A year ago Bendis said that he and Marvel wanted Iron Man to be Marve Comics' flagship hero, just like in the movies

Of course not. That would force him to pick up the pace so he could actually use them.

I'd say that Deadpool took Wolverine's place after he got his own movie.

Ironman is around #6 or #8.

>A bunch of brand new villains
>we only got 2 evil sisters and some generic techno-ninjas

Although to be fair, he's probably going to give the ones he's been saving to Riri.

I agree Deadpool is bigger than Iron Man now.
Besides, they seem to be giving up on Tony Stark as Iron Man now in the comics and this little chimp they have to replace him, is only gonna hurt his image more.
But I disagree with Deadpool replacing Wolverine. Now with Wolverine down, we can only talk about top 3 and not top 4 anymore. Superman, Batman, Spiderman and that's it.

>With Tony, you’d be hard pressed to come up with five. And go ahead and yell at me underneath this article, but Mandarin, Madam Masque, Whiplash, crickets.

I mean, Iron Man actually does have a lot of villains. Iron Man: Armored Adventures went in weird directions by making Tony, Pepper and Rhodey teenagers, but it did phenomenal work with Tony's villains.

All someone has to do is actually take those villains and do something with them. They're already interesting.

He made some chick who was a love interest of Tony's in his college years in International Iron Man. And that plot didn't really go anywhere either, since that book was entirely about finding out who his birth parents were. Which was also irrelevant and added nothing other than having another way of Bendis appealing to his SHIELD fetish by making them SHIELD agents like he randomly does most of the supporting cast in any of his given books.

Said lady didn't even have anything to do with the parentage plotline either and was clearly written out as an afterthought the second Bendis got bored with her. I don't even remember her name. I get the feeling Bendis doesn't, either.

And that's it. Some generic ninjas, and some generic "former lover". That's all Bendis did before deciding he'd rather not write Tony at all.

With Doom's upcoming book, Bendis is probably going to just have him fighting random heroes. With the one with Riri or whatever her name is, he's probably going to just have her talking 99% of the time, then fight some generic mooks once in a blue moon to justify having her in armor.

>His world hasn't opened up in the last few years
Brian, don't pretend like you've read literally a single issue of Iron Man in at least a decade.

And he has a good list of villains that were used surprisingly well by Fraction.
Aside from the ones he mentioned
>Crimson Dynamo
>Ghost
>Spymaster
>the Stane family
>Ultimo

And then you've got smaller guys like the Melter and Living Laser, and of course guys like Thanos, Drax, and Fin Fang Foom who went on to become bigger players in the MU.

A big part of why Iron Man isn't selling is that they put their worst goddamn artists on it, they jerk around the writer, they don't hype the book in crossovers, there's nothing about it that makes you want to pick it up off the stands, and Bendis hasn't fixed any of that except now the editor is his bitch instead of the other way around.

I guarantee this shit with the hot 12-year old black girl is gonna drive up sales by a lot. The controversy around it and the covers make people want to find out what is happening. We saw how it worked with Cap and Thor.

Wolverine is amazing to me how he was on his way to being ubiquitous and then the Avengers movie was so big it killed his momentum. A decade from now, your grandma won't know who the fuck Wolverine is but she'll still know who Iron Man and Thor are.

>Bendis and Marvel are too retarded to realize they own the rights to fucking Spider-Man.

Are these faggot for real?

Bendis doesn't follow comic book continuity, why must he follow real life continuity?

>>Crimson Dynamo
Which one?

I see a lot more people wearing Deadpool on their t-shirts than Logan nowadays.

>Deadpool is bigger than Iron Man now
Your high school friends are not representative of the whole world.

This only tracks 2013 which was when the Avengers were red hot following the first movie.

I'd be interested in an updated listing

Blizzard and Controller have potential too. Hell, even someone like Unicorn can be fun; I liked his Armored Adventures redesign a lot.

Fraction take on the mandarin was great.

The fact that Bendis forgot Ghost exists is a very good thing.

He probably doesn't know Ghost is an Iron Man villain and didn't somehow originate in a Thunderbolts comic, if he does know he exists at all.

This would be interesting to see how the sales changed. I'm guessing a decrease in Avengers merc, neutral Spider-Man sales, and a spike in Deadpool sales. I'm guessing Supes and Bats would be static too, but Flash would have an increase.

I didn't particularly like how he retconned the Mandarin's origin.

I guarantee you they're both going to have the same tired "NOT MUH ______" narrative Sam, Miles, and Jane are chained to.

Again, this is a good thing because that Ghost will never be written by Bendis.

A year later, Marvel's flagship hero is still far and away Spider-Man (and by extension the Spider family as a whole).

The fact is that outside of the movies, Iron Man has never mattered except as the designated villain of Civil War.

>With Doom's upcoming book, Bendis is probably going to just have him fighting random heroes.
I would bet money that in that book Doom will also fight Morgana. The Iron Man/Doom King Arthur story seems to be the ONLY Iron Man comic Bendis actually cares about. It's the only story from a previous Iron Man run he ever references, he's obsessed with it.

