Recently I was on Tik Tok, and I came across a comic book content creator who was under fire from commenters who took issue with his claim that before he became a big screen hero, Iron Man was not at all popular. It’s quite the comical turn of events because if you were a fan of comic books in the late eighties throughout the nineties, Iron Man was not popular. Out of all the superheroes running during that time, Iron Man was at best a third tier superhero.
While The Punisher, Spider-Man, and X-Men were selling huge for Marvel Comics, Iron Man was low on the totem pole in terms of status and popularity. His series was constantly cancelled, rebooted, and restarted, while his alternate War Machine became the more celebrated of the pair. While he was respected as one of the Avengers’ founders, he just wasn’t a popular or even appealing character.
