First of the three volumes that are going to make up the compilation in deluxe format of the stage that David Michelinie, John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton carried out to redefine the character of Iron Man. Panini Comics is dressed in the best clothes to present us a mythical era.

Marvel Masterworks Edition

Before going into a story that deserves to be highlighted but is already known to many readers, I think the first thing we should do when dealing with this review is to talk about the edition that has been made within this new line of Panini de Obras Marvel Teachers. We find a Dutch-type binding tome with the same measurements as the Marvel Gold or the Marvel HC, with a red imitation leather spine with the script standing out in yellow, the most recognizable color combination of the character’s armor. , once the classic concepts of gray and gold were abandoned as unique tones and that reached the creation of The Avengers.

Once we open the covers and delve into its first pages, we find the boxes and sources that have always characterized the North American edition of these compilations within the Marvel Masterworks line (Marvel Masterworks, in its literal translation) and although the Stan Lee’s article that accompanied the first editions has been relegated to the end of the volume before a much more recent one by Michelinie.

We are before some lines that show us the importance within the editorial of issues that would forever change the way of seeing and understanding a character clad in iron armor, with multiple resources, but with a heart and soul so human and imperfections that could not withstand the stresses to which life subjected them, leaving Tony Stark / Iron Man to fall into a pit from which luckily he was able to get out on the right foot.

His first alcoholic crisis

The volume begins with a few episodes that mark the end of the previous stage with Bill Mantlo as writer of the collection. Precisely in the last of them we will have the debut of Romita Jr., one of the fundamental pieces of the success that Iron Man would receive at the end of the seventies. Then Michelinie and Layton enter to be the co-scriptwriters of the title, scriptwriter and inker, a whole team. Together they will manage to redefine a character who did not have a passionate legion of fans and whose best stories had to be found in The Avengers.

Michelinie and Layton will follow the path marked out up to that moment but they will begin to add problems to Tony Stark, of an entity more than enough to cause him obvious nervous disorders. At first everything will be very contained, almost as if it were something normal.

Having a drink does not have to lead to a fatal outcome that leads to an addiction, but there are cases in which it becomes an important issue, so much so as to suppose a setback that worsens and always remains with us, alcoholism, a disorder that causes physical and psychological dependence on the drink whose most serious consequence can be death itself. A chronic and progressive disease, because the limits of consumption increase as our body’s tolerance to alcohol does. The abuse of any substance has never been synonymous with health and recognizing that dependency is the first step in facing recovery.

The long way to the bottle

To get to that, Tony had to suffer different circumstances, among the most prominent were the betrayal by his sentimental partner at the time, Whitney Frost, Madame Mascara, SHIELD’s interference in Stark International for considering it vital for the manufacture of of weapons for the United States or the decline in their personal relations that reached its climax when a discussion with Edwin Jarvis, the butler of the Avengers mansion, led to the resignation of the servant, who had been one of his stones from the beginning of the formation. angular. All this leads him to the undesirable but phenomenally situation told by the artists in charge of Iron Man.
This tome is not only important for the outcome in that episode that has forever defined Stark’s life, “The devil in a bottle”, but served as a letter of introduction for some secondary characters that would quickly come to the fore, such as James “Jim” Rhodes or Bethany Cabe. Along with enemies as typical of the Golden Avenger as Arsenal, Unicorn, the Ani-Men, Master Spy, Blizzard, the Founder, Whiplash or Justin Hammer, the perfect alignment of the stars is formed to find the start of a promising stage that in a format or another has to be on your Must Have shelf. In addition to the authors mentioned, Jim Shooter, Herb Trimpe, Keith Pollard, Keith Giffen, Carmine Infantino and even an episode sketched by John Byrne also passed through these pages.