Iron Man Masterworks Vol. 5 (Iron Man (1968-1996)) Kindle & comiXology

This is the 2nd iron man masterwork volume in a row that has been published in full! Unlike the first 3 volumes, it has a table of contents, introduction pages, and extras. As well as the issues in chronological orderPlease continue this important trend and go back to fix ALL the masterworks that are incomplete!

And that's too bad. I had a real nice day today.

I don't care what anyone says, George Tuska rocks some iron man. I love this stuff.

The book was good, but was pricey. In the past, I paid about half the price for books similar to this one.

This volume is a showcase for the work of the greatly under-appreciated artist George Tuska who took over for Gene Colan. Tuska from this point on would be drawing Iron Man for the next ten years. You have to wonder what happened to the Marvel talent pool today. I just don't see this level of quality artwork anywhere anymore. Tuska should be included in the company of Kirby, Romita, Colan, and Heck as one of the all-time Marvel greats.This volume is toward the end of the Silver Age. Stan Lee isn't the writer of these. Instead, Archie Goodwin takes over these duties and does a great job creating original material and stories - especially with "upgrading" Iron Man's armor as new threats emerge.This volume includes issues 2-13, slightly larger than normal to accommodate the story not cutting off mid-volume. These issues are still in the era of 12 cent comics. Goodwin wrote the first 28 issues and that seem like a good cut-off for the end of Iron Man's Silver age era. So, we should get at least two more Iron Man Masterworks.Thankfully, the introduction in this volume is not one of those lightweight Stan Lee remembrances. The introduction is by Dewey Cassell the author of "The Art of George Tuska." He does a good job summarizing the stories and giving us some background on George Tuska and Archie Goodwin and putting the volume in proper context.

The stories in this volume date from 1968-69 and are therfore towards the end of what we now call the Silver Age of Marvel Comics. With the expansion of the Marvel line, Stan Lee relinquished his scripting chores in favour of Archie Goodwin who had previously cut his teeth at Warren Publications. Artwork for issues 2-4 is provided by Johnny Craig best known for his work on EC Comics such as Crime SuspenseStories including a number of famous covers. Craig does a does a competant job here, although his best days were clearly behind him at this point. Issues 5-13 are illustrated by George Tuska, a more than competant artist who went on to make the Iron Man feature his own. We are also treated to a Not Brand Echh reprint by IM veteran Don Heck as an extra bonus feature.These stories are not what I would call the top-tier of the Marvel Silver Age and there is little integration with the rest of the then Marvel universe. We do get a guest appearance from the incredible Hulk in issue 9 but other stars are few and far between. Still, these tales are entertaining enough and we get to see some classic villains including The Controller, The Mandarin, The Unicorn and The Gladiator who is on-loan from the pages of Daredevil.