![]() ![]() ![]() The run kicks off with this $1.25 double-sized first issue, which gives Michelinie, Bob Layton, and M.D. The story was still a success in its two primary goals: 1) "a rip-roaring adventure, with Iron Man pitted against some of the most unique and powerful villains in the Marvel universe" and 2) "the emotional conflict" of Stark feeling the anguish of his inventions used for evil and instead of only fighting when threatened, deciding "to go LOOKING for trouble", which winds up putting him in conflict with friends and other good guys. For story purposes i'd rather see Iron Man going up against those characters than, say, the Seekers or Chance, even though it's those latter day armored characters that i'd rather see disappeared. And while Stilt-Man may be silly and some might say the same of the Beetle, there was no way the rest of those characters were going away permanently. It does almost (but not quite) see the end of the Mauler and the Raiders, but mostly it tackles characters like Stilt-Man, the Beetle, the Controller, the Crimson Dynamo, and Titanium Man. In that regard it's similar to the Scourge storyline and other efforts during the Shooter era to do away with some of the peripheral characters and concepts at Marvel, but in this the story was least successful. It's also said that an added bonus of this storyline is that it allowed Marvel to "help trim down the number of armored characters that some felt were beginning to over-populate" the Marvel universe. To be sure, this isn't a crossover event like the Mutant Massacre this is just an extended Important storyline, closer to, say, Born Again or Kraven's Last Hunt. And it's also a look into the changing times of the late 80s where simply having top creators (if, perhaps, at this point, seemingly "old school" in comparison to the likes of Marc Silvestri and Todd McFarlane) on a book was no longer a guarantee of interest surely Frank Miller's first Daredevil run or even Michelinie and Layton previous Iron Man run didn't have to be promoted as an "event" in order to garner acclaim. It's interesting, in the post-Shooter era of 1990 when this intro was written, to see Michelinie giving credit to Shooter for the basic story idea here. Shooter responded that Marvel needed an "event" in order to promote it, and then came up with the idea behind the Armor Wars plotline, wherein someone gives Tony Stark's armor designs to his enemies, and Iron Man therefore feels responsible for the acts of the villains and becomes proactively goes about stopping them, with his more aggressive actions putting him in conflict with the law and other heroes. The introduction to my Armor Wars trade paperback, written by David Michelinie, describes a lunch meeting where Michelinie and Layton complained to Jim Shooter about the lack of publicity and press that they were getting over their return to the Iron Man title.
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