Review of Iron Man Comic Issue #1

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Written by: Spencer Ackerman

Art by: Julius Ohta

Colors by: Alex Sinclair

Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Cover art by: Yasmine Putri

Cover price: $4.99

Release date: October 23, 2024

Iron Man #1, by Marvel Comics on 10/23/24, finds Tony Stark getting back to the business of owning his business after taking it back from Feilong. Unfortunately, the forces of evil are working to take it away again.

Is Iron Man #1 Good?

It’s fair to say that bringing in guest writers with little to no track record of writing superhero comics can be a hit-or-miss proposition. Spencer Ackerman, who most notably developed a career as a journalist for publications such as Wired, The Daily Beast, and The Guardian, tries his hand at writing for Marvel with one of the world’s most recognizable characters. Does an outsider’s perspective and a fresh pair of eyes give readers an exciting take on Iron Man #1? Well, that depends on your tolerance for mild to moderate cringe.

Iron Man #1 follows the events of the Fall of Krakoa, the subsequent battle against Orchis, and Tony Stark’s takedown of Feilong and his Stark Sentinels. During that cavalcade of conflicts, Tony helped defeat Orchis by building a suit of armor made of the fabled Mysterium alloy he obtained through his “temporary” marriage to Emma Frost while Feilong was in control of Stark Industries. In other words, the Mysterium Armor is Tony Stark’s private property. Keep that in mind.

Iron Man flies in during a dispute between Stark workers meeting to unionize and a couple of guards at one of Feilong’s converted Stark Sentinel plants. The workers try to force the gates open to have their union formation meetings, but the guards refuse. Instead of calling the police, the guards suddenly transform into Hulk-sized brutes and attack the workers outside the plant gates. Iron Man intervenes and sends the Hulking guards packing.

Questions abound. If the workers are meeting to form a union, why do they have to do it inside the Stark Sentinel plant, a plant that should not be making any more Stark Sentinels? Where did Feilong get a pair of security guards who turned into purplish ogres, and why are they still guarding a shut-down Stark Sentinel plant? Tony arrives wearing one of his older armor models instead of the Mysterium armor. Why? Tensions in the world are at an all-time high after the conflict between the mutants and Orchis, in which he was an active participant, so why would he not keep the world’s most advanced Iron Man armor handy? Oy!

Tony escorts the workers into the plant so that they can discuss unionization and continue manufacturing, but it turns out the plant has been converted into making artillery shells. In other words, the plant is making weapons but less-genocidal weapons than Stark Sentinels. Fearing the workers may lose their jobs if he shuts down the plant, Tony agrees to keep the plant running until they can figure out what to make that isn’t so lethal because workers’ rights are more important than stopping the manufacture of weapons under the Stark brand. Workers of the world, unite!

Yeah, this is what we’re in for. The unionization efforts have no bearing on the rest of the issue, so it seems Spencer Ackerman introduced this scene simply to make a statement about unions, workers’ rights, and the importance of workers owning the decisions of what they produce. This opener should give you a solid clue about Ackerman’s approach to the material.

When Tony puts the armor back on and flies away, his armor loses power in midair, sending him crashing to the ground below. The fall breaks most of his bones, sending him to the hospital for several weeks. The hospital stay atrophied every limb of his body, so his slow recovery puts him in a bad physical state.

Weeks later, Tony flies to a board meeting (again, without the Mysterium armor), where he proposes a way to overcome the loss of revenue from getting out of the weapons business. His bright idea is to create a gambling app where users bet on the outcome of superhero fights against villains. The proposal gets a tepid response. In turn, the board makes a proposal of their own, led by former SHIELD agent Melinda May and Jack Cooning Jr. The board is entertaining a buyout proposal, as long as Stark Industries continues making weapons, by a joint venture between AIM and Roxxon.

Yes, Ackerman is throwing everything at Tony all at once to bring him low, but we’ve now dipped into silly territory. Why would Tony Stark, a man who knows the pain and destruction of addiction, propose the creation of a gambling app? Why would anyone entertain a buyout proposal from AIM, a known terrorist-for-hire organization? Why is a buyout a valid plot point when mergers between multi-billion dollar companies take months or years worth of vetting by the FTC? If Ackerman wants to make a statement about evil corporations propagating evil with endless money, he’s got to be smarter than this, or at least not treat the readers like they’re stupid.

Later, Tony sits back and helplessly lets the wheels of big business churn on without lifting a finger to stop the buyout. One night, Tony scrolls through social media in his helmet’s HUD and happens to see a post from Flying Tiger, taunting Iron Man to come get him. Iron Man flies to the location in question (again, without the Mysterium armor) and finds Flying Tiger and Tiger Shark trashing an empty Laundromat. Iron Man wins the brief tussle, but he learns the whole fight was a setup for Flying Tiger to livestream the battle. Flying Tiger’s admissions after the fight led Tony to believe his recent armor troubles are due to a subtle magic attack.

The purpose and outcome of the fight with Flying Tiger and Tiger Shark isn’t clear. Who hired them? What does any of this have to do with magic? Why and how are the tiger-adjacent villains livestreaming the fight without Tony noticing the camera setup in the middle of the street? This entire sequence appears to have no point other than to open Tony’s eyes to the fact that magical forces are against him, which wouldn’t be a problem if he were wearing his Mysterium armor.

Tony flies off to get his Mysterium armor, which he stores in an unguarded, unsecured, unmonitored Long Island warehouse. When he arrives, he’s immediately attacked by the purplish, Hulk-ish security guards from the workers’ rebellion at the beginning of the issue. After he quickly defeats the brutes, Tony is confronted by the real mastermind of his trouble – a resurrected Justine Hammer who took Tony’s unguarded, unsecured, unmonitored Mysterium armor and converted herself into the new Iron Monger, operating on behalf of the AIM/Roxxon joint venture. It’s unclear how and why Justine Hammer gets to walk away with the Mysterium armor as Stark property when it’s Tony’s private property.

The issue ends with Tony getting the stuffing knocked out of him. Justine takes a limo ride home to help complete the completely legal and shockingly quick acquisition of Stark Industries. Workers of the world, unite!

What’s great about Iron Man #1?

The highlight of this issue is the art. Julius Ohta has a cornucopia of scenes to stretch his artistic muscle, from fights with purple, hulk-ish security guards to wildly dramatic board meetings to an appearance of the Tiger Squad to a cool new variant of the Iron Monger armor. You get a little bit of everything in this buffet for the eyes.

What’s not great about Iron Man #1?

Spencer Ackerman’s main plot, execution, and understanding of Tony Stark are exactly what you would expect from a writer without experience writing Iron Man. This comic doesn’t star Iron Man. Iron Man #1 is the writer’s self-insert wearing a Tony Stark skin.

Given the fallout from Orchis and Krakoa, Tony would never leave his Mysterium armor unattended. Tony would never let his company get taken over by AIM and Roxxon so easily or without a fight. Tony would never allow weapons manufacturing to continue for the sake of saving jobs. Tony would never propose a gambling app to make money.

These are things Spencer Ackerman would do, but they are not things Tony Stark would do. And that’s the difference between a writer who can write an established IP and one who can’t.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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