Hate to burst your bubble, but he used him in Invincible a while ago. It was a bit role, but it shows he knows he exists as an Ironman villian.

My grandma?
You mean my grandchildren?

Nah, MCU will not last so long and its hit movies, relying only on visual effects and not on plot or character, will not be classics.
And hopefully, almost surely in fact, Marvel will have been driven to bankruptcy, and almost every character that they created will have been forgotten and making a new Spider-Man movie (cause fuck the rest, nobody will even remember them) will be as interesting as making a Buck Rogers movie now.
And if that won't, and Marvel is somehow still alive, it will because it's going to be completely disneyfied and consumed into the disney universe and they're all gonna be about princesses saving their prince-in-distress, with songs and all.
Yeah, imagine that. Disney Princess Kamala Khan singing a beautiful song and the saving Spiderman from the wicked Dr. Doom, and there's somehow Mickey Mouse making a cameo there too or better yet, Walt Disney himself after he have been brought out from the ice.
Yeah, that's the only way Marvel stays alive in the future.

>Implying that half of Tony's rouges don't rip off Spidey's
Iron Man villains always sucked. Even some of his best arcs had some of the shittiest antagonists.

When you get to a point where a bottle of booze seems more menacing than guys in custom power armor, you know that something is wrong.

That was kind of Bendis' point, not how dismissive he was of all those characters. Bendis claimed that he was going to revamp Iron Man's Rogue Gallery by introducing a bunch of cool new villains.
He didn't, unless you found those techno-ninjas interesting, which I doubt.

>Also, his supporting cast outside of the Avengers and Pepper and Happy…what else is there?
Bendis confirmed for not having read any Iron Man comics in years. He's had plenty of supporting characters, it's just that as soon as a writer leaves they're cast aside. Bendis himself is guilty of this, where's Arno Stark?

>gave him his shittiest suits yet
>put the worst artists and writers on it
>then replace him with a black chick for SJW points

gee OP, I don't know, you tell me.

Happens with a lot of characters/teams really. Even the big ones like Superman, Spider-Man and Batman have any additions to their supporting cast axed in an ill guided attempt to "simplify" things.

>relying only on visual effects and not on plot or character

Nigga, the fact that they had good visual effects, AND decent characters was the reason Guardians of the Galaxy didn't turn into a Green Lantern-shaped flop.

They're making directors and writer collaborate with each other so they can tell a cohesive story across all their movies. You can argue about the quality, but you can't say they only care about putting Special effects in their movies..

>almost every character that they created will have been forgotten

If nobody forgot the old Superfriends tv show, they're sure as hell not forgetting all of Marvel's characters

>Marvel is somehow still alive, it will because it's going to be completely disneyfied and consumed into the disney universe

Disney doesn't like directly crossing over stuff from other companies outside of toys and disneyland merch. That's why Disney Infinity failed; none of the cross-media characters could interact with each other's playsets.

And out of curiosity, how long will it be before this scenario you hypothesized goes down?

Just steal the origin and designs of all the villains in that teenage iron man show.
They were all really good.

>He’s got some kick-ass villains, but only a couple.
>With Tony, you’d be hard pressed to come up with five. And go ahead and yell at me underneath this article, but Mandarin, Madam Masque, Whiplash, crickets.

Ghost and Fin Fang Foom.
I don't even READ Iron Man and I know those two. Fuck, I knew them before I knew Mandarin and Whiplash.

If Bendis was sensible he'd limit the "not muh" with Doom to focus on the reactions from other heroes, and not do it with Riri because she's not even Iron Man.
But that would require Bendis to not be Bendis.
I actually kind of like how Spencer did it with Sam; he's not getting the "NOT MUH" because he's a black guy or because he's not Steve, he's getting it because he's a guy with outspoken political views.

Spider-man. F4 and X-men used to be the 3 pillars of marvel
these days its 2 pillars, Spider-man and ''Heroe vs Heroe'' events

Wolverine is still bigger than Deadpool and Iron Man. Even with him being MIA in comics, hes still well known enough by the general populace

Oh I agree, I hate some stuff about the run, but that bit, that's fine.

Bendis has too much white guilt not to do it. He made Flash lash out at Miles for wearing Spider-Man's costume, even though the he himself almost called himself Spider-Man when he first put on the symbiote, and had no problems with Kaine wearing a similar costume.

Not him, but Tony has always been an A-list hero that should be B-list.
They tried reinventing him with The Crossing but that didn't work.
They tried replacing him with Teen Tony but that didn't work.
They tried reinventing him with Civil War but that didn't work.
And now they're most likely going to kill him or put him out of commission with Civil War II

having SHIELD agents as parents is like being an avenger now, means nothing.

>Did he accomplish any of these goals?

Iron Man is completely inconsequential in his own series.
He is about to be replaced by Doctor Doom and a fifteen-year-old girl.
The only classic villain he has used so far is Madame Masque and it was shite.
He introduced a new love interest and drove them apart just as fast.
He came up with the least interesting new villain I have ever seen.

Bendis is setting new records. Fraction was just four-and-a-half years of slow torture. Gillen was hope, which then dimmed. Taylor wasn't given NEARLY enough time to do his thing.

