What can Marvel do to make the Iron Man comic good again?

What can Marvel do to make the Iron Man comic good again?

Besides taking him away from Bendis and getting rid of Bendis' daughter self insert OC character

I've been reading Iron Man since the 80s, starting with the original Armor Wars. He's quite possibly my favorite Marvel character along with Daredevil and Thor. I assure you, Iron Man's never really been fully good.

Take Iron Man away from Bendis, and remove Bendis' daughter self insert OC.

What can X do to make X good again?
No matter who the character is, there's only one answere, so feel free to remember this next time you make another one of these threads.
GIVE THEM TO A GOOD WRITER.
It's literally that simple.

>good again

>Iron Man comics
>good

What?

Damn can't believe I found another one like me!
Not good but always weird and with interesting ideas. Being that said you always got the idea he was badass on his own way without being marysue like, unfortunately, most heroes end up being.

They gave Tony over to Gillen a few years ago and yet no one seems to have cared about his run

Because it sucked and did that godawful adoption retcon with aliens and shit.

Oh, simple. Go back to the roots with Tony and his overall character. See, pre-Civil War, Tony was an individual who was driven by his ideas of right and wrong. He was also a control freak and driven by ego, though not in the "I'm the greatest human being", more along the lines of "I am the only one who can do this."

Also, play with the suits. Technology has advanced from transistors and the things we can now do come out of an old Sci-Fi novel. So, have Tony essentially test the limits of his world. Push his technology further and further by incorporating stuff like magic, nanotech and cosmic stuff like the engines which turn faith into fuel. Essentially turn him into a hero who is a transhumanist and wishes to allow humanity to reach it's maximum potential.

The problem is that you believe Iron Man comics were ever good

>b-but Demon in a Bottle

no

I remember when Bendis first took over and in an interview mentiononed Happy Hogan being in his book, forgetting that he was dead.

>
>forgetting that he was dead.
>implying he knew he was dead

Bendis just makes shit up as he goes along

>Making it good again

Where did this notion come from? Along with FF, Iron man comics were always a really odd ball at Marvel. His villains were questionable at best (The mandarin is literally a british dude with magic rings that went full chinaboo, warmonger was interesting in concept but often had flaws), and previous reboots were far worse than generic protege that acts as a mary sue.

Remember when Iron Man was a blue boy that was allergic to everything? Or when Iron Man had to recharge his suit via wall socket? Or when his suit got sentience, went full yandere for Tony, tried to rape him, and then suicided out of guilt?

He was always better in the crossover comics, where he was a moderately compelling character.

This

Have him make new suits that are essentially flying bricks with lasers. He hasn't had an interesting suit since Superior. Have him delve into making suits utilizing heavy biotech, or even a little magic

While working on his old enemies, give him new ones that represent a new technological challenge. Maybe a rogue sentient cloud network that acts through LMD agents, and nanomachines that can infect and reconfigure humans to turn them into monstrosities.

Make him a Howard Hughes analog again.
Retcon all the not a real Stark crap.
Retcon him ever making politically correct shit.
Retcon all political correctness in general.
Bring James back and find a good way to kill off Rhody and make him stay dead.
Retcon the Doom stuff ever happening and retcon Doom ever thinking he could ever do wrong.
Kill Tony and make him stay dead and replace him with Iron Lad.
Or Kill of Tony make him stay dead and make his brother take over, that is along with retconning him not being a Stark and the Godkiller was only made for his brother.

Give up because Iron Man is shit to write anyhow, make only side one off stories.

I love IM and am a collector and I think this.

Correction. I WAS a collector. I stopped collecting all comics when everything went downhill. That is to say, it has always gone downhill since day 1, but downhill to the point I needed to jump off the bike now because if I waited any longer it would be too late and the jump would kill me.

Tom King/Mitch Gerads

Done.

>Just retcon everything
>No regard for how much more muddy that would make everything

That shit is part of the reason the X-men franchise is the mess it is today.

Stop making books that require all the other crap and just write stand along stories and don't have you work be held up by others, especially if you are piling crap on more crap.

>forgetting
You're giving Brian Michael "if I didn't write it, it's not important and didn't happen" Bendis way too much credit.

Continuity isn't inherently bad.

It just requires competent editors.

Also, you don't really need to read everything to understand what's happening. Just pick a run, start from issue one, and if you get lost, read a wiki. And if you want, just read any back issues on readcomicsonline.

The Knauf run was pretty solid, probably my favorite run in recent memory, if we ignore the Execute Program arc.

Their Mandarin was miles better than the moustache-twirling Saturday morning cartoon character Fraction made him.

Tony isn't a character that works well with political correctness. He is an awful human being that happens to have very liberal, anti-state views, who tries to do the best for humanity by what he believes it is right.

It is very important that writer show his control freak side, and how his political views and industrial background clashes with other heroes. The point being that the guy has everything to be a villain, yet is a hero. Why? How? Writers need to answer those. They need to show Stark doing "gray area" stuff and using heavy pragmatism, to the point of being questioned on his methods.

Make him Howard Hughes again.

For all the mistakes of the CW1, they have shown Stark being Stark and trying to control everyone, and doing the best by questionable methods.

And finally, make him think and act like an engineer. Someone who uses machines to solve problems that doesn't need to be solved by them. Think robotic cars, thats the kind of shit Tony would use to solve a problem.

>id that godawful adoption retcon with aliens and shit.
Oh jesus, that was real, I'd forgotten about it and now it's back in my mind.

