Extremis discussion

When I read Extremis in the context of Iron Man stories before and after I realized how it completely ignored the continuity. (I tried to read all Iron Man stories in existence. It was.... interesting.)

It completely ignored everything that happened right before - Tony had a Japapese girlfriend for many years (they wanted to marry, then they didn't, then they did again), and she died in a horrible way.

He was an actual Secretary of Defense (in a below-average story, written by the guy who runs comichron). He had arguments with Pepper and Happy about... stuff.

And there were some more stories of various terribleness in the previous run - some of them OK, some of them super shit (Sons of Yinsen, that was so cringeworthy that I wanted to storytime it).

That was all ignored for Extremis.

Also, the story that came right after that tried to use Extremis characters slightly more in-continuity, and it failed, since it was super shit. And right after that came Civil War and all the crossover craziness, and basically everyone started acting like retards then.

Now I agree that it is probably the best Iron Man comics, but still, why does nobody speaks how it ignores all that came before, in the very issues right before the run?

I always hated Extremis, but mostly because I prefer suits of armor as opposed to cyborg Tony.

Everyone ignores the previous stories because:
1. They weren't THAT great.
2. Extremis was a reboot, essentially. They even changed the war Tony was injured in.
3. Extremis was pretty good.
4. Iron Man was a definite B-Lister.

Michelinie/Layton Iron Man had the most fun with all the various armors

although it sometimes had ass-pull / utility belt aspect to it. "Hey, I need this for this very special villain? Oh, I had it in my armor all along."

But their two runs is probably Iron Man at his best. Even when they never, in my opinion, topped Demon in a Bottle, which is their first Iron Man story ironically.

People were so blown away by the movie there are people who read comics and claim Iron Man wasn't a B-lister before RDJ these days.

OP, good riddance, I say, best Iron Man stories were usually the ones in the Avengers book.

Because nobody gave a shit about Iron Man until the movies. He was purely B-list.

It is a shame that no one cares about Rumiko however. It was bullshit that she was killed off to begin with.

>even changed the war Tony was injured in
It was funny how previous writers did that before Extremis.

They couldn't write Vietnam War since it no longer made sense, so it was always "somewhere in South-East Asia".

>Avengers book
>not FORCE WORKS
>the best Iron Man book ever

That's why I said usually, not 100% of the time.

>B-Lister
Well he *was* a founding member of Avengers and he was there all the time, and he had a book non-stop from the silver age, and he had an entire event (The Crossing) kinda sorta about him

....but yeah, I agree, hell the entire reason Crossing existed was because they didn't know what the hell should they do with Iron Man and nobody bought his book.

>founding member of Avengers

That's just it, before Bendis decided they needed to be the Justice League, the Avengers existed as a book to raise the profile of its second stringers. Tony's one of the original B-listers.

I don't like iron man for the most part
The only good runs in my opinion are
Anything done by Kirby
Demon in a bottle
Extremis
Mandarin: The Story of My Life
Some of the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Stuff
Stark disassembled
Most wanted
superior iron man

That's quite a lot of good runs. It might be less than you'd expect from a modern A-lister, but compared to some characters who only get one or two, that's a shitton.

Example?

Who is an A-Lister then though?

Spider-Man, and... X-Men (but those only afer Claremont - they were even cancelled in early 70s) and ... Howard the Duck (he was very popular at one time), and... yeah, who else?

Well Daredevil was popular, but only with Frank Miller, and he went down after that quickly.

>Anything done by Kirby
I disagree, Kirby's Iron Man is terrible.

From silver age, I do like Archie Goodwin (when it became its own book) issues, and Bill Mantlo issues (short story with Madame Masque is good, and I even like the fucking Midas), and Controller is kinda fun villain

most of the runs he lists is modern and post-movie though

>Madame Masque
I forgot about those issues
Also I remember a few issues with doom being good too

Yeah, that was towards the end of Michelinie/Layton run I think, and then towards the end of their second run (I think), they went to the past together and they were with Merlin and .... that evil woman from the story.

