“Iron Man” (Tales of Suspense 39 Splash Recreation) (2002)
by Paolo Rivera (1981-)
24 x 36 in., oil on canvas
Coppola Collection

“Iron Man” debuted in “Tales of Suspense” #39 (1963). The 2008 reflection at the start of the omnibus reprint collection notes that as the Marvel Age of Comics exploded on the pop-culture scene, super hero after super hero that redefined the genre leaped forth from the imagination of the Marvel Bullpen. Adventurers and innovators, scientists and high-school bookworms, they were amazing men and women with all the failings and foibles of you and me. And there are none that touch both that adventurer ideal and human reality as Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man. A jet-setter, playboy, and brilliant scientist, Tony is cut down to Earth when a battlefield explosion rips into his heart. Only by creating the amazing Iron Man armor can he stay alive!

Packed with the debonair and debutantes, Cold War monsters and sultry super-spies, the Iron Man Omnibus presents the stories of one of comics’ most intriguing characters from the very beginning! Featuring the first appearances of such classic Marvel characters as the Mandarin, the Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man in lushly-illustrated stories by “Dazzling” Don Heck, Gene “The Dean” Colan and scripted by no less than Stan “The Man” Lee himself, this is go-to volume for the Iron Man fan.

A copy of the splash page from the first issue, and this, from Paolo: “At 24×36 , this is one of the larger pieces I’ve ever done. It’s based on the famous splash page from the first appearance of Iron Man. I painted it in oil on canvas many years ago while I was still in school.”