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OR--DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE MESSAGE BOARDS!

An Editorial by BOB LAYTON (12/30/04)

Recently, a reply from Tom Brevoort on the Alvaro message boards has stirred up some

controversy on an Iron Man pitch that David Michelinie and I submitted to Marvel a few years ago. In an effort to clear up any confusion or misunderstanding in the matter, we thought it might be helpful to provide readers with our personal experience in this matter.

In 2001, David Michelinie and I were contacted by the Iron Man office and asked to pitch an idea for IRON MAN: THE END. As guidelines, we were told that they wanted us to come up with a story that would conclude the series, to look at it as if we had been plotting the series all along, and that this was to be the final Iron Man story ever. They wanted a story done the way we would do it, a Michelinie/Layton story that fit the tone of the stories we had written and drawn during our two regular stints on the book.

So that’s what we did. We put our heads together and came up with a plot that would be how we, Dave and Bob, would end the series. We submitted the storyline, and soon received comments back from the editorial office saying that they enjoyed the plot, but that they would like it to be punched up a bit; I believe an assistant editor used the phrase, “wow factor.” They made several suggestions that they considered fairly minor, and that would help to achieve this goal. Most of the suggestions were for the addition of action scenes and impact visuals. Unfortunately, from our perspective we felt that these changes would subtly alter the core of the emotional story that we had constructed. Our take on Tony Stark/Iron Man has always been a positive one, with hope for the future, with courage and conscience winning the day. Our plot had Tony struggling with age and human frailty, pushing through hardships and self-doubt to create his final technological gift to the human race: a doorway to the stars. We ended with success, triumph and hope. But one of the suggestions that was made was to have Tony’s experiment fail, and in that failure create massive destruction and loss of life. Another suggestion was that we evolve Tony into a half-man, half-machine cyborg, no longer totally human. And while both of these concepts may have resulted in exciting stories, they weren’t the way that we, Layton and Michelinie, would have ended the Iron Man saga--which was what we had signed on to do in the first place. We felt that making these kinds of changes would alter the hopeful, positive ending to a series that had meant so much to us over the years.

Nonetheless, we were professionals and were well aware that the editor is the person who has to take ultimate responsibility for what comes out of his/her office. So, rather than turn our story into something we didn’t believe in, something that was counter to what we thought we’d been asked to create, we came up with an alternate plot, one which we felt might have more of a “wow” effect in concept and execution. But we never heard back from the editorial office about that plot. Perhaps messages got lost somewhere along the way, but in point of fact, Mr. Brevoort’s comment on the message board, that he liked the second plot less than the original, is the first we’ve heard that they even received that plot.

When it became obvious that Marvel wanted THEIR last Iron Man story, instead of David and Bob’s last Iron Man story, I dropped out of the project. I told David he could stay on if he wanted, but he decided to follow me in leaving.

But, we’ve always been believers in letting our work speak for itself. So here, for the first time ever, we’re posting our plot for the never-to-be-seen Michelinie/Layton IRON MAN: THE END. Judge for yourselves whether you think it would have made for a “wow” comic book.

IRON MAN: THE END

David Michelinie/ Bob Layton

Plot Pitch
48-