But Bendis? Bendis has succeeded in making me not hate the title Iron Man, but simply not caring at all anymore.

Not so long as he is around.

Wonder Woman is much more well-known than Wolverine

Is Tony gonna be in Riri's book? like mentoring or something

This. I've never seen any series work wonders with as many crappy villains as that show did.

I fucking loved that weird Predator thing they did with Titanium Man's armor. It just screamed "Iron Man isn't gonna be able to deal with this guy".

>Iron Man is completely inconsequential in his own series.
What was the point of him faking his death again?

user, just look at sales. Deadpool books sell insanely high. ASM is the only non-star wars book that consistently outsells it.

You'll probably find it by checking the source(s), I doubt they stopped tracking containers.

That's some sad bait.

Yeah, as an AI.

which time? civil war 2 spoilers

In the Iron Man series, he fakes his own death as part of a plan to take down some techno ninjas, even though I really don't see why he needed to do that.

>He also said that one of his mission statements was to fix Iron Man's rogues gallery
It doesnt need any fixing, it needs to be used.
So fat he only used Madame Maske and he didn´t really do anything great with her.

> He’s probably the most well-known super hero in the world alongside Batman.
As one of the few people that actually likes Iron Man, nope, not even close. He´s not exactly obscure, but not Batman-tier of popular. Though I´m pretty sure he knew he was exagerating there.

>. And go ahead and yell at me underneath this article, but Mandarin, Madam Masque, Whiplash, crickets.
Firebrand, Ghost, Zeke, the Controller, Alex Niven(back then), Justin Hammer and so on.

>Also, his supporting cast outside of the Avengers and Pepper and Happy…what else is there?
Bethany freaking Cabe for starters? Even Fraction remembered her.

>They tried reinventing him with The Crossing but that didn't work.
>They tried replacing him with Teen Tony but that didn't work.
Those two were the same move user.

>He’s probably the most well-known super hero in the world alongside Batman.
LOL No. I also find it hilarious they're willing to downplay Spider-Man.

I´m actually surprised Iron Man is that high, but considering Groot´s even there I really shouldnt.

Bendis's editor Tom Brevoort also said that Iron Man was the flagship book of ANAD Marvel. They were going all out to make Tony Stark popular at last.

I think Bendis or his editors or both were deluded, because Iron Man has never been a top-tier comics character, ever. He's never been shit-tier sales either, but he's solidly in the middle.

They thought they could do what the movies did but Robert Downey Jr. has more personality than any comic book character can have. You can't just put Bendis-speak balloons on a page and expect people to care as much about this guy as they care about an actual charismatic human being.

It should be noted that Spider-man is spelled incorrectly, which makes his percentage share inaccurate, and that this list only tracks results in the US.

Spider-Man is Marvel's only MVP. They're whole attitude to "Let's downplay him and try to put Tony up for move synergy" is fucking retarded.

Since we're talking about popularity, can you help me recognize those heroes?

It's from the first page of the manga My little hero academia, and tells that a comic book-like life is possible now, and show some known supes.

Ultraman, Kamen Rider, spiderman, wolverine, but i don't know the others and wonder why there is no batman.

It used to be Spider-Man for the "local" stuff in NYC, X-Men for your "political issue of the month" plot in USA, and F4 for a mix of local, global, and galactic threats.

Captain America was probably #4, and did a mix of "threats to USA" and "political issue of the month" stuff.

As for most well-known superheroes, I think it goes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and Captain America.

Spider-man and x-men were the well known in Europe, at least those 20 last years.

But i would say spider-man, he always has been a strong hero since the 60', able to beat all the others, or at least, not being defeted

Who is kamen rider according to you?
The one below Spidey is Devilman

Am I crazy or is this supposed to be Mr. Knight

I bet it's fake Ultron.

you know what would make iron man interesting? make him a real threat to doctor doom

this would bring Doom down from the clouds a little bit, and push Tony to the limit, it would be a great mirror match, with Tony constantly having to find ways to beat magic, resources, diplomacy, willpower and keikaku of Doom

I can't think of a single good story about these two actually fighting each other, it seems Tony is smart enough to not challenge Doom to his face

Thanks for devilman, the guy under superman is ultraman

I don't think it is.

But i think that this little sniper of comic is quite representative of hero's image in japan.

Why the fuck does Marvel focus so heavily on Iron Man nowadays? He doesnt even sell well anymore.

Spider-Man is the obvious flag ship. Even when he wasng in the MCU he was still above any Avengers character in terms of notability. Hes one of the only characters whose classic comic book depictions are arguably MORE popular than his live action.

>Why the fuck does Marvel focus so heavily on Iron Man nowadays?
Why do you ask when you know the answer?

They thought they could do what they did with the Avengers in 2005, take a book that had been popular but not hugely well known and make it the flagship of the whole Marvel universe. It doesn't happen so much now but after Bendis launched his Avengers team you'd see them turn up in every book and they'd be the star of every event. And this was before they even started pissing on X-Men because of the movie rights.

