What happened to tony being the Marvel poster boy post secret wars?

[Bossace]

So I remember as secret wars was ending we were getting interviews saying Tony is now the main big deal in the marvel universe and how basically he's their tent pole now. We even had pictures with him front and center. What changed so soon that they quickly abandoned him and took him off the board? Doom and Riri were introduced almost right off the bat in the iron man run, it seemed to me they were setting up those 2 characters and civil war 2 just as they were getting started. Does anyone know why Marvel did such a big 180 especially since they did all those interviews and promo pictures etc promoting Tony even more?

[XPac]

So I remember as secret wars was ending we were getting interviews saying Tony is now the main big deal in the marvel universe and how basically he's their tent pole now. We even had pictures with him front and center. What changed so soon that they quickly abandoned him and took him off the board? Doom and Riri were introduced almost right off the bat in the iron man run, it seemed to me they were setting up those 2 characters and civil war 2 just as they were getting started. Does anyone know why Marvel did such a big 180 especially since they did all those interviews and promo pictures etc promoting Tony even more?

I don't think he was quickly abandoned.

Post Secret Wars was the All New All Different chapter in the MU that went from Secret Wars to Civil War 2. I think the idea was that Stark was supposed to be the focus thrn, but ee've since moved onto a different chapter post Civil War.

[Frontier]

I want to say Bendis happened, but I guess it would be more accurate to say Marvel editorial happened .

[Panfoot]

Remember how International Iron Man was announced as a globetrotting spy book featuring Tony and Doom? Ha.

[gurkle]

I'm assuming we would not have Riri and Doom taking over the books if the Bendis relaunch of Iron Man had been a huge sales success.

Marvel keeps trying to make comics Tony Stark as popular as his movie counterpart, and he never will be, because comics and movies have different audiences, and because Robert Downey Jr.'s charisma isn't something you can reproduce on the page.

[Ianbarreilles]

I think there is definitely a possibility that when all different marvel was originally announced in the middle of secret wars Tony's fate in civil war 2 was majorly different hence why infamous iron man/doom, and riri invincible iron man seems kinda rushed.

[George Ndebele]

if iron man is supposed to be the poster boy then that means Riri is the marvel poster character because she is now iron man

OMG the marvel poster character is a girl who has like two issues and a couple of panels

[Panfoot]

if iron man is supposed to be the poster boy then that means Riri is the marvel poster character because she is now iron man

OMG the marvel poster character is a girl who has like two issues and a couple of panels

Nah, I think they will be pushing Captain Marvel for a while as *the* premiere superhero.

[SuperiorIronman]

Marvel Editorial happened.

The pre-orders for Invincible had been good enough (supposedly) to warrant Bendis getting a second book. This became International Iron man and so Bendis had Invincible which was the main book, and International to do a little more but was indeed going to be it's own story.
Bendis wanted to work on Iron man but he also had to do Civil War 2 since Marvel editorial wanted synergy with the then upcoming Captain America movie. This soon into the book was going to hurt, but with two books and a prominent spotlight in the event it's not like Iron man fans had been starved for content as he also featured elsewhere like in Avengers. Iron man was making plenty of appearances elsewhere.

Then Riri Williams happened. Riri didn't seem like she was planned to be around now at all. She had a total of 8 pages of panel time by the time she was announced to taking over Invincible Iron man, the Tony Stark main book wasn't around longer than a year. We don't know who, but someone in editorial liked Riri and wanted her to take over the book and so long as Bendis wanted to write Iron man, Bendis had to do it. This meant changing plans and could very well have contributed to some delays in Civil War 2 (possibly setting up Tony to get to Riri).

So basically editorial changed it's collective mind over Iron man. They wanted Iron man to be the flagship and then changed their mind on what that branding was supposed to be within a a few months of implementing that plan, feeling as if Riri was something special despite how little anyone had to go off of. The Rescue appearance in Infamous also suffered because someone in editorial thought she should show up in Invincible first despite it being planned for Infamous. Iron man is suffering from editorial mismanagement.

[Troian]

But no matter what.. Spiderman will always be their poster boy in a similar way to how Batman is DC's.. I guess they are trying to branch but it's not really working as well as they hoped.

[Mike_Murdock]

He was the flagship character for All-New, All-Different Marvel. Then All-New, All-Different Marvel ended. Now he's not.

[Ken Ashcroft]

if iron man is supposed to be the poster boy then that means Riri is the marvel poster character because she is now iron man

OMG the marvel poster character is a girl who has like two issues and a couple of panels

She's called Iron Heart,not Iron Man. If she proves popular enough they will probably get rid of the Iron Man book title and rename it Iron Heart as well.

[XPac]

I'm assuming we would not have Riri and Doom taking over the books if the Bendis relaunch of Iron Man had been a huge sales success.

Marvel keeps trying to make comics Tony Stark as popular as his movie counterpart, and he never will be, because comics and movies have different audiences, and because Robert Downey Jr.'s charisma isn't something you can reproduce on the page.

I think Bendis' Iron Man book being at least reasonably sucessful was the only reason marvel was willing to gamble of the Riri and Doom books. If the Iron Man books were in sales trouble they probably wouldn't have risked taking Stark off the board temporarily.

[Huntsman Spider]

But no matter what.. Spiderman will always be their poster boy in a similar way to how Batman is DC's.. I guess they are trying to branch but it's not really working as well as they hoped.

Except at least Marvel is willing to branch out beyond Spider-Man and has promoted a great stable of characters besides him who can compete for most recognized Marvel superhero. I'd say it's more a matter of the Avengers as a team being a major franchise unto themselves, but that doesn't necessarily translate into interest and sales for the members' solo comics. It doesn't help, either, that fans are revolting against a lot of the characters Marvel is trying to promote out of the (not-entirely-unjustified) belief that Marvel's old standbys that historically carried the company are being screwed over in favor of the newly promoted characters/franchises because of film rights. That could also play a factor in why Tony ultimately didn't take off as well as Marvel was hoping for its new poster boy.