Marvel's Iron Man #1 Variant Covers Showcase Tony Stark's Improvised Iron Man Armor

Iron Man is no longer invincible in Marvel's Iron Man relaunch.

By Cameron Bonomolo - September 5, 2024 04:08 pm EDT

Tony Stark has been the Invincible Iron Man, the Superior Iron Man, the International Iron Man — and starting in October, the Improvised Iron Man. Following the conclusion of Gerry Duggan's 20-issue run on Invincible Iron Man in July, Marvel is set to relaunch the now-adjectiveless armored Avenger in Iron Man #1 from writer Spencer Ackerman (DC's Waller vs. Wildstorm) and artist Julius Ohta (Marvel's Hellverine). His high-tech armory destroyed, a scrappy Stark improvises with a back-to-basics suit of armor to wage war with A.I.M., the Roxxon Corporation, and a hulking, hydraulic behemoth: the new Iron Monger.

"Down to the armor Iron Man is wearing, Tony is in pure survival mode from the jump," Ackerman told ComicBook in an exclusive preview of the first issue (on sale October 23rd). "The stakes start out very high and escalate from there. A big theme of this run is going to be scale — the pursuit of it, the maintenance of it, the cost of it. We've seen Tony cross some very serious moral lines in the past. Now we're going to scale them up."

(Photo:
Iron Man (2024) #1 cover by Yasmine Putri.
- Marvel Comics)

By stripping Tony Stark of his invincible Iron Man armor for steampunk-esque scraps, the all-new Improvised Iron Man "showcases vulnerability and desperation," Ackerman added. "This is something a very smart person makes when all else has failed and what comes next can't. He's not in a cave, but he is building it out of scraps. It's 'Improvised' in the sense of 'Improvised Explosive Device.' And it's going to include a key visual and tactical element that we rarely, if ever, see with Iron Man armor. That's debuting in issue 2. And because he's Iron Man, he's going to iterate on the Improvised armor. A lot. And as circumstances are going to very rapidly require."

In addition to the cover by artist Yasmine Putri (Phoenix) and a foil variant by Philip Tan (Uncanny X-Men), Marvel has revealed another look (below) at the Improvised Iron Man armor on new Iron Man #1 variant covers by Leinil Francis Yu (Wolverine), John Tyler Christopher (Old Man Quill), Mike Mckone (Uncanny X-Force), Sumit Kumar (The Vigil), Skottie Young (Strange Academy), and Dave Bardin (Giant-Size Fantastic Four).