I think adding other characters from other series to Iron Man was supposed to do what they did by adding Spider-Man and Wolverine to the Avengers. It doesn't work because the Avengers at least have a plausible reason to be the flagship book. Iron Man doesn't.

Not the same but I feel they could, now that Doom is a good guy, revive the Mandarin and make him the "new" Doom for a while. At least before Doom returns to his usual antics and the F4 are back.

>Why the fuck does Marvel focus so heavily on Iron Man nowadays?
His MCU version is one of their most popular heroes in movies. And they care more about that than comics. It´s their usual mistake of thinking movie goers=comic readers (despite making movies different to the comics).

Marvel looks at the mid-tier sales and thinks "why can't he be as popular for us as he is for the MCU?" It doesn't occur to them that "because the MCU popularity is the result of good timing and casting the right guy" is the answer.

The top 3 are irrefutably Batman, Spider-man, and Superman ins some order.

Whoever's 4th is a distant 4th but I would argue it to be either Captain America or Wonder Woman over Wolverine.

How long has the Mandarin been dead?

He died a bit before Marvel Now!, so about 4 years I think.

Extremis

Morgana is still trapped in the past iirc.

I would be ok with this though tbqh

>Morgana is still trapped in the past iirc.
She isn't, she showed up in Fearless Defenders and in Avengers World.

Top to bottom, sans the one on the upper right who I don't recognize:

Wolverine
Superman
Spider-man
Moonlight Mask
Ultraman
Devilman

Oh. Well, even yet, the Morgana stupidity is one of the few things of Benis I've enjoyed.

...

I'm talking about public awareness outside of comics.

but hes a rich Cis-White-Male

those can't be heroes

>Pepper and Happy
I'm surprised that Happpy has managed to stay dead for 10 years despite being in movies.

He didnt have that much of a role in the movies.

The thing about Iron Man's Rouge's gallery is that they'd be GREAT bosos fights for a Platinum-style video game. As far as comics go, they're pretty shit.

That's why I keep saying that Iron Man needs an actually decent vidya title for his Rogues gallery to get a chance to shine.

>As far as comics go, they're pretty shit.
underage pls

Not only did Bendis not accomplish a single one of those goals, he wrote one of the most forgettable stories Iron Man has had in ages - an incredible feat, considering the competition - AND he's writing Tony Stark out of his own book.

This is like setting a goal to read your entire textbook before the semester is out and instead you end up not even buying the damn thing to begin with.

>Not only did Bendis not accomplish a single one of those goals
He didn´t even fail, he didn´t even start to try.

was meant to

that's 100% true, though.

The only salvageable one is the Mandarin, but he's dead now and if I'm being honest, I only liked him during the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. arc. maybe ghost, too.

Every other threat to Iron Man has always either been other people's rogues, crossover events, or the Gubmint/Military industrial complex getting on his ass.

>that's 100% true, though.
No, that´s just what people used to pretentious joker stories like to think.

>Every other threat to Iron Man has always either been other people's rogues, crossover events, or the Gubmint/Military industrial complex getting on his ass.
Or, you know, the Stanes, Ghost, the dynamos, the titanium man, the controller, etc.
Just because your knowledge is based off movies doesnt mean it applies to the comics.

Most of Iron Man's rogues' gallery comes from Stan Lee working with artists who weren't Kirby or Ditko, so there is something less than inspiring about them, plus a lot of them had to be separated from the Cold War.

Daredevil has an even worse rogues' gallery but he stays afloat by borrowing villains from Spider-Man (like the Kingpin) and beating up on organized crime and such.

>Iron Man fights a guy who walks across the country.
>Tony is made to feel bad for making weapons for the 1897th time.
>American Super hero comics by a writer who hates Americans & Super heros.

It sounds more like you're getting your info from wiki rather than reading comics.

>Most of Iron Man's rogues' gallery comes from Stan Lee working with artists who weren't Kirby or Ditko, so there is something less than inspiring about them
...and?

>plus a lot of them had to be separated from the Cold War.
..and? So had Iron Man, or many Marvel characters for that matter.

Even though Marvel is on okay terms with Sony and has the advantage in the deal, they'd still rather make a character they own all rights to as their successful merchandised character.

see >top superheroes by online toys and apparel sales
>Wonder Woman: 4.5%
>Wolverine: 0.8%

I feel like this suit could be good if they just drawed it correctly

>But Bendis? Bendis has succeeded in making me not hate the title Iron Man, but simply not caring at all anymore.

No wonder they resort to "controversial" stunts. They can't seem to hold interest in the regular way.

>so they can tell a cohesive story across all their movies
Time skips and name drops between movies don't make them cohesive.

Nope Spymaster is one of Marvel's best villains but you probably don't even know who he is

If they did more with White Ghost, Blizzard, Melter, Living Laser, or Crimson Dynamo for that matter then maybe I would care. Problem is that there are only so many stories you can tell with "Why did I build this? Its only hurts people" or "Guy wants Stark tech".

The point was that they are at least putting out a good effort.

benis doesnt care about continuity to remember what he said a year ago

Literally not a single person cares about WW outside US.

