The fine people over at Marvel have gotten their magic wands out and changed quite a bit about the their most beloved characters over the past few days. Moving forward in the comic world, Sam Wilson, better known as The Falcon, will be taking over for Captain America, and Thor’s mantle will pass to a woman. As such, many fans expected a huge alteration for Iron Man, but upon further review, it seems his big change will be a whole lot less drastic.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Superior Iron Man #1, set to debut in November as part of the Avengers Now! Initiative, will give Tony Stark a brand new silver suit, and it will see him move from his beloved New York City to San Francisco. Apparently, he has a radical plan for the California city. Some residents are behind it, but a good percentage are very opposed to whatever it is he wants to do.
In addition to the location swap and new gear, the new Iron Man editions will reportedly take on a much darker tone, with Stark being turned even more into an anti-hero, or at least a hero that’s difficult to root for. He’s always had a bit of that inside him, but it’ll be interesting to see what the writers do in order to fully embrace his inner narcissism and selfishness. I expect some radical proposals to fundamentally change the way residences live. They will have unintended side-effects, of course, though probably not as many side-effects as we saw in Man Of Steel.
So, how come everyone else got such shiny changes and Iron Man essentially remained the same? Well, a case could be made that Tony Stark’s superhero is simply too popular right now to make any fundamental changes. Yeah, Captain America and Thor have nice followings, but Robert Downey Jr’s take on Iron Man basically launched Marvel’s entire Cinematic Universe. Since this basic initiative is to attract a lot of new comic readers, there’s a lot of inherent danger in altering very basic things about the most popular face. That being said, I think it’s fair to say highlighting his narcissism and moving him to Northern California isn’t enough of a departure to piss people off.
We won’t know exactly how well the changes go over until the first issue drops in November. Expect the first edition to be very widely read. After that, it will likely depend on how well the new vision is executed. If people buy in, this could be an extremely successful run. If not, we could be getting a more fun-loving Iron Man back in New York City within a year.
