The Immortal Hulk #44 - "To Rule in Hell"

[laughing_tree]

If you look back at those early issues, he’s hanging around with juvenile delinquents. In the ’60s, Iron Man’s building weapons for the military industrial complex. Hulk is beating them up. From a time before Stan Lee thought, “Actually, I’m feeling very counter-cultural myself,” Hulk was still the earliest example. I feel like Immortal Hulk is a book where we can do that and it won’t be out of place. It’s been an interesting journey, though I think some readers didn’t appreciate it as much as others. -- Al Ewing

Comments

[tcampbell1000]

There might be a GRAIN of truth to it, in that Stark's phenotype was less "underdog" than most other Marvel heroes. He wasn't obviously disabled, he wasn't some monster people ran shrieking from, he wasn't a teenager whose powers exceeded his self-control: he was rich, handsome, successful. Even Stephen Strange and Reed Richards were weirdo shut-ins by comparison.

But to draw this back to the original point... yeah, early Iron Man was not at all critical of the military. It got far more drama out of Tony's mortality, that injured heart of his that his technological genius was then barely able to keep going (which made him an underdog after all, just less obviously). The shift from "crush the commies" to "atone for my own war crimes" is fascinating in its own way.