10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Iron Man

8. Heroes Reborn

Speaking of cheap pieces of garbage...actually, this one was far too expensive given the end product. In the nineties Marvel found itself in a series of increasingly desperate binds, beginning with the exodus of its major writing and drawing talent to new creator-owned publisher Image and peaking with their finances going in the toilet with the collapse of the speculator market. Their best option in 1996, it seemed, was to hire all of those lost creative teams on a premium, freelance wage to reimagine some of their flagship characters for the nineties audience. And boy, did the Image guys go full nineties. Rob Liefeld made Captain America into a horrifically distended muscle-bound freak, Jim Lee gave the Fantastic Four some pouch-tastic new outfits, and the latter was also responsible for giving Iron Man a bit of an overhaul. Which he promptly did, deciding that the real problem with Tony Stark's armour is that it didn't have a terrifyingly gargoyle-like gaping mouth, and the whole "metal suit" thing didn't let you see his rippling biceps and thighs enough. Amongst all the improvements he was making to the character's look, sadly, Lee and co forgot to give him any sort of personality or direction, to the point that The Hulk essentially became a regular member of the supporting cast just so that Iron Man would have something to do. It took a little over a year for Marvel to realise the Heroes Reborn thing was a dud, had done nothing to improve sales, and decided to put everything back to normal.