It's Really Important That You Preorder IRON MAN by Monday
So here are some details—including a video trailer!—about what you'll be buying. Also, some journalism (by other people)
Edited by Sam Thielman
I'M WRITING THE NEXT IRON MAN SERIES FOR MARVEL COMICS! IF YOU PREORDER IT, I'LL SEND YOU FREE STUFF! FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE AT THE LINK AND THEY'RE YOURS!
"FINAL ORDER CUTOFF." It's a term that has been haunting me lately.
Comics are a strange business, economically speaking. Unlike every other aspect of publishing, comics do not ship to retailers on consignment, so merchandise in comics shops are not returnable. That means comic book store owners have to buy every item they stock. When it comes time to order new releases from the various comic book publishers, the store owners have to assume all the risk for what they can and can't sell. It would be natural for store owners, who face the additional pressure of paying commercial rents, to only buy what they know from experience they can move.
They must make this decision, on every comic solicited to them, by what's called Final Order Cutoff. And for me, that's this coming Monday, September 9.
A crucial way stores decide to order big on a series is for customers to tell them in advance that they're going to buy it. That's more than a hype machine. That's a guaranteed sale. Retailers generally make a calculation that preorders are a harbinger of serious interest in a series, so each preorder generates X number of additional retailer orders.
This is why I am offering free merchandise to you, produced and shipped your way at my expense, for proof of a preorder of IRON MAN. I need these preorders. All you have to do is call or email your local comic shop and tell them "I want the new IRON MAN series from Spencer Ackerman, Julius Ohta and Alex Sinclair." They will be happy to reserve your copies, since they know they can bank that money. You can find the shop closest to you here. Or you can set up what's called a Pull List—comics you want reserved, at the shop closest to you—through this website.
What's in IRON MAN, you ask? As it happens, this week, I've done a bunch of interviews to lay that out, in addition to my AIPT appearance last week. My friends Danny Bessner and Derek Davison had me back on their podcast American Prestige to talk IRON MAN (and WALLER VS. WILDSTORM) from the perspective of my journalism. And Timothy Adams from ComicBook.com did this Q&A with me that lays it out for the comics fans and includes your first look at the gorgeous interior pages from artist Julius Ohta and color artist Alex Sinclair (who heads know is a fucking legend—part of the WildStorm crew in the 1990s that pioneered digital coloring and changed the game forever. I cannot believe I'm working with him!). Here's a sample:
[W]hat other threats and obstacles can fans look forward to in Iron Man?
In the World Outside Our Window, economics creates violence at scale. Now it's going to create ultraviolence at superhero scale. There are also going to be muscle monsters, dungeons, dimensional dangers, inner demons, demon-demons, AI slop, blowback from the best laid plans, jobber villains, familiar Iron Man villains, unfamiliar Iron Man villains, villainous Iron Man allies, and the greatest villain in the history of the Marvel Universe.
And if that's not enough, Marvel put together this video trailer for our series:
There's one more thing I'm going to ask you to do by Monday.
Monday is also Final Order Cutoff for my boy Matt Bors and his new Toxic Avenger series from Ahoy Comics, illustrated by Fred Harper. I've read the first issue and it blew me away. Here's a Q&A Matt did with AIPT so you can get a taste. When you're contacting your store, tell them you also want to reserve your copies of the Bors/Harper Toxic Avenger series. You're in for a serious treat. They improve comic books somewhat.
If you're wondering whether my Iron Merch giveaway lasts beyond Monday, it absolutely does. You just have to tell your comic store you want to put IRON MAN by Ackerman, Ohta and Sinclair in your pull list—the whole series. There is natural attrition across a comic-book series, especially in the jumps between issues 1 and 2 and issues 2 and 3. And if there is too much attrition by issue three, then my days writing IRON MAN are numbered! It is very important we get these numbers high—and keep them there!
FOREVER WARS reader, I'm relying on you to do your part, and I'm grateful beyond expression for those of you who have and who will. This is a big swing I'm taking—on the page and, well, in my life—and your support means the world to me and my family. Plus? If I can be so bold? Our IRON MAN is good, you guys. You won't be disappointed.
I AM STARING DOWN THE BARREL OF A DEADLINE for the script to IRON MAN #5, so I can't do journalism for this edition. But here's some recent journalism by others that's worthwhile.
Jeremy Scahill had a stepback about Benjamin Netanyahu's role in the ceasefire negotiations that look increasingly like a sick joke. After you read it, check out this Wednesday White House background briefing on the negotiations, where an official who 100 percent totally isn't Brett McGurk blocks and tackles for Netanyahu even after it is clear to all involved that he and not Hamas is the rejectionist. Haaretz has been all over Israeli rejectionism this week, including this blockbuster piece from Ravit Hecht and this analysis from Alon Pinkas.
Yesterday was Back To School in New York City, but Schools Chancellor David Banks was preoccupied by an FBI raid on the homes of his fiancee, Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and his brother, ex-NYPD big shot turned Deputy Mayor Phil Banks. Before the day was over, the NYPD Police Commissioner, Edward Caban, had his cell phone subpoenaed. All of them are critical advisers to Cop-Turned-Mayor Eric Adams, who has been under federal investigation every single day of his "Law and Order" mayoralty—which is what we call a "clue" about who cops think the law applies to, and what they do when granted political power. Right now, we don't know if the FBI moves on Wright, Banks and Caban are related to that Adams investigation. The early spin from City Hall is that they're not, which would be even more jaw-dropping. Either way, the most extensive federal investigation into NYC official corruption in my lifetime is underway—and the media environment in what used to be a newspaper city is barely fucking covering it, because the economic incentives even of local outlets here push toward national-level coverage. That surely played a role in how the corruption could get to this point. Anyway, The City, a pretty recent and reputable local outlet, punched far above its weight and broke this story yesterday.
Turkey, a NATO ally, is trying to join the BRICS economic bloc, which is probably the predictable outcome of blocking the Turks' EU accession, and has "declining U.S.-led international order" written all over it.
WIRED's Jared Keller reports that the Navy is decisively embracing Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet array, which represents a major and enduring expansion of Musk's influence within the military-industrial complex. We told you to watch such moves by Musk back in 2022. We can now fully call him a Pentagon Oligarch, even if SpaceX probably secured that position a decade ago.
[I just want to add one more FW-relevant item here: Cops admitted that they had interviewed the father of Colt Gray, the fourteen-year-old who killed four people with an AR-type rifle last week, in response to Colt threatening to shoot up a school. Now they’ve arrested the dad and charged him with murder. It sure seems like police surveillance is working exactly as the cops claim it should and that still doesn’t make a difference to the families of the two children and two adults who died last week.—Sam.]
WALLER VS. WILDSTORM, the superhero spy thriller I co-wrote with my friend Evan Narcisse and which the masterful Jesús Merino illustrated, is available for purchase in a hardcover edition! If you don't have single issues of WVW and you want a four-issue set signed by me, they're going fast at Bulletproof Comics!
No one is prouder of WVW than her older sibling, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, which is available now in hardcover, softcover, audiobook and Kindle edition. And on the way is a new addition to the family: THE TORTURE AND DELIVERANCE OF MAJID KHAN.