User blog:Nausiated/Project 11/61: Iron Clad Continuity

Yet another accomplishment in the can with the start of an expanded history for Iron Man. It covers every appearance of Iron Man from his birth up to his last chronological appearance in December 1969 (as well as all flashback and retcon stories that happen during this time span)

I'm going to keep this brief because I don't have a lot of time to write up a long list of notes but here are some highlights:


 * Tony's past is literally a jigsaw puzzle. With a panel here and a panel there over his 50 odd years of continuity. Lots of one panel flashbacks of his childhood. The biggest stinker being the most recent "Secret Origin of Iron Man" story wherein it's revealed that Tony was adopted. Of course they don't reveal who his biological parents are, and you can expect them to use that when they run out of ideas next.


 * There is a lot of ancillary notes on Howard Stark as well since they have recently fleshed out his origins. No longer is he just a wealthy inventor who turned into an alcoholic due to the pressures of his job. Now he was also part of secret orders and fought alien and inderdimensional threats. Tony should be lucky he ONLY became an alcoholic!


 * Another very very time consuming part of this expanded history was Iron Man's origins which have been retconned multiple times. The way I approached this was apply the rules of the Sliding Timescale to every version that exists (even the most recent one that changes the location from Asia to Afganistan, because this too will become a dated reference eventually).


 * Of course with a lot of the other Avengers, his time during the original run of Avengers has been expanded thanks to various series such as Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Vol 1, Captain America: Man Out of Time Vol 1, and Avengers: The Origin Vol 1. Also his first encounters with the Mandarin have been expanded in Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin. All good reads.

Next up I will be working on Dr. Strange and the original X-Men (Professor X, Cyclops, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Beast).