Iron Man title complements film

By BILL RADFORD

- The Gazette

In the past few years, the character of Iron Man has become more central to the Marvel Comics universe than before.

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On Friday, he flew off the comics pages and into movie theaters with Marvel Studios' "Iron Man."

Just a coincidence?

Pretty much, says Tom Brevoort, executive editor for Marvel Comics. Iron Man's growing role has been a natural progression, he says, largely stemming from his role in "Civil War," a big event that saw superheroes divided over a federal registration act for superhumans.

Iron Man's pro-registration forces won. Since then, Tony "Iron Man" Stark has become the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., an intelligence and security organization.

As such, he has been crucial to story lines in "Captain America," "Hulk" and other titles.

"Certainly we weren't unaware that there was an Iron Man movie in the pipeline, but none of this was specifically because we knew the film was coming," Brevoort says.

"That said, it's a nice confluence of events."

What's not a coincidence is the launching of a second monthly Iron Man comic just as the movie comes out. The first issue of "Invincible Iron Man" arrived in comic book shops May 7.

"The reason we're doing it is so that when people go see the movie and walk out of the theater and to the comic book shop, they have a nice, easily accessible Iron Man title that they can go to and start kind of at the beginning rather than trying to pick up another book midstream," Brevoort says.

Whereas the other regular title, "Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.," is more espionage-oriented and a bit darker, "'Invincible Iron Man' will be very much a mainstream, action-oriented superhero book," Brevoort says.

Also in May is the debut of "Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas," a four-issue miniseries written by "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau and illustrated by Adi Granov, who was a concept designer and illustrator for the movie.

Favreau and Granov hit it off while working on the film, Brevoort says. "At a certain point, the thought came up: Wouldn't it be cool to do a comic book together? It's like doing a movie, but with an unlimited budget."

Brevoort calls the miniseries "a good, big, rollicking punch 'em up."

As the title indicates, the story is set in Las Vegas, where Tony Stark is taking a break from his S.H.I.E.L.D. and Iron Man duties.

"He's out there blowing off some steam," Brevoort says.

"Stuff starts to happen, a plague of lizards from the desert. Clearly some bad mojo is going on, and things will escalate to the point where there will be a big, giant dragon rampaging down the streets of Sin City, and Iron Man will have to deal with this."