Set Description:
2010. Depending on who you were talking to, Iron Man was either on fire in print as a result of the first MCU movie or…. not. For me, as a long-time Iron Man collector, Fred Van Lente’s “Iron Man Legacy” series was a fun departure from the other Iron-book born of the first Iron Man film. The overly snarky and wise-ass Tony Stark featured in Matt Fraction’s run took a nod from Downey’s onscreen performance – almost to the point of parody, but Van Lente’s Iron Man in Legacy was a visit back to the roots of Tony as a corporate leader and superhero to the people.
Iron Man Legacy was intended to feel like a more traditional Iron Man book. To do this, the artist/writer team of Van Lente and Steve Kurth interwove their stories in between past Iron Man events from older books. It was a neat idea – falling somewhere between a retcon and an enhancement, the series delivered two story arcs that took a deeper look at some of more memorable events from Iron Man’s past. Although the series didn’t leave much hobby-wide impact on the character, Van Lente had just come off of his fun run on “Marvel Adventures Iron Man” and was writing solid, fun stories.
 I remember pulling this book from the "to read pile" before the 616 "Invincible Iron Man" book of that same era every time. The series arrived to some hype actually - released as support for Iron Man 2 in theaters, the first issue launched with 4 variants and ultimately landed with 5 once the book went to second print. The second issue had a great “Heroic Age” variant as well, and the third landed one of the popular “Iron Man By Design” variants of the era. After that the series was left to run on its own merits for the remainder of the 11-issue run.
The first issue is nicely punctuated by a recolored reprint of “Tales of Suspense #39” - a nice bonus given the historical nature of the Legacy title! The first arc, “War of the Iron Men” is a fun five issue read that features a handful of classic Iron Man villains and culminates in a battle against Dr. Doom.
 The second arc, “Industrial Revolution” features some neat thematic covers and fills in some interaction details from the time period originally seen in Denny O’Neal’s run which introduced Obadiah Stane to continuity. In this arc, Van Lente does a nice job at bringing the Illuminati into Stark’s life during his fight with alcoholism. And in another feat of Kurt Busiek-style continuity-weaving, Van Lente also brings The Pride from Runaways into the foray to fight the world’s most elite super-team as well.
The series ultimately ran its course through these two arcs, but it may have ended too soon as Van Lente had originally planned another arc featuring Iron Man 2020 where he said “we may be finding out how his timeline merges with Tony’s”. Between this run and his work on "Marvel Adventures Iron Man", Fred Van Lente has pumped out some entertaining Iron Man books and holds a lot of goodwill in the Iron Man fan circles that I am aware of, and I’m sure there’d be interest in whatever scripts Van Lente had in mind for his third arc on the book.
Iron Man Legacy was a fun read, and a bright spot for Iron Man during its era of print. Although the series was less impactful for the casual reader, it gave long-time Iron Man fans something new to look through the past lens of the character. On that note this set should remain nothing but fun to compile. It's being built for 9.8 examples as I come across them raw or dirt cheap slabs, otherwise if I never finish the set in slabs that’s okay too. Either way, this listing can happily reside here as a nod to one of the more obscure but reliable Iron Man books to see post-MCU publication. |