Comments on: Top Five Most Iconic Iron Man Covers

By: Undervalued Spotlight #104|Comic Book Daily

Undervalued Spotlight #104|Comic Book Daily — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:01:03 +0000

[...] out #1 and coming second only to the Classic Alcoholism issue #128. Check out their post right here (personally I thought Iron Man #66 should have made this list). Note Jim Starlin’s obvious [...]

By: Patricio

Patricio — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:46:31 +0000

Well the covers you picked are iconic, but…. you Missed some covers i think are fundamental for Shellhead history , and are pretty Neat . I wouldn t ommit a Mandarin cover , Iroman s paramount Foe inthe sixties and seventies, 11 by George Tuska is one of my Favorites. An armor Wars cover being 225 , 227, and 232 By Barry Smith my personal faorites, from Tony Stark second fall in alcoholism i would pick 167, 173 , and 182 all by Luke Mc donell , and Finally the two John Romita JR covers 149-150 from Ironmans first clash wit Dr. Doom.

By: Lt. Clutch

Lt. Clutch — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:00:11 +0000

Going back to the master list before the month ends, I gotta say Iron Man has had some of the coolest covers ever. I love # 118 to death. It was # 170 that made me a regular reader. And # 128 is indeed, the best. Layton nailed it with the “expression” of worry on the helmet as it looks up at Tony.

By: Artiepants

Artiepants — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:31:26 +0000

I’m with a lot of folks on here:
the BWS Armor Wars epilogue and “Tony Stark will be sober or dead” should be on here,
and i’d include the Adi Granov “punching the ground” Cover, which was immortalized in the movie.
(the only one i’d include of the list is #5)

By: eric

eric — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:42:48 +0000

Why is he wearing his armor under his clothes on the “demon in a bottle cover”?
That got to chafe.

By: benday-dot

benday-dot — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:57:24 +0000

Great choices Brian, but rather than #118 I would also throw in a vote for issue #80, along with “O the Humanatee”. To me its a fantastic late Kirby Marvel moment, richly augmented by that psychedelic purple cosmic sky.

http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=29227&zoom=4

By: Nitz the Bloody

Nitz the Bloody — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:45:08 +0000

Thank you for that, Brian. Luke McDonnel is sorely under-appreciated, especially since his Iron Man work was done in the era of House Styles…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:31:56 +0000

another vote for a self vs self hero series

By: Benhameen

Benhameen — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:23:10 +0000

will alpha flight get a most iconic covers? lol….the puck one has to be on it. Nobody remembers the thimbleful of sauce line? Come on! Its a classic!

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:09:47 +0000

“Most of Luke McDonnel’s covers ( and interior art, for that matter ) would qualify as iconic. I’d also vote for the covers to #166 ( ” Over the Edge ” ), #169 ( ” I can’t handle it anymore! YOU be Iron Man! ” ), #174 ( the flying squadron of Iron Man suits, most impressive when you consider how much smaller the selection of armors was back then ), and #178 ( ” Tony Stark’s Struggle ” ).”

I agree. I went back and re-read that whole run a couple of years ago, and was really impressed. I hadn’t read it since I was a young teen, and I had forgotten how strong and expressive the art was. McDonnell/Mitchell is a really underrated team on IM.

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:31:42 +0000

I would’ve also gone with #200 somewhere on this list.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:44:43 +0000

Hey Brian Im a new reader of your blog but just wanted to say its wicked awesome. I check it everyday now. And We3 rules. Plus so far your number one iconic covers for Iron Man and The Joker were the first images that sprung to mind.

Why thank you, Benhameen.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:43:03 +0000

“Demon in the Bottle is simply the most famous Iron Man story” but it doesn’t have one of the top 70 iconic panels in it? Hunh.

Yeah, it’s really a shame that the storyline did not have any particularly iconic panels in it. I agree that it’s a bummer that it didn’t. Oh well, the cover for “Demon in the Bottle” is certainly iconic, though, hence its high ranking here!

If only there was a panel inside the storyline that was nearly as iconic as the cover. It’s too bad that there wasn’t.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:38:25 +0000

Your rules thus exclude THE most homaged covers, such as FF # 1, Amazing Fantasy # 1, Showcase # 4 and so on. It’s your rules, but for the Fantastic Four, you should list your choices as the Second most homaged.

I dunno, Jim, I think “Most Iconic with a notable exception” still gets the point across, no?

By: jakob1978

jakob1978 — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:28:41 +0000

that’s for that link Ian…what in interesting blog (all the Logo Designs)

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:57:31 +0000

Seeing the Ironman covers got me thinking about the Ironman logos. I know its old but I just read it for the first time the other day.

http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=1278

By: Rob Schmidt

Rob Schmidt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:17:09 +0000

Just looked at IRON MAN #126. I could see picking that instead of #170. #170 is notable for the IDEA of Rhodey taking over the suit, not the depiction on the cover.

By: Jim Kakalios

Jim Kakalios — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:56:53 +0000

You said: iconic is: “a prominent objective standard of whether a cover is homaged a lot or featured a lot in histories of the character.”

and

“The notable exception is no covers from a character’s first appearance”

Your rules thus exclude THE most homaged covers, such as FF # 1, Amazing Fantasy # 1, Showcase # 4 and so on. It’s your rules, but for the Fantastic Four, you should list your choices as the Second most homaged.

Your choices on Joker were spot on, and it seems like you’re making an effort to hit different key artists/time periods. Looking froward to the month as well.

By: Nitz the Bloody

Nitz the Bloody — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:48:20 +0000

” Great choices. I’d second the suggestion of #182– that image of Tony in the snow with the graffittied text surrounding him is really powerful, a great summation of the previous year’s arc about his alcoholism, and a reminder that what matters is the person in the armor as much as the armor itself. ”

Most of Luke McDonnel’s covers ( and interior art, for that matter ) would qualify as iconic. I’d also vote for the covers to #166 ( ” Over the Edge ” ), #169 ( ” I can’t handle it anymore! YOU be Iron Man! ” ), #174 ( the flying squadron of Iron Man suits, most impressive when you consider how much smaller the selection of armors was back then ), and #178 ( ” Tony Stark’s Struggle ” ).

By: "O" the Humanatee!

"O" the Humanatee! — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:28:17 +0000

I'd never argue it's a good cover, but the cover of Iron Man #80 cover of Iron Man 80 was the one that made many of us aware of an iconically bad Iron Man moment - the Iron Nose (even if the actual change occurred several issues earlier).