Invincible Iron Man Omnibus

Reprints Iron Man #115-157
Written by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, Bill Mantlo, Jim Shooter, Roger Stern, Peter John Palmer and Alan Kupperberg.
Penciled by John Romita Jr., John Byrne, Carmine Infantino, Bob Layton. 
Inked by Bob Layton, Dan Green, Tom Palmer, 

Over 800 pages of Bronze Age Iron Man action!

Highlights include:

Tony Stark is ambushed by the Ani-Men before he has a chance to put on his Iron Man armor! He's even more shocked when he learns the brains behind the attack is his girlfriend Whitney Frost, AKA Madam Masque. She orders Stark to help restore the health of her dying father, Count Nefaria...or else!

Stark has to put on his armor in front of the Ani-Men!

Pressure mounts on Stark when he learns that SHIELD has been secretly buying up stock in his company, Stark International. This depresses Stark and he develops a drinking problem. At the same time, a crooked billionaire named Justin Hammer has a device that allows him to take control of Iron Man's armor. Hammer uses the this to make Iron Man kill a foreign diplomat.

Stark will have to stop Hammer and his army of super-villains if he wants to prove Iron Man's innocence.

  

But dealing with Hammer is only part of Stark's problem. He's hit rock bottom. His drinking gets completely out of control. His drunken, cruel behavior causes his longtime butler Edwin Jarvis to resign. But Stark's girlfriend Bethany "Beth" Cabe helps him kick booze. Beth's ex-husband had a drinking problem that cost him his life, she doesn't want to lose someone else to the bottle.

Tony Stark asks Beth to help him deal with his alcoholism.

The Hulk arrives in New York City. His alter ego, Bruce Banner seeks help from Stark, hoping he can cure Banner of the Hulk for good.

Hulk and a new friend play with Micronauts toys!

Unfortunately it doesn't work and Shellhead finds himself in a battle that nearly costs him his life. It's up to Scott Lang, better known as to the world as Ant-Man, to save Iron Man.

Iron Man's old foe Titanium Man attacks New York. He's fallen out of favor with his former bosses in the Soviet Union and believes trashing Iron Man will win back their good graces. Titanium Man and the Golden Avenger duel at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center.

Whiplash get's a power upgrade and takes the name Blacklash. He goes after Stark's chief of security.  In the process, Stark International is set on fire!


Stark learns that Doctor Doom is trying to acquire equipment from Stark International. Iron Man pays a visit to Doom in Latveria and a battle ensues. Iron Man and Doctor Doom wind up sent back in time to the kingdom of Camelot. They find themselves on opposite sides of a war between King Arthur and Morgan Le Fey.

Review:
It's difficult to review a book this long, but I'll do my best cover the high and low points. This review contains a few 30-year old spoilers.

Story:

Back in 2012, I reviewed a book called Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle. I wrote that "One problem with Iron Man is that I've always felt he's too damn powerful for most villains and that most of his top foes are just other guys in armor." That happens far too much in this book as well. In addition to that, we get quite a few gangs of generic gunmen and terrorists that Iron Man easily dispatches. 

Not only are many of the villains easy outs, they're not particularly compelling either. There are two stories that feature Dreadnoughts as the villain. Dreadnoughts are basically just generic killer robots and not very interesting.

An unmasked Stark faces off against Madame Masque and her Dreadnoughts.

There's also a moment that indicates (in my opinion) that Michelinie was tiring of a major plot thread. At the height of Stark's alcoholism, SHIELD secretly purchased stock in his company to gain a controlling interest. After Stark is rude to Jarvis, the butler sells his stock, allowing SHIELD to take over. This is a crushing blow to Stark.

But then he tells off Nick Fury and easily gains back control of Stark International in two pages! It sort of undermines major elements of the "Demon In A Bottle" storyline.  

We get not one, but two stories where Madame Masque is allowed to escape. She may be Stark's ex-girlfriend, but she's also a leader of the Maggia crime syndicate and a dangerous criminal. I'm thinking an Avenger would've at least tried to bring her to justice.

But there are some good, solid enjoyable stories here.

A three-part guest appearance by the Hulk features a great battle between Iron Man and Ol' Greenskin.  Michelinie also makes good use of Ant-Man in that story. Scott Lang saves Iron Man by shrinking to ant-size and fixing Stark's armor. This is sort of a homage to an earlier story where the original Ant-Man (Henry Pym) crawled inside the Vision, but it's still a cool sequence. 

James "Rhodey" Rhodes made his first appearance in stories that are reprinted in this book. Rhodey became a major character in comics, first as Stark's right-hand man, later wearing the Iron Man armor himself, finally becoming War Machine.

Rhodey's first appearance.

And of course Rhodey has shown up in the Iron Man animated series and movies, so Michelinie deserves credit for creating a supporting character with staying power.

Speaking of new characters, Bethany Cabe makes a great love interest for Stark. She runs her own security company and is proficient in hand-to-hand combat, more than capable when attacked by bad guys. But the storyline involving her husband is soap opera level silly. I won't spoil it beyond that.

Beth helps Iron Man tackle Hammer's hired villains.

 

The fight against Blacklash is pretty good, as the former Whiplash's new powers make him much more dangerous.

I've been a fan of the Titanium Man story since it was brand new back in 1980.    

The alcoholism storyline and the Doctor Doom time-travel tale have been reprinted in smaller books, but they'also high points of Iron Man Omnibus.

Romita and Layton also make Justin Hammer look like actor Peter Cushing, which is a nice touch.

Art:
The art in this book is fantastic.

The vast majority of Invincible Iron Man Omnibus is penciled by John Romita Jr. and inked by Layton.  These stories are some of Romita's earliest work and look nothing like the art he later produced as a fan favorite. That's due to Layton's heavy inking. But they make a great art team. In later stories (such as the Doctor Doom two-parter), we see Romita asserting himself a little more.

Doom shoots rubble out of his fingertips!

A few other pencilers and inkers take over for an issue's worth of pages, but Layton inks almost everything here, so the "look" of the art consistent throughout. John Byrne guest-penciled one issue reprinted here, he and Layton are a good combination.

Stark is thrown from the Heli-Carrier and changes to Iron Man in mid-air! 
Nice art from Byrne & Layton.

Carmine Infantino pencils the re-telling of Iron Man's origin.

Tony Stark flashes back to his creation of the Iron Man armor.

How does it look?:
This scan was taken from Iron Man #129:

And here's how the same pages look in this book:

Looks good to me.

Extras:
This book contains a boatload of bonus features.

We get the detailed back-story of Jarvis' resignation letter, early drafts of several covers drawn by Layton, two diagrams of Iron Mans armor that were originally published in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and thirteen pages of original art.

In the book's final story, Iron Man battles a giant space spore!

Invincible Iron Man Omnibus contains some good stories, and a bunch of stories that weren't very interesting. Unless you're a diehard fan of Iron Man and/or the creative team, the price tag will scare away many readers. I would recommend that the "casual" fan of Iron Man would be better served by picking up the Demon In A Bottle and Doomquest reprint books instead of this omnibus. But the artwork adds a half-Sal to its grade.

J.A. Morris' rating:

  

.5



2 and a half Sals.