Invincible Iron Man #500.1

This special #500.1 issue arrives as a natural jumping-on point for new readers, with a cover by Salvador Larroca and Frank D'Armata that assembles the full sweep of Tony Stark's world in one striking image. Iron Man's armor dominates the center, gleaming in warm golds and blues, while a woman in partial armor rises above and a brooding Tony Stark looms large at the lower right — surrounded by a cast of allies, rivals, and figures whose relationships to him feel charged with history. Matt Fraction and Larroca clearly had something ambitious in mind with a story titled "What It Was Like, What Happened and What It's Like Now," and this densely populated cover suggests a reckoning with everything — and everyone — that has shaped the man inside the suit.