The Armored Avenger had a lot of talent doing his comics.

3 choices.

I liked the Michelinie/Layton most of all, followed by Fraction and then Ellis. The Lee/Colan stuff had the best art probably, but the later stories were better as a whole.

The early stories tower over all the other runs for me, so I just chose "Lee/Heck". Iron Man with an antenna!

Lee/Colan were probably my favorite. Well… after Ditko, that is.

If I can separate David Michelinie/Bob Layton/JRJR out, I'd add this but I am just NOT a fan at all of JRJR...it just doesn't work for me, for some reason.

Yeah, not too fond of JRjr myself. I know lots like him, though, so vive la différence.

Wait a minute--we're not going to get any clips here of Iron Man running? I know he flies a lot, but he moves on foot some too.

Michelinie/Layton on their own left me cold. The JRJr issues are vastly superior, IMO.

I agree. JRJr's figures have more flow and movement and his storytelling was more dramatic. Layton penciling for himself was always a bit stiff. The second run art got better when Jackson Guice took over the layouts.

To be fair, I seem to recall liking earlier JRjr. When he matures as an artist and develops more
of his own, individual style, that's when i stop liking him so much.

The run with Layton is JRJr's first omg run on a comic and he was really Layton's layout artist. Layton was co-plotting with Michelinie and he gave IM a mich more modern look and shine even with the same armor Tuska had been drawing for the last 8 years.

A good combo, no doubt, and a fine period for Iron Man. As you said, Layton could be stiff, but his finishes are glorious.

This is my opinion as well. Really don't care for his style the last...oh, 20 years.

I'm writing in Kavanagh/Cheung. Defriend me if you must.

They are.

Michelinie/ Layton / JRJR - Gold standard for me. Layton finished off JRJR's layouts well and Iron Man hadn't looked this polished before. Couldn't adapt to JRJR's style when he came back with Byrne. Layton worked well with Mark Bright and Jackson Guice.

Goodwin / Tuska - Goodwin has a very clear idea of what concepts worked and didn’t work with the character, He lacks Stan Lee's flair, though. I thought Tuska worked better than Gene Colan. Tuska was more suited to iron Man and gave it quite a dynamic.

Kaminski / Hopgood - Underrated run and Kaminski was great at stories dealing with conspiracies and technology.

I selected "That Time When Ditko Fixed the Design."

No love for the Mark Bright years? Armor Wars was spectacular!

I haven't really read a ton of Iron Man -- a chunk of the Michelinie run, the Byrne run, and some of the Matt Fraction run. Even after the movie pumped me up on Iron Man, I just can't get into the character in a longterm way, for some reason.

He's one of the few superheroes I greatly prefer on the silver screen.

I don't enjoy the character without a secret identity. I preferred him as the tycoon with a double life.

Yeah, I think that adds to the fun. It works for RDJ in the movies because they're only telling a story once every couple years (and usually as part of an ensemble), but for the monthly serial I think the secret identity is a fun story gimmick that adds to the drama.

I didn't see the Byrne JR JR stuff as it came out and I only read it in the last few years on Marvel Unlimited. It looks fecking awesome to me - like Kirby level awesome. And just as with Kirby there are some things I don't like in there - his drawing things in a kind of cuboid style for example. But some of it was really spectacular.