (Marvel Essentials) (v. 3)

   Essential Power Man and Iron Fist, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials)

   Essential Daredevil Volume 5 TPB
2. Kathryn L. Schmidt says:

   January 21, 2010 at 12:00 am

   It came quickly, but I didn’t realize it was going to be in black and white- so I’m a little disappointed that it’s not in colour.
3. Hwy61Joe says:

   July 25, 2009 at 12:00 am

   By the time I got to this volume of IRON MAN I had begun to really enjoy Gene Colan’s artwork. He is replaced partway through this collection by Johnny Craig and then the combination of George Tuska and Johnny Craig. I found all the art teams to be quite enjoyable! Within these pages you will see Tony Stark struggle to maintain his secret identity, further development of Iron Man’s supporting cast including Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan as well as the introduction of SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell (who I found to be a surprisingly good character). Villains face include the Mandarin, Unicorn, the Black Knight, Titanium Man, Mole Man, Grey Gargoyle, the introduction of Whiplash and more!
4. Henry E. Yanezjr says:

   November 18, 2008 at 12:00 am

   Another hit from the house of ideas.Again Stan Lee writes about what he knows best—- super-heroes. Along with artists and letterers Marvel

   has added one more super-hero to their list of great reading.

   Make mine Marvel!
5. David Hood says:

   September 30, 2008 at 12:00 am

   The Iron Man idea is great, and Iron Man has lasted a while as a first tier Marvel hero, though often falling to the fringes of the first tier he would always return with strong story arcs such as Stark’s alcoholism. These first stories though are fairly weak for a variety of reasons.

   Appearing in Tales of Suspense, the length of these stories runs from 12-18 pages, not the complete 24 of a solo character in his own title. The abbreviated length really does make a difference in regards to plot and character development. For a while, Iron Man took over 18 pages of the comic, before sharing it with Captain America when his page count went back down to 12. Even having 18 pages as opposed to 12 or 13 makes a difference in story quality. The short length makes any one shot story almost a vignette, and requires the stories of substance to be multi-issue.

   Villains. A hero is defined by his villains. A hero is made great by having powerful and threatening villains. Unfortunately, again due to space constraints, Iron Man has only second tier villains. The Mandarin, The Black Knight. The only two that really develop into something better are The Black Widow and Hawkeye. That is one of the upsides of this collection, the first appearances of Marvel universe mainstays Black Widow and Hawkeye.

   The science. It’s a comic book, so the less said about the science the better. But it is hard to have a willing suspension of disbelief when the science is so laughable. I’m not sure Stan Lee had any idea of what a transistor was when he wrote these.

   After all that you probably wonder why it gets three stars. Iron Man himself does get some development and follows the successful Marvel formula of a flawed hero. We see both Tony Stark evolve, and we see the early evolution of the Iron Man armor. Once Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts are introduced we see his personal growth and anguish, albeit shown through a corny love triangle. The 3-4 issue story arcs are also reasonably good, showing the improvement the series would achieve once Iron Man got his own title.

   Not great, but not bad. Just average with bad points and good points.