>marvel in charge of video games

>>American Super hero comics by a writer who hates Americans & Super heroes, but is supremely good at writing them.
ftfy
It ain't fair bros.

I do.

reported

I think he meant that their continuity isn't a clusterfuck like fox-men.

>hating Ellis because of a hat

Fuck off Trumpcuck

>the Stanes
Zeke is a fucking joke, stop lying to yourself. While I'm, at it, so is Sasha.

And no, Titanium man, while an occasional mild threat, was unfortunately never actually interesting enough to be a presence beyond an incidental menance.

Stop trying to sell Iron Man's rogues as anything more than they are. They suck and all the decent ones are dead (and even then, they weren't THAT great.) The rest of them are, as I said, potentially good boss fights at best and have barely anything to offer from an actual narrative perspective.

So? The claim was "More people know Wolverine than Wonder Woman", not "I hate Wonder Woman so I'll say that literally no one gives a fuck about her outside the US."

>And no, Titanium man, while an occasional mild threat, was unfortunately never actually interesting enough to be a presence beyond an incidental menance.
Someone hasnt read the original Titanium man arc it seems.

>Stop trying to sell Iron Man's rogues as anything more than they are. They suck and all the decent ones are dead (and even then, they weren't THAT great.) The rest of them are, as I said, potentially good boss fights at best and have barely anything to offer from an actual narrative perspective.
Fuck off, you only think they suck because they didnt write stuff like the killing joke with them, you´d say the same about Batman´s rogues gallery without pretentious stuff like that.
If you actually like cape comics, they´re fine.

what is the problem?
the game supposed to be made fun of itself

my bad

>marvel in charge of video games

I'd say Captain America, but Spider-Man is probably the better answer

Captain America was never the flagship character.

>Fuck off, you only think they suck because they didnt write stuff like the killing joke with them

You do realize that's kind of a roundabout, hyperbolic way admitting they really don't have much to offer, right? Yeah, they've never written anything like Killing Joke, but even if they wanted to, they can't because as it stands, the villains don't have much going for them aside from a grudge against Tony Stark. Aside from the Mandarin There's not much in the way of a clash of ideals, dogma, or even force of will; Very few of them have anything tying them to Tony Stark aside from a hate-boner for the guy (sometimes a very justifiable one.) You'd need to create a new villain entirely to serve as the idealistic opposite to Tony Stark that can deliver a good conflict.

There's a good reason the only interesting Iron Man story arc as of late is the one where Tony HIMSELF is the villain and his past backup of his brain is trying to stop him alongside his friends. The idea of Tony Stark confronting a version of himself that's seduced by the power, money, and influence he wields was actually pretty tense.

On that note, I actually think Killing Joke is mildly overrated. I respect it for what it set out to do and achieved, but it was very heavy handed with it's presentation and the pacing was rather jarring. In a narrative vacuum, it's great, but in comparison to other Batman story arcs, it just felt like far too much was happening too fast. But then again the movie added shit to pad it out and it was awful

>it just felt like far too much was happening too fast
I think it;s overrated, but It's how comics should be paced. Back when comics weren't decompressed to fit a one or two issue story into six to twelve issues.

>You do realize that's kind of a roundabout, hyperbolic way admitting they really don't have much to offer, right?
..no? not at all, you could say the same about every batman or spider-man villain, and you can still do so for most.

>Aside from the Mandarin There's not much in the way of a clash of ideals, dogma, or even force of will; Very few of them have anything tying them to Tony Stark aside from a hate-boner for the guy (sometimes a very justifiable one.) You'd need to create a new villain entirely to serve as the idealistic opposite to Tony Stark that can deliver a good conflict.
You´ve bought into the idea that a super hero comic can only be good if there´s a deeper connection between the hero and the villain. That´s the current approach, yeah, but not the only one. Not to mention that they could do something like what you want with IM´s villains if they actually tried. There´s nothing inherent on them that doesnt allow that. Read Joker, Luthor and Magneto´s first appearances for instance.

>There's a good reason the only interesting Iron Man story arc as of late is the one where Tony HIMSELF is the villain and his past backup of his brain is trying to stop him alongside his friends.
That´s because the recent writers were shit, I agree on that, but it´s not what we´re discussing. Not to mention the classic IM villains werent even in most of those so you can´t really make a point about them based off recent ongoings.

>There's a good reason the only interesting Iron Man story arc as of late is the one where Tony HIMSELF is the villain and his past backup of his brain is trying to stop him alongside his friends. The idea of Tony Stark confronting a version of himself that's seduced by the power, money, and influence he wields was actually pretty tense.
This. Superior Iron Man was fucking superb while it lasted, but I think it's superiority is a symptom of a bigger issue; A friend of mine put it best; Tony Stark is far too competent for his own villains. The issue is the majority of his villains are more or less tech based, and since Tony's tech is out of their league more often than not, Tony himself is out of their league. It's like Batman, but without the interesting quirks that make them fun and interesting.

>Mr. Moon.

Sold, send me a link.

>Aside from the Mandarin There's not much in the way of a clash of ideals, dogma, or even force of will
What clash of ideals, dogma or force of will is there with Mandarin either?

