Iron Man vs Doctor Doom: Round 3

First, let me apologize for the delay in getting an entry up. I will try to do one a week, but between the computer going into the shop and the holidays it has been severely delayed.

For those that don’t know, Bob Layton and Dave Michelinie, long time Iron Man fans and artist/writers on the book are doing a third (and final) installment of the Iron Man / Doctor Doom Camelot saga’s originally played out in Volume 1 issues 150-151 and 250-251. Both have said they originally planned a third installment, but never had the chance to do it until now, possibly due to the recent surge in Iron Man’s popularity.

The great thing about this saga is that the people helming it are big fans of Iron Man and have written the book before, arguably during one of the best periods of Iron Man comics, so you know you are in for a quality read. Plus, the artist for this book will be long time Marvel artist Ron Lim. (For samples of the upcoming saga please check out bob Layton’s site www.boblayton.com it’s worth while to explore it also). For those that know me from the Advanced Iron boards (under the same name) I am quite peculiar with my art, so it’s rare to see me exciting for an artist to be on board.

For those that are unfamiliar with Lim, he has worked on many Marvel books, including the later issues of Infinity Gauntlet. His art is very clear and concise, and has a “classic” style so to speak, but one that is also detailed and modern. The sample pages on Layton’s site have been rather impressive in my opinion.

So as far as I am seeing things, we are in for a treat with this series. The pages suggest Stark and Doom are once again transported back to Camelot, where they take their respective sides among the legends and battle it out. Whether or not we will get the armored slugfest I have been hoping for since I first read the past encounters, I don’t know. But even if we don’t, I have faith the story will be good enough it isn’t really needed.