My Favorite Iron Man Cover: Iron Man 96

I don't know what it is about this particular cover, but it captured my imagination as a child.

Back in the mid-70's, my oldest brother, Carlos, introduced me to the world of comics. He was mostly into Marvel, and he bought a ton of them: The Avengers, Fantastic Four, 2nd Generation X-Men, Captain America, Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, and Iron Man. One day I saw this issue, Iron Man 96, on top of a pile of comics. I remember being captivated by the image of Iron Man, looking defeated... beaten to a pulp... his armor is tattered... torn apart in places... looking the obvious worse for wear. But is he truly defeated? The gathered crowd behind him thinks so. But look at the conviction in his eyes... they say it all. And his hands... spread open with the Repulsor Rays brimming at the ready... ready for another round of battle... potentially to the death. And the colors... such amazing and vibrant comic book colors... gold and crimson against an indigo blue background... just a brilliant work of art!

I can't remember exactly what the plot of the story was about. I just have shards of memories which come up to the murky surface... fragments of images that have long stayed with me: Ultimo, a blue giant humanoid of a creature, walking with nothing more than a loin cloth through the streets of Washington DC; A golden hovercraft which transported Tony Stark and a shield agent; Iron Man battling Ultimo in front of the very steps of the White House and the Capitol.

Sadly, my brother's entire comic collection somehow vanished including that fabled issue. When and where did it go? What devilish agent played a diabolic hand in my brother's missing collection remains a mystery to this day. Decades later, he's gotten over it. In fact, he gave up the hobby long, long ago. But I believe his fleeting love affair for the hobby was not for naught... for it may have served a purpose... perhaps even being divine intervention: the heavenly spark that was the flame to my imagination!

Many years later, sometime in the mid-2000's, I found this bronze beauty at a local comic shop called Rick's Comic Cave. RCC's was a long narrow slit of a shop in Forest Hills, Queens. It mostly catered to the baseball card, Magic the Gathering , and Toy Figurine collecting crowds. They had comics too, hence the name. But my all-too brief forays into their shop made me feel like I was the only one sifting through their back issues... the only one who truly cared about comics. It was in one such foray that I found this childhood gem, all for the low asking price of $5 bucks! I'm happy that I not only discovered my favorite childhood cover, but I also recognized the amazing condition it was in. So I snatched it up but never read it, hoping to preserve its condition. And last year, at the New York Comic Con on October 12th, I submitted it for grading, and it has returned from the CGC in 9.6 (Near Mint+). Not bad for a 37 year old comic!

Now my next step will be to obtain a reading copy... to finally revel in the delights of this magical comic... and to take me back to the days of my youth.

I hope comics do the same for you... and keep you forever young!

Happy Collecting

SW3D

Side Note: I did a little research into Ultimo and he turns out to be a very interesting villain. He first appeared, albeit a cameo, in Tales of Suspense76 (April, 1966) and his first full appearance is the very next issue: TOS 77 (May, 1966). I am inserting a direct quote from a Wikipedia article about Ultimo's origins (which is fascinating):

"Ultimo is a gigantic android that is thousands of years old, and he was constructed by an alien species that has since been destroyed by their own creation. They called the robot "The doomsday device", apparently a combat instrument and a weapon of mutual assured destruction. Ultimo confirmed that his "masters" have not contacted him in "thousands of years. The first time (chronologically speaking) Ultimo is depicted in print (in flashback in Iron Man vol.3, #24), he is already traveling through space, and has attacked the planet Rajak, ultimately killing all its people. The only survivors, a group of merchants who were off-planet at the time, attempted to destroy him, but had to flee before his might. In the end they managed to lure him into an asteroid belt, where both he and the ship were battered by space rocks until they were driven off-course and separately crash-landed on an unknown planet -- Earth. This happened around the 1840s."

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