I mean I've been wracking my brain from some time now trying to figure out WHY he is supposed to be Tony's archnemesis and tbf I've got nothing.

>WHY he is supposed to be Tony's archnemesis
That´s the thing though, he just is.
Joker, Luthor and many others werent originally the opposites of their heroes, they were just villains that the hero faced, it was later attempts at making them "deep" that introduced the kind of connections you now expect from their portrayals. You´re just too used with the way things are now.

I don't really buy that, but even if I did, that would simply mean that they evolved to their current position of archnemesis. Mandarin... hasn't.

Don't get me wrong, I don't really think every villain HAS to be "deep", and in fact I think villains are the least important thing about the story of Tony Stark.But Mandarin is often referred to as his greatest nemesis, and I think there needs to be SOMETHING there for him to attain that status.

>US online shops
Yeah I was thinking there's no way Supes is that high worldwide
>Ultron
Wtf

...

>Nothing’s missing from the character of Tony, but what’s missing from around Tony is a deep rogues gallery. He’s got some kick-ass villains, but only a couple. Where Spider-Man and all these others—you could do a top 50. With Tony, you’d be hard pressed to come up with five. And go ahead and yell at me underneath this article, but Mandarin, Madam Masque, Whiplash, crickets. And yes, I love Blackout as much as the next person, but you know. This became interesting to me. Also, his supporting cast outside of the Avengers and Pepper and Happy…what else is there? His world hasn’t opened up in the last few years.

Go fuck yourself Bendis.

I used to stick up for this asshole because Ultimate Spider-Man is a run that is very near and dear to my heart but passive aggressively throwing Fraction under the bus and ignoring what he did and added to the mythos is a crock of shit. Kieron Gillen just flopped around but don't ignore Fractions shit and the interesting supporting cast he created.

Well I mean if they look over at DC they must think "if their billionaire non-powered asshole sells so well, why can't ours?"

Supes is still seen as The superhero worldwide. He's been influencing ripoffs since the 70s.

Robin and Wonder Woman?

Top left is Spawn, Mid right is Superman, bot left is Spidey followed by Mr. Knight. Fuck knows about the other two.

He is but that doesn't mean people like him or buy his merch outside of dudebros buying t-shirts to go to the gym.

It's taken a massive hit because of OMD/OMIT. Those halved readers and Peter used to have multiple titles for himself, not including team ups or teams he was a featured member. Now he's got Slott running that shit into the ground, even though this current run of ASM is better than the last, but that's not saying much.

But yeah movie rights cut his comic exposure down as well. It'll be interesting to see if Marvel tries to push him harder. They already expanded his line. I'm not sure if Spidey is still going, basically Spider-man Confidential.

>A year ago Bendis said that he and Marvel wanted Iron Man to be Marve Comics' flagship hero, just like in the movies.
Boy, is he late to the party. The era of the manlet is over.

they should had used wonder woman, not diana prince

What if they gave Ironman an armor that could construct defenses and armaments based on any metahuman he comes in direct contact with, Megaman style.

Would that make him more popular?

>I don't really buy that, but even if I did, that would simply mean that they evolved to their current position of archnemesis.
Under your conception of what it makes a good archnemesis.

Personally, I like the approach of just two people that became archnemesis of each other after multiple encounters instead of because of their conceptions. It's even more realistic, in a way.

but he was the best part of Civil War

>They already expanded his line. I'm not sure if Spidey is still going
Yeah, it is. And now it's not drawn like shit.

I don't se why. His armor is already versatile btw.

Sure, but he barely used it's full versatility in Bendis' entire run.

Man, the more I think about it, the more it seems like Bendis just wanted a black person to live out the rest of the Ironman story he had planned for Tony.

Yeah, RDJ really is the best asset the MCU has, as the Russos proved. Evans has charisma that works really well as Cap, but RDJ can give a scene a level of weight that no script can.

Right now he is because of the movies. Amongst normies he's arguably the most popular of the Avengers.

I'll give you Thor, those readers are complete morons, but the Cap being a Nazi controversy didn't help sales at all.

There's a reason they wanted Downey to have the big scene with the new Peter Parker and it's not just plot-related. They knew we'd like this new guy if he could act with Downey and hold his own.

Evans is doing a good job as Cap but he doesn't have Downey's presence.

It really just sounds like Bendis doesn't get there are no bad characters, only bad writers. Any villain can be a new fan favourite in the right story.

I've only read a hand full of his Iron Man comics but if his 'new and revamped' villains are anything like his Guardians ones, they probably aren't going to catch on. Hala, another Accuser out for revenge (like Ronan's mostly boring characterisation in the film!) just shows up and attacks everyone. They fight three issues and then another person just shows up to fight too. So much 'action' but nothing is really happening.

Reading through this thread has brought up a lot of good points about Tony's character. Originally, he was a challenge by Stan Lee to make a character his audience wouldn't like (a narcissistic capitalist), likeable. Literally, writing hard-mode.

With this in mind, I think actually interesting, ideological opposite villains are beyond Marvel in their current strategy: they would be extremely left-wing, the very people Marvel is pandering to so hard. This worked in the cold war, when Russian villains made for easy freedom/capitalism vs hive/socialism conflicts, but not now that the left is their focus.

