Kevin's Watch

Running in the Iron Man comic, issues #225-231. Written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton with art by Mark Bright. Done in 1987-1988.

Tony Stark (Iron Man) discovers that someone has stolen his technology and used it to upgrade several villains. Stark as Iron Man sets out to disable the stolen technology. Along the way he encounters villains : Stilt-Man, the Controller, the Raiders, the Beetle, the Mandroids, the Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo and Firepower.

He also encounters : Ant Man (Scott Lang), the Captain (Steve Rogers), Stingray, the Guardsmen and the West Coast Avengers.

Marvel has also collected Iron Man - Prelude to the Armor Wars. (same talent did these issues) This volume collects Iron Man #215-224.

Featuring villains : A.I.M, the Ghost, Spymaster, Whiplash, Blizzard and Force.

Well written and with good solid art, these two collections are very entertaining. perfect book-ends for the first Armor Wars storyline.

I like the abundance of villains and guest heroes. I highly recommend these volumes. You will not get bogged down in unnecessary continuity. The art is clean and suits the story very well. And best of all the main storyline is wrapped up. you don't have to find more books to finish the storyline.

I hope that Armor Wars II lives up to this.

at least he had retired the nose piece.

I do favor the classic gold/red armor myself.

sgt.null wrote:The art is clean and suits the story very well.

Its clean but its crap. The above example demonstrates how pedestrian the visuals are.

For as long as I've been reading comics I've been an Iron Man fan. I have most every issue and a long standing gripe I have is that for many years of the first run of Invincible Iron Man the art was ass. There were a few breaks here and there but Mark Bright, though not the worst, is certainly a low spot for me. I liked George Tuska but his style was pretty much crap too. He was the Curt Swan or Ross Andru of Iron man, steady, predictable, consistent and just crappy enough to notice the many flaws but not crappy enough to be a complete turn off. Early Iron Man suffered from stories drawn by Don Heck (arguably the worst artist Marvel ever employed) but was also gifted with Gene Colon's dramatic, sweeping visuals. Penciling titans like Steve Ditko, Herb Trimpe, Chic Stone, Greg Laroque, Luke McDonnell, Keith Pollard, Tom Morgan and Kevin Hopgood to name a few of the sub par dinks that graced the pages of my favorite comic.

I spent most of my young adult life wishing George Perez, John Romita Sr, Gil Kane or John Byrne would spend a few years drawing I.M. but it wasn't to be. John Romita Jr and Bob Layton's contributions were some of the high points so it wasn't all bad.

Sorry. Not a Mark Bright fan. He wasn't the solution he was part of the problem.


And by the way the Armor Wars story line was very good in spite of everything I mentioned above.

I agree on Heck being awful, never liked George Tuska either. Ditko would have been unsuited for Iron Man. would have loved a long Perez run, he did great with Tony in the Avengers.

I liked the George Tuska/Johnny Craig issues a lot. Sean Chen, Barry Smith, an Jim Starlin also provided bright spots.The Ani Granov art was the best, though.

sgt.null wrote:Ditko would have been unsuited for Iron Man.

Yup, I get it.

I liked that story arc and the art was fine by me.
But I hated whoever was the artist during the Rodney run!
The artwork was horrible ,imo.

High Lord Tolkien wrote: But I hated whoever was the artist during the Rodney run!
The artwork was horrible ,imo.

I believe most if not all of that was Luke McDonnell and I happen to agree with your assessment.

I loved Luke McDonnell on PMIF. And I forgot he did Suicide Squad. Also great. His IM stuff doesn't stand out in my memory, but I guess it didn't bother me.

Neither artist stood out to me, but I definitely preferred Luke McDonald to Mark Bright.

Titanium Man



Stilt-Man



Mauler