He should have a plant based villain. Its funny how much Poison Ivy would work for him

Have Professor X suddenly wake-up in 1990 and proclaim that everything from 1990-on was a fucked-up dream from getting into a drinking contest with Tony Stark, Logan, and Ben Grimm.

Reveal that EVERYONE experienced the same dream because lol drunk telepath, and now EVERYONE has to come to grips that everything they knew isn't real and wonder if some of those dream-events aren't still worth fighting for.

I'm not sure if you're being serious

Besides, I'm not sure 1990 Marvel was much better than what we have now. Didn't they have constant events and muddled continuity back then too?

If he comes out the coma and beats the FUCK out of Carol, then I will buy the trade

I'm talking about like he breaks her face and she need surgery kind of ass whopping

Is Infamous Iron Man still going? Because that was more entertaining.

He was never good.

that goddamn retcon was because editorial ordered Gillen to make Tony join GotG and to give him a new origin related to SPACE.

Of course it didn't work.

>give him new ones that represent a new technological challenge.

Oh god. An enemy that is weaponized autistic shitposting personified.

Give him to Priest. He has always wanted to write Iron Man, but Marvel didn't want black people writing their white characters. He can write some grounded and character driven stories.

The stories should be character driven and down to earth rather than having Tony hang out with GotG. Show Tony as a hardened, morally gray character. Make it a boardroom political drama with superheroics. I second the user with Priest.

I would fight a bear for a Christopher Priest Iron Man run.

There should be some down to earth stuff, but it's still Marvel and Tony's still a knight in shining armor. Don't forget THAT side of him either; he fights wizards, dragons, evil lords, and rival knights, all reflected in the just past modern world of Marvel comics.

My theory is that the lost element of Iron Man isn't the loss of Tony's Howard Hughes side, he's always been pretty busniessman even in the movies, it's the loss of the humility and service that his origin inspired. That gets tossed out in modern IM REAL quick, and it's his defining heroic feature; he IS a man humbled and while he falters and fails like any Arthurian hero, those failures are all part of his quest for self mastery.

Give him a fucking Green Knight to hound his flying ass when he falls off the wagon and goes all Elon Musk again.

>Give him a fucking Green Knight to hound his flying ass when he falls off the wagon and goes all Elon Musk again.

Not quite. Rather he needs a character who embodies a shadow archetype of himself. It should be the direction they take the Mandarin. A historical mandarin was a bureaucratic functionary, a civil servant. For a conqueror to title himself as such would point to rather egotistical self-image, he's only there to help humanity. And that is where the conflict between Tony and the Mandarin derives and what forces Tony to keep himself grounded. The Mandarin and Tony have the exact same goal, it's just that the Mandarin has no regard for the cost of progress.

Priest cannot write Iron Man. Marvel won't let him write white characters, remember? That's why he went to DC.

Funny, I've always liked Iron-Man rip-offs like X-O, Hardware, and Prototype, but never the original

Tony Stark is supposed to be a character that you hate to love.

It is impossible for him to be good under Marvel's current batch of writers because they cannot understand the concept of making a sympathetic character that has a different world view.

You either end up with a Tony Stark that's just an evil strawman to be torn down (Civil War) or a bland character with no goals and no real stances on anything (Fraction/Gillen).

Another problem with Iron Man is that comic writers suck at coming up with cool tech.

For some reason people are fixated on changing how he puts on the suit, but what does it matter if the armor comes out of his bones or a suitcase if he just flies around shooting generic lasers either way?

Is Fraction's run any good?

That would make sense in universe so is not aloud. Maybe as a villain.

For tech based heroes to work, the MARVEL universe should have an internal consistency on what kinds of technology are available for different groups.

Like, Tony Stark should always be on the bleeding edge of tech, but on the safe side, AIM should use all that crazy science fringe tech that murders people who use it, SHIELD should stick with spyware well above tech superheroes levels and so on.

The problem here is that everyone who uses technology always have the best tech ever, with no regards to the actual infrastructure for the actual technology.

Hell, Iron Man as a concept works because no one can replicate his designs, and it was a point of contest of the Government with him. Hell, if there is one thing that IM2 got right was that the American Gov't would be all up his ass about this new unregulated weapon he created.

So, Tony as a tech hero to work should have leg room to develop NEW tech, and in a justifiable way that he is the only one that could have it.

>SHIELD should stick with spyware well above tech superheroes levels and so on.

well UNDER, I mean.

No.

>Along with FF
The best of the Fantastic Four are the best of Marvel as a whole. The best of Iron man are a handful of alright stories and appearances in team books.

Yes, it's still going. Last issue had The Maker fuck Doom's mom.

>The best of the Fantastic Four are the best of Marvel as a whole.

I never even heard of a good or recommended FF story outside of the Galactus one.

The Lee/Kirby FF run is one of the all-time best superhero comics. You just fell into the trap of thinking that if it can't fit into the size of an OGN or trade then it doesn't count.

This is why I liked Extremis but then Civil War happened...

Who is the human of the future?
Homo Superior? No!
Homo Inhumanus? No!

Homo Extremis is the future. Everything else is only alien influence.

As a Hank Pym fan, I understand this feeling.
I recently re-read my entire Iron Man collection (all 7 books) and realized that Iron Man may be the weakest written of the Stan Lee heroes. (I am re-reading early Thor issues now, and I am not sure which is worse.)