The movies are superficial indicators of icon status. Movies indicate what's popular right now, and what's "trending" in social media. But they have no bearing on how people will remember these characters decades from now. Iron Man sells movie tickets, sure. But no one has a theme song they hum to themselves when they think of him. Arc reactor t-shirts are already outdated thanks to Iron Man 3, which further removes the Iron Man property from iconic symbolism.

What does a kid wear to pretend to be Iron Man?

Ok, instead of arguing about Bendis, why don't people post their favorite Iron Man stories.

I ask because I haven't even read from before Extremis.

The Ironman Halloween costumes on sale right now at local stores?

Then maybe you should stick to Cred Forums.

Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four are the pillars of Marvel. With Captain America sneaking in at a weak forth due to him being the only Golden Age Marvel character who people enjoy.

>But no one has a theme song they hum to themselves when they think of him.

youtube.com/watch?v=Y63i2NR9-LE

Does The Initiative count? I liked how Fraction's The Order lead into his run on IM.

I live outside of the US and more people recognise Wonder Woman than they do Wolverine.

It's interesting to think just how big Spider-Man is.
Normies know about Miles, that's how big Spider-Man is. Nobody knew that Batman died, and that the original Robin took over. But everyone knows that Peter died, and that Miles took over.

People around the world know about Spider-Man. Why does Marvel not realize they should be pushing the fuck out of him? They even have joint-custody of his movie rights now.

Fuck you, I hum Driving with the Top Down all the time and sometimes make metal footfall noises under my breath when I'm walking briskly.

Besides, you really can't do any of the abovce with any of the other heroes, either. Short of T-shirts, I guess, but the arc reactor hasn't lost it's relevance simply because IM3 removed it. People still know what it is.

It'll be interesting to see if Marvel decides to go back to teen-Peter with the release of his solo movie.

>Why does Marvel not realize they should be pushing the fuck out of him? They even have joint-custody of his movie rights now.
They are. There's even rumors floating around about Tom Holland co-starring in Iron Man 4, now.

I rather like the majority of Volumes 3 and 4. That's around the time Iron Man started modernizing and becoming closer to what we know of him now.

What's she called in your language?

Where are you specifically? I am just curious.

>60's Spider-Man theme
Spectacular too, honestly
>60's Batman (Adam West) theme
>Reeves Superman

Spidey, Batman and Supes have timeless costumes and equipment. Marvel and DC can market Spider-Man webshooters, Superman capes and Batman equipment on the basis that they're Spider-Man, Superman and Batman. The same can't be said about Iron Man, the only thing that sells is his mask.

Iron Man whiskey when?

When Marvel Studios gets over their fear of making a mature movie.

Goodwin's run
Mantlo's run
Michelinie-Layton's run (the acclaimed demon in a bottle is from here, also the armor wars. Rhodey and Bethany Cabe are also introduced here)
Enter the Mandarin
The Iron Age
The other Iron Age(yes, there are two unrelated stories with the same name)
Some people really like Fraction's run. I never did, but I'm planning to re-read it eventually now that it's all over.

The reason why is because they don't realise how basic a character Batman is. And I don't mean that in a bad way I mean that in a good way.

Batman is essentially just an avenging angel. He fights villains who do really basic shit, like shot people with a gun. One can easily see the horror of what Batman fights. And because Batman is a basic character writers are able do to a lot with him because he is so basic.

Iron Man however is a far more complicated character who doesn't have a core elemental mythos. As such you can't do as much with the character. And it's why Iron Man I is the only good Iron Man movie because the origin story of Iron Man is kind of the totality of Iron Man stories. Sure Demon in the Bottle and Extremis are also good Iron Man stories, but Demon in the Bottle doesn't really have anything unique to Iron Man in it, and could have been about nearly any character without a healing factor.

Extremis is probably the only other Iron Man story which works because it asks a basic question about the human condition and our reliance on technology. But can all Iron Man stories be that?

>doesn't have a core elemental mythos
>durr I havent seen his origin in 5 movies, therefore, he doesnt have a mythos

>And it's why Iron Man I is the only good Iron Man movie because the origin story of Iron Man is kind of the totality of Iron Man stories.
>not liking IM2
>being this much of a casual

> but Demon in the Bottle doesn't really have anything unique to Iron Man in it, and could have been about nearly any character without a healing factor.
So, a basic character like Batman?

>Sure Demon in the Bottle and Extremis are also good Iron Man stories
IM2 and IM3 take things from those, why arent those good then?

I wish they would use this in the movies.

This is very fucking true.

A couple of panels of Kite-Man in King's run on Batman has made me care more about Kite-Man than I ever have about a single Iron Man villain barring the Mandarin.

Wonder Woman. Shockingly enough people speak English outside of the United States.

New Zealand.

This part was so awesome and I don't even know why

At least this exists

youtube.com/watch?v=LOFaJZitdho

I enjoyed Busiek's run though it never quite achieved greatness (Sean Chen's art was not very exciting), plus he had to farm out the dialogue to other writers in the second year. But I enjoyed seeing Tony portrayed as a jet-set globetrotting hero and an all-around nice guy for once, plus seeing him help Carol with her alcoholism was a nice reversal.

