Marvel’s new Iron Man series looks set to be a kind of soft reboot for the character. The book follows in the wake of Iron Man 2020, a tale featuring Arno Stark (Tony’s adoptive brother) seizing the mantle and Tony at the forefront of a synthetic life revolution. After that, writer Christopher Cantwell and artist CAFU seem determined to bring him back to basics, showing Stark doing hands-on superhero work and fewer stories about him being a global celebrity.
All of this comes with a new suit, too. Designed by comics legend Alex Ross, this pulls back from the tech-focused sharp lines of Adi Granov and the MCU designs and goes for something that’ll be familiar to longtime fans of the character.
Check it out below:
The defined musculature makes it as much ‘man’ as ‘iron’ and seems to be taking inspiration from classic appearances, various pre-MCU cartoon series and (at least to my eye) his design in classic Capcom fighting games.
This is echoed in Cantwell’s comments on the run, too, as he said:
“I’m over the moon about getting a shot at writing the Golden Avenger. Since Bob Layton’s art in the 1980s captured my imagination as a kid, I’ve been fascinated by Iron Man, and in this new story run, I’m aiming to explore the question: who should Iron Man be today? An angel? A god? Or just a humble man? Tony’s going to try and strip the idea of Iron Man all the way down to its metal core, something that will constantly be at odds with his giant ego. We’ll see if he can truly keep his arrogant self-image in check, even as others with god complexes set their sights on the entire universe.”
Iron Man fans were understandably distraught when Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark bit the dust in Avengers: Endgame last year – a death that looks to be pretty damn permanent (cameos via flashbacks or as an AI notwithstanding). As such, it’s likely to be some time before we see another Iron Man on the big screen.
So, cool-sounding runs like this should see some solid attention, with the elements potentially being remixed into future live-action Iron Man projects. There’s no exact release date for the series just yet, but it’s locked in for sometime in September 2020.