Infamous Iron Man #1
Infamous Iron Man #1 marks the first appearance of Victor Von Doom in the role of Iron Man — a genuinely startling pivot that repositioned one of Marvel's most enduring supervillains as a reluctant would-be hero, kicking off a multi-year redemption arc that fundamentally expanded what the Iron Man mantle could mean narratively. The issue is the launching pad for the 'Marvel NOW! 2016' era's boldest character experiment: asking whether Marvel's archetypal armored tyrant could credibly occupy the moral space of Marvel's archetypal armored hero. It also delivers the first appearance of a Tony Stark artificial-intelligence construct — a version of Stark's consciousness preserved as a digital duplicate — which would thread through multiple concurrent Iron Man titles. Because the series grew directly from the post-Secret Wars status quo (Doom's scarred face healed, his nemesis Reed Richards departed to explore the multiverse) and out of Civil War II's incapacitation of Tony Stark, this issue functions as a hinge connecting two major Marvel event storylines while launching an entirely new character trajectory for Doom.
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The series grew out of the creative partnership Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev had already been exercising on International Iron Man, and Bendis had been seeding Doom's rehabilitation across his concurrent Invincible Iron Man run before spinning the character into a dedicated title. Bendis announced the concept in mid-2016, pitching it as a structured story with a defined endpoint — a 12-issue run that would be approved and kept to that shape throughout production. Editor Tom Brevoort shepherded the book, and colorist Matt Hollingsworth joined Maleev to create the deliberately dark, noir-inflected visual atmosphere reviewers noted was a conscious stylistic choice to underscore Doom's ambiguous moral position. The series replaced International Iron Man in Marvel's publishing schedule and launched as part of the post-Civil War II 'Marvel NOW!' wave on October 19, 2016.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Victor Von Doom as Iron Man (Earth-616), establishing his new heroic identity in the aftermath of Civil War II.
- First appearance of the Tony Stark A.I. — a digital consciousness duplicate of Stark — which Doom encounters in Tony's lab when he declares he will assume the Iron Man mantle.
- Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art, cover, and colors by Alex Maleev (with colorist Matt Hollingsworth); edited by Tom Brevoort.
- On sale October 19, 2016 (cover-dated December 2016); the duo of Bendis and Maleev had previously collaborated on Daredevil (earning a 2003 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series), Sam & Twitch, Spider-Woman, and International Iron Man.
- The issue opens with a Cabal-era flashback featuring Doom, the Hood, Emma Frost, Loki, and Namor, using Hood's question about Doom's motivations to frame the entire series' central dramatic question.
- Doom's restored, unmasked face — healed by Reed Richards at the conclusion of 2015's Secret Wars — is central to Maleev's visual characterization of the character throughout the issue.
- The first issue received a second printing (dated January 2017) and was released with seven variant covers, including covers by Esad Ribić, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr. (1:10 retailer incentive), Mike McKone (Champions variant), John Tyler Christopher (Action Figure variant), and Anthony Piper (Hip-Hop variant).
- The 12-issue series was later collected alongside Invincible Iron Man #593–600 in the omnibus-style Infamous Iron Man by Bendis & Maleev (released August 2023), and the first six issues were also collected in the trade paperback Infamous Iron Man Vol. 1: Infamous (2017).
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