I…Am… Ironman

“Tony Stark makes you feel

He’s a cool exec with a heart o’ steel

As Iron Man, all jets ablaze

He’s fightin’ and smitin’ with repulsor rays!

Amazin’ armor! That’s Iron Man!

A blazin’ power! That’s Iron Man!”

That is of course, the catchy lil’ tune from the 1960’s Marvel Super Heroes’ Ironman cartoon. It was a rather cheap affair done more as an animatic than actual animation, meaning mostly static art with a few moving pieces here and there. 

They took the actual art from the comic issues by Jack Kirby, Don Heck and others, and as such, there was some pretty cool visuals in there. 

With cheap animation. You can check out the old intro HERE.

This was my first exposure to Iron man, much like the accompanying Captain America, Hulk, Thor and Submariner cartoons. Some with very catchy theme songs.

But we’re here to talk about ol’ “Shell head” this time. That was the armored Avenger’s nick-name back in the day. One of Stan Lee’s two main duties back in the ’60’s Marvel Age of Comics was to provide snappy dialog for the characters he created along with Kirby and Steve Ditko. Stan knew how to humanize the heroes, whether it was by giving them vulnerabilities and anxieties, or making everyone feel like part of the gang — including us. Thor was often referred to as “Goldilocks”, Hulk as “Green jeans”, Giant-man as “High pockets”, etc.

The Iron man ‘toon had all the action and drama from the comics. The main suspense came from wondering if Iron man could defeat the villain of the story before his transistorized suit of armor ran out of power. The double threat was that the suit also powered the chest plate that kept his damaged heart beating! 

And I’m *guessing* that the Mandarin didn’t have any convenient AC outlets in his castle for recharging!

It was in the ’70’s when I started grabbing the actual Iron man comics amidst so many others. I was always a bit fascinated by this curious “armor mesh” Stark sported. He was always flying around, shooting repulsor rays, but was very flexible in his movements because of the seemingly very thin mesh armor that comprised his red and gold suit. It was also kind of brilliant because his arms and legs almost looked like tights that other superheroes would wear but it was actually armor. Thin armor. 

Like chain mail. 

Only thinner. 

With much less detail to actually draw. 

His chest plate, gloves, boots and helmet looked a bit more technological though. There was obviously a ton of micro-circuitry in that armor to make it SO unbelievably THIN, because he had jets in his boots (and sometimes roller-skates!), repulsors in his gloves, some kind of blaster beam in his chest circle, and … metal nipples that for some reason no one cared about because Iron man was pretty cool.

Although when I *did* catch up to Tony’s alter ego in the comics, his mask had a very unfortunate metal noise attached. 

Crudely. 

As an afterthought. 

The upgrade (?) didn’t last long and was actually a miscommunication taken from Stan. The way Ironman’s metal faceplate was drawn, at times it almost seemed as if there was no room for his nose under there. Stan was simply thinking aloud about that one day while visiting the Marvel bullpen in the ’70’s. As Stan was the top dog, he didn’t realize that his random thought would make an editor nervous enough to hurriedly command all artists on all IM-related books to hastily add a crappy pointed nose on Shell head’s face. Stan didn’t want a nose added. Oops. In fact I think it was a few months later that Stan finally noticed the nose and made a call to New York. “What’s with the stupid nose?”

But I really enjoyed the old red and gold armor. Most people did, because that standard look was kept for over 25 years. They tried out numerous variations for different missions, and storylines, but they mostly stuck with the basic, or reverted back to it regularly until the 21st century. 

Gene Colan was an artist on ol’ Shell head for numerous years in the ’60’s into the ’70’s, and he had a kinda brilliant method of injecting “emotion” onto the face of Tony’s helmet. In the movies, we usually peeked inside Stark’s helmet to see RDJ emote, but back in the day, artists such as Colan didn’t have the page count or narrative luxury to add frames just to show Stark’s emotions. It probably never occurred to him. No, even though the actual eye and mouth slits on the armored helmet could never move to form expressions, Colan did the next best thing. 

Factoring in the curved nature of the faceplate on the helmet, when Iron man was nervous, in pain, worried, in anguish, etc., Gene would tilt Iron man’s back so the eye slits tilted up in the middle for the desired emotion. When IM was angry, determined, or just plain old confident, he’d tilt the head down, so the eye slits angled down in the middle. 

Easy-peasy armor-squeezy!

Manufacturing multiple emotions just by tilting the head. A master class by Mr. Colan.

That was really the main bit I wanted to talk about. Just the illustrative Magic of Gene Colan. 

Oh sure, I can talk about “Demon in a bottle” (the story of Tony’s alcoholism), some of the other great creative teams on the book over the years, or how RDJ single handedly changed how the comics wrote the character of Tony Stark (they gave him a personality). Or how they’ve needlessly over-complicated the looks of the armor over the years (yes, simple is better).

But really, I just wanted to give some love to the old red and gold and the Colan head tilt.

Excelsior!