Essential Iron Man, Vol. 3

Essential Iron Man #3

by Archie Goodwin, Mimi Gold, Allyn Brodsky

Shellhead's rogues gallery grows during his first faceoffs with the Controller, Mordecai Midas, Firebrand and Spymaster -- all enemies destined to plague him for years to come! Meanwhile, Tony splits his life among LMD impostors, but will he lose his heart to Madame Masque? Guest-starring Daredevil, the Avengers and SHIELD! Collecting: Iron Man #12-38, Daredevil #73

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Marvel, Science Fiction

592 pages, Paperback

First published June 10, 1971

About the author

Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie, and for Marvel he set up the creator-owned Epic Comics as well as adapting Star Wars into both comics and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."

Reviews

[Woody Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

These #12 to 38 were mostly issues that I never read before. They were back issues in my childhood that were simply unaffordable & so they fell outside of my scope. I found them to be rather fascinating in that they focused not entirely on supervillains but on environmental concerns, organized crime & other timely themes and topics. The really cool thing for me as a lifelong comic book aficionado was the teaming of George Tuska and Johnny Craig as artist and inker, respectively, sometimes switching roles, sometimes with Craig working solo. Johnny Craig was a longtime EC artist & his style brought a really chilling aspect to these comics! He seems to have bowed out after issue #28, but what a run!

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was some good issues in here. We meet Madame Masque and Eddie March, we learn the fate of Janice Cord and, even a couple of the "one shot" stories were decent. There was also some bad issues and they did drag it down a bit.

[Jake Podzimek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about Iron man. It's the third volume in the series. It was a pretty interesting book, I understood the main point of the story, I didn't have trouble reading this book. But most importantly something I should have done before reading this book is to read the vol1 and vol 2.

[Alan McCleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great early Iron Man stories. Plots are reflective of the times in which they were published. Fun for Marvel fans.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

In meiner Kindheit gehörte Iron Man immer zu den Marvel Superhelden, die unter "ferner liefen" einzuordnen waren, zumal er zunächst unter BSV keine eigene Heftreihe hatte, sondern nur in den Avengers (richtig: damals hiessen sie noch Die Rächer) einer von vielen Kämpfern gegen das Böse war.
In den letzten Jahren hat Robert Downey Jr. dem Playboy und Millionär Anthony Stark durch die Verfilmungen reichlich Beliebtheit beschert, zuletzt im Avengers-Film, und bald soll der 3. Iron Man-Film in die Kinos kommen. Ein guter Zeitpunkt also, um sich die Originale der 60er anzuschauen.
Iron Man ist einer der wenigen Superhelden, der über gar keine Superkräfte verfügen, sondern dank des Einsatzes modernster technischer Mittel (in den Heften ist immer von Transistoren die Rede)den Kampf gegen die übelsten Schurken aufnehmen können.
Etliche der story archs des 3. Essential-Bandes haben mir richtig Spaß gemacht und sind deutlich einfallsreicher als zum Beispiel die Abenteuer Spidermans, der damals everybodys darling und populärer als alle anderen Helden zusammen war. Dazu trägt die spannende und manchmal geheimnisvolle Atmosphäre bei, in der Iron Man den Kampf gegen seine Widersacher aufnehmen muss. Iron Mans love interest hingegen hebt sich nicht von den Marvel- und DC-üblichen Superhelden-Hindernissen auf dem Schlachtfeld der Liebe ab, inklusive der üblichen erzwungenen Verzichte und der damit verbundenen Tragik; vielleicht aber gerade wegen der fehlenden Superkräfte und der angeschlagenen Gesundheit hat man durchaus Verständnis für seine Zurückhaltung.
Sowohl die Artwork wie auch die Stories waren auf jeden Fall viel besser, als ich erwartet bzw. in Erinnerung hatte.

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

This third Essential Iron Man volume collects issues #12–38 and Daredevil #78.

Archie Goodwin was at the typewriter for most of these issues, followed by Allan Brodsky and Gerry Conway, with George Tuska and Don Heck mostly on art duties.

The stories are good and fun, even though some of Goodwin's plot twists concerning Tony Stark's defective ticker takes the character into a territory which contradicts a whole heckuva lot of what we know about the character from the preceding two volumes. Eventually, Goodwin came to his senses vis-a-vis these issues and wrote himself out of it in the best possible way; i.e. by leaving it behind and not really reference it too much afterwards (something which his followers in this volume adhere to as well).

And of course there be plenty of Marvel villains in the volume: the Controller, Mordecai Midas, Firebrand, Spymaster and the Zodiac. Not to mention the enigmatic Madame Masque. Also guest-starring the Avengers, Daredevil and, of course, S.H.I.E.L.D.

Here's hoping for more Essential Iron Man volumes from Marvel Comics.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tricky to rate this one as Archie Goodwin's work is very good, while Ally Brodsky, who followed him, is execrable (and Gerry Conway, while he did great stuff later in his career, was pretty green when he started writing Iron Man). Goodwin's landmarks include new villains (Firebrand, the Controller, Midas), Tony's first serious love interest (though she's bland, and dies fairly soon) and in a throwaway bit the introduction of Howard Stark (I'm sure Goodwin never imagined how much later writers and the MCU would make of Howard). Goodwin I'd give four stars to, after that probably 1 star. Art isn't too great.

[Steve]

Built up quite a collection of these compendiums and they take me back to my childhood!

[j_ay · Rating 2 out of 5]

research for a sketch card project

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my comments on previous volumes - Tuska's art is an improvement although he tends to be a little cartoony at times with his faces. As for the stories, Iron Man and his enemies were still dull.