Iron Man By Design #1 – Review

By John Rhett Thomas (head writer/editor), Chris Arrant, Jess Harrold, Michael Kronenberg, Nathan Kronenberg (bullpen writers), BLAMMO! Content & Design, Michael Kronenberg (book design)

The Story: None to speak of here, since this is not a regular comic book. It’s actually a collection of art from the special Iron Man variant covers that adorned all the major Marvel titles in honor of Iron Man 2. It also includes little blurbs on the cover artist, the cover itself and—best of all—the art style in which the cover was done.

The Review: I picked this book up entirely on a whim (mostly because the picture on the cover, and the alternate cover material, is quite cool) with no intention of reviewing it. I enjoyed it so much, though, that I figured it was worth putting a quick review out there since it’s pretty easy to overlook.

The art included in here is beautiful, almost to a piece. Not all of it was necessary (Cave Man Iron Man? Psychedelic Iron Man?) and not all of it was to my taste (I can live without the image of my favorite armored hero looking like Tik-Tok from the Oz books, thank you very much), but even the few missteps or pieces I didn’t personally care for were at least interesting, and work as an overall part of the ‘gallery’ effect this book is going for.

In addition to the pictures, the information given about the art style, artist and conception of the artwork, while nothing deep or earth shattering, are fun and add to the enjoyment of looking at the illustrations. It’s nice to see an artist’s thoughts side by side with their artwork; that’s not something that we as comic fans get to see very often.

Conclusion: I wouldn’t say that spending $3.99 on this book is for everyone, but if you like Iron Man and different ways of imagining him (or really, if you just like art in general), this is worth a look. As for me, the cover of this book alone is the first one in a very, very long time that has made me want to run out and buy a comic frame to put it up on my wall.

Grade: For what it is, A

-SoldierHawk