Sum up Iron Man in a sentence. Don't sum up Tony Stark sum up Iron Man.

Batman is summed up as Avenging Angel. That's it. Iron Man isn't as basic a trope, and basic tropes are important for any form of fiction.

This isn't a Marvel v DC thing either. This is an Iron Man is too convuluted a character thing to have the same legs as other characters. Fuck even other Avengers are as easily summed up:

>Captain America: Super Soldier
>Hulk: Grosteque Hero
>Thor: Divine Guardian
>Iron Man: billionaire asshole industrialist who was captured by terrorists and made a suit of super armor to escape and realised he should be an asshole and be an arms dealer.

I'm not being flippant I'm actually wondering if there's an easier way to describe Iron Man.

Power armor

Underrated post.

I think that's one issue with IM, the suit doesn't have much personality. It could be flying around by itself and it would pretty much be the same.

It's part of why they keep cutting away to RDJ inside the suit.

That's an unfair question because for all the other characters listed, they are just those characters.

Steve Rogers IS Captain America
Bruce Banner IS Hulk
Thor IS THOR
Tony Stark -IS- Iron Man. He isn't like Batman where Bruce Wayne is his own character, his own persona.

Iron Man is a Billionaire, Playboy Philanthropist.

Whoa not only are you agreeing with a retard, you're adding your own dose.

>He isn't like Batman where Bruce Wayne is his own character,
Do you actually read comics or base your entire knowledge of them on a kill bill quote?

To retards like us, the non-retarded look retarded.

>Do you actually read comics
Do you? Bruce Wayne and Batman have been entirely different personalities for as long as I can remember.

There is no distinguishing difference between Tony Stark and Iron Man, similar to Steve Rogers and Captain America.

>Bruce Wayne and Batman have been entirely different personalities for as long as I can remember.
YOu mean when he's posing as Bruce Wayne, or BW having arcs of his own? Becuase he doesnt get more than other characters on that department. Heck, the point of one of the Brubaker-Rucka-Grayson's run was to give Bruce more of a character.

>There is no distinguishing difference between Tony Stark and Iron Man
That's why no one else wore the Iron Man armor right? Or why people dont care so much about RDJ's performance on the movies?

It's fine if you dont like comics, or if you dont like Iron Man, it really is, but you keep making up excuses as to why Iron Man is supposed to be inferior to the others based on applying different reasoning to him and the rest.

At least you dropped the retarded "describe him in two words" thing.

>It's fine if you dont like comics, or if you dont like Iron Man, it really is, but you keep making up excuses as to why Iron Man is supposed to be inferior to the others based on applying different reasoning to him and the rest.

>At least you dropped the retarded "describe him in two words" thing.

I feel as if you're not the user I was replying to, and you're angry at the wrong person.

I was trying to say that Iron Man isn't anything more like that user was trying to say. Iron Man as everyone knows him is one and the same as Tony Stark. To describe one is to describe the others.

I get that other people have been Iron Man, but we're not talking about those Iron Men.

The best part? Robert Downey Jr. came up with the idea of the glove and helped choreograph the fight scene, working Wing Chun in.

> Iron Man as everyone knows him is one and the same as Tony Stark. To describe one is to describe the others.
Yes, Iron Man is Tony Stark when he's not super heroing, they reveal it on his first appearance.

>I get that other people have been Iron Man, but we're not talking about those Iron Men.
>Iron Man=Tony Stark
>except when he isnt

Jesus fuck you're dense.

>Sum up Iron Man in a sentence.
"Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world."

Iron Man is the power of invention, the ability of man to create tools in order to shape the world.

I'm not. That's what you're saying. Tony and Iron Man are the same character for the same reason every other super hero with dual identity is.

probably meant to be Moonlight Mask; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_Mask

This shit is fucking great.

remember when Wolverine had 2 monthlies, over a dozen random one shots and was on 3 different teams?

>replaced by Doom and some thot barely 8 months after the so called push

Where did it all go so wrong?

I'd say Spider-man was and is above Wonder Woman, honestly.

Arc reactor shirt

I loved what the Knauf's did after Civil War, and the first 20 or so issues of Fraction's run.

No comic book writer at Marvel knows how to tell a fucking story!

You obviously have never read Michelinie's Iron Man run if you think this. You haven't even read Demon in a Bottle. Fucking hell man. The only thing worse than a casual is a casual who thinks he has some revolutionary insight on comics.

>ctrl+f: Spymaster
>2 results

He's Iron Man's best villain and deserves a bigger role now that Iron Man is getting a push. Although I don't really want Bendis to use him.
He's so great because he's one of those villains that can go in any story, he can be a terrifying corporate assassin trying to stop the release of some cancer drug that would save lives at the expense of profits, or a cartoonish villain wearing a 100% accurate Ben Grimm costume doing a perfect impersonation in order to fuck with the FF while on the payroll of Doctor Doom. I think that's the mark of a good comic book villain, versatility.