And I vaguely remember they went once into the future together (or maybe alternative reality?) and it had something to do with Merlin also. But maybe I am conflating stories together. Yeah it was fun.

Doom kept calling Iron Man "lackey" (since Iron Man was publicly Tony Stark's bodyguard)

>Anything done by Kirby

Kirby only worked on exceedingly few Iron Man stories in the Tales of Suspense era, and to be totally frank they were not very good. They all happened before they had ironed out any details about the character, so they're just short, forgettable tales with totally ridiculous elements. The Dr Strange story (which ends with him vowing revenge and then we NEVER see him again despite him being Tony's first real enemy) has Tony recharge his armor with a pair of flashlight batteries. The Gargantus story has Tony fight a robot caveman built by random aliens who force the population of a town to work for him. They're far from Kirby's best and far from the character's best.

>That's just it, before Bendis decided they needed to be the Justice League, the Avengers existed as a book to raise the profile of its second stringers. Tony's one of the original B-listers.

Originally the premise of Avengers was simply to put every solo title hero Marvel had into a team. There was no tier thinking or awareness, because they were the entirety of the Marvel unverse at the time. Spider-Man wasn't in because he had barely debuted when Avengers #1 came out (they were very unsure on whether there would be an ongoing Spider-Man series after Amazing Fantasy #15). The X-Men debuted at roughly the same time and were already a team. and Dr Strange was considered too "weird" to be on a team (ah how times change). Everyone else was on it. In that regard, the Avengers were the Justice League even from the very start.

It only became a second-stringer proving ground with Avengers #15 when the founders all quit and Cap formed his Kooky Quartet with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and hawkeye. And ironically, that was when the title really took off, sales-wise.

>Who is an A-Lister then though?

In 63 when Avengers debuted? Hard to talk about tiers. Hulk sold weak enough that it was canceled and the character was booted from Avengers as well.

Fantastic Four was Marvel's best selling book in the first half of the sixties, and Spider-Man was their top seller in the second half. Cap, Iron Man and Thor were all selling well enough to spin off into their own titles which lasted for decades following. I dunno what that means in pure numbers, but it's probably indicative of some popularity.

I really enjoyed Extremis. Mostly because I suck Warren Ellis's dick all day but I still thought it was a good arc.

The only good parts of the Tales of Suspense books in Kirby era was the other stories

The Watcher alien stories were goofy, but fun, and then it switched to Captain America, which was also slightly more interesting than Iron Man - although not very, and when it started to be interesting they put him in his own book.

But Archie Goodwin stories were pretty OK. Even when the villains are all either communists or just ridiculous in general

Hulk sold like shit because it was shit and came out immediately as a book about the character without any previous apperances and there weren't any other stories in The Incredible Hulk

The Cap ToS series was pretty good IMO, when they kicked off the Red Skull's return to the modern era and the Sleepers. The origin of the Skull (freshly retconned from the golden age) was also an early highlight. I always felt like Kirby liked working on Cap a little more than other Marvel heroes, since he even returned to the character in the 70's.

I mean I kinda enjoy the Heck era of Iron Man too, but it's goofy as fuck and nowhere near Marvel's best. I think the anti-communism angle was probably part of why people bought it at the time, as laughable as it is now. None of Marvel's other titles (even Cap when he got going) were as straight-up political as Tony's strip. They even had Crustchev in them several times. Some cool villains in there too, but it's all weakened because Heck was such a fucking awful artist on anything but tits.

I read all Iron Man stories (OP) and I can't tell you much about Don Heck issues, since it all sort of melt together. :/ goofy villains, anticommunism, and no real character development

I remember liking Goodwin and Mantlo a little, and then Michelinie/Layton a lot.

