Iron Man #2: Inside The Issue

The official canonical story of how Tony Stark got a giant sword—and more secrets revealed! Read at your own risk, because I'm spoiling the whole comic book 

Edited by Sam Thielman 

AS IS PROBABLY OBVIOUS FROM THE HEADLINE, I'M WRITING IRON MAN FOR MARVEL COMICS! IF YOU PUT IT ON YOUR PULL LIST AT A COMIC STORE (AN ONGOING SUBSCRIPTION WHERE THE STORE RESERVES EACH ISSUE FOR YOU), I'LL SEND YOU FREE STUFF! EMAIL SOME KIND OF RECEIPT TO FOREVERWARS.BULLPEN@GMAIL.COM AND THE SWAG WILL BE YOURS! 

FROM NOW ON, whenever a new issue of Iron Man drops, FOREVER WARS will do a behind-the-scenes edition. I will spoil everything and talk informally, with an eye toward letting interested readers see how the sausage gets made. All this will be strictly from my perspective—none of my collaborators are responsible for what I write here, and I won't speak for them, let alone for Marvel Comics. But these Inside The Issue editions are for paid subscribers only. 

It was a few months after I signed onto IRON MAN that the incredible artist Julius Ohta came aboard. Not being familiar with his style, I went to Bulletproof Comics on Nostrand Avenue and grabbed the back issues of Julius' Alien series so I could see his storytelling, figure and composition choices. When we finally got introduced, I remembered the lessons of so many episodes of Kieron Gillen's podcast Decompressed—one of the best free resources for aspiring comics writers to hear craft discussed by luminaries of the field—and asked Julius the crucial question: What do you love to draw and what do you hate to draw? 

I'll leave it to Julius to be specific about his preferences. But one thing I can share is that he said he loved drawing giant anime swords. Was there any way that we could give Iron Man one? 

Now, I had the basic plot beats of our first arc by then. My broader pitch for the overall run had been approved. None of it involved a giant sword, because I am not Talia Lavin and do not think in terms of giant swords. 

But when your artist partner says he wants to draw giant anime swords, the right answer is to figure out how it makes sense to give Tony Stark a giant anime sword. You have to smelt the themes of the book and forge them into the narrative material necessary for the sword to be an understandable choice. Iron Man #2 is available now, so we can finally see how he gets the sword. How'd we do it? That's after the paywall.