Iron Man 2: Public Identity #1
Iron Man 2: Public Identity #1 holds a unique place in MCU publishing history as an officially canon bridge story, confirmed as such in Marvel's own Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – Iron Man 2. It fills the narrative gap between the two Iron Man films — the period immediately after Tony Stark's 'I am Iron Man' press conference — in a way that the film itself never addressed. Within Earth-199999 continuity, the issue delivers the first comic appearances of both Edwin Jarvis (the human butler, years before Agent Carter introduced him on television) and Maria Stark, making it the earliest printed source for those MCU character designs. Perhaps most significantly, an interview cited by the MCU Wiki confirms that the comic established the official canonical account of how General Thaddeus Ross and Tony Stark first encountered each other, a story thread Marvel editorial had specifically wanted to tell in comics form.
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The series was co-written by Joe Casey — known for Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin — and Justin Theroux, who was simultaneously writing the screenplay for the Iron Man 2 film itself; Robert Downey Jr. had recommended Theroux to director Jon Favreau after their collaboration on Tropic Thunder. That screenwriter-as-co-author arrangement was unusual for a movie tie-in and gave the book a degree of narrative authority over the film's own continuity. Art was provided by penciller Barry Kitson (with Ron Lim contributing additional pencils), inker Victor Olazaba, colorist Matt Milla, and letterer Clayton Cowles, under editors Alejandro Arbona and Ralph Macchio with Axel Alonso as editor-in-chief. The cover was painted by Adi Granov, who had been instrumental in defining the look of Iron Man's armor in the comics that inspired the first film.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First MCU (Earth-199999) appearance of Edwin Jarvis, the Stark family butler, who appears in flashback; the series later retroactively confirmed that Tony named his J.A.R.V.I.S. AI after him.
- First MCU (Earth-199999) appearance of Maria Stark, Tony's mother, also in flashback.
- Co-written by Justin Theroux, the credited screenwriter of the Iron Man 2 film, making this a rare tie-in with direct creative continuity to the movie's script.
- Art by Barry Kitson (pencils), with additional pencils by Ron Lim; cover by Adi Granov.
- Released April 28, 2010, with a June 2010 cover date; edited by Ralph Macchio and Alejandro Arbona under editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.
- The story is a direct sequel to Iron Man: I Am Iron Man! and an official prequel to Iron Man 2, chronicling Tony's celebrity superhero phase, General Ross and Justin Hammer's scheme to create an Iron Man replacement, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ongoing surveillance of Stark.
- In-story, a news reporter labels Tony Stark 'the first celebrity superhero,' a designation that becomes a thematic underpinning for both the comic and the film it precedes.
- Reprinted in the trade paperback Iron Man 2: Public Identity (collecting issues #1–3, Iron Man 2 Spotlight, and related digital comics) and again in The Avengers: Road to the Avengers and The Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Marvel Comics Omnibus.