I was mostly talking about the Kirbys issues of the avengers & I remember him piping up in captain America from time to time but I could be mistaken.
The tales of suspense with >ridiculous elements
We're ok for the time period but I really like them for the art to be honest

Yeah, it's weird just how little exactly happens in Iron Man during a period of 10 years. I don't mind Goodwin's era (I usually love the man) but it didn't have a strong sense of direction. Also I feel fairly sure that removing Pepper and Happy and leaving Tony without a proper supporting cast so early in the strip's lifetime was a major hobble for it, since he didn't get another popular supporting character until Layton and Michelinie introduced Rhodey, much much later. The most enduring Marvel 60s and 70s books have very strong supporting casts and character interplay, that's one of their strengths much more than the powers and villains.

Extremis is crazy overrated because it's just your run of the mill Iron Man story.

Tony runs into a badguy and loses. Then he gets an upgrade an he wins. He still punches shit, he still shoots lasers, it's just 'better' now cause the writer said so.

Making Tony 'test pilot of the future' was pointless because superheroes aren't really allowed to change anything. Nobody seemed to be agree on what Extremis actually did.

The best Iron Man comic is Hypervelocity.

Oh that's totally fair. Kirby's art is always interesting to look at at least.

> The most enduring Marvel 60s and 70s books have very strong supporting casts and character interplay, that's one of their strengths much more than the powers and villains.

Oh I agree with that. I just didn't find the interplay between Pepper, Happy and Tony that interesting. And I liked more the interplay between Masque, Tony and... that young guy from SHIELD, whatwashisname.

The point is not the story itself. That is completely generic. Average bad guy becomes powerful by chance, destroys stuff, Iron Man stops him and stops the "real villain".

The subtext and the dialogues are much better though, and it's what makes it far better than any other Iron Man book.

>Mostly because I suck Warren Ellis's dick all day
Who doesn't.

If I wasn't so lazy, I would storytime the story that came right after Extremis. Because it's really bad, while trying to work with the new characters from Extremis book.

But I am lazy. So some other time.

I didn't count Iron man among those books, mind you. I'm talking about Spider-Man and the FF for instance.

>that young guy from SHIELD,

Sitwell? He's in the Masque books a bit.

His Karnak is so (gag sound)

>They couldn't write Vietnam War since it no longer made sense, so it was always "somewhere in South-East Asia".

No shortage of wars to be had.

His injury changed with Teen Tony, though, not with Extremis or anything this century. When Old Tony died, that whole Viet nam fucking shit was out the window and when Teen Tony died, the new origin became whatever the Tony Stark of Heroes Reborn had; the fact that he's continued as Tony Stark in 616 is immaterial - he's a composite of Old Tony and Teen Tony as remembered by Franklin Richards, which is why he's younger but less shitty than before.

With that in mind, his original injury (because he's had a few similar ones) could have happened on Pluto and been caused by She-Hulk and it would always have happened on Pluto and been caused by She-Hulk, because that's how reality warpers work.

The canonicity of everything happening in Crossing/Teen Tony/Heroes Reborn is so thorny nobody really touches that, IMO

Heroes Reborn Iron Man didn't have Afghanistan war as his backstory, since Afghanistan wasn't even a war. I am not sure about his backstory there (OK I admit, I lied in OP, I skipped Heroes Reborn Iron Man issues).

Althought what you are saying makes sense.

Stuff that happened to the teen tony were suddenly made as if they happened differently.

For example, the whole Fukijawa takeover, that happened in the Teen Tony era because of Tony being officially dead, suddenly "happened" when he was gone, and nobody even remembered Teen Tony

But again, I don't really care about how canon any of that was, it was bad.

I really want superior tony back

>The subtext and the dialogues are much better though, and it's what makes it far better than any other Iron Man book.

How so? The characters give Tony shit for wasting all of his time on Iron Man instead of inventing things that will actually help people, but Tony is a Marvel character and he isn't allowed to do things like that. It's just pointing out something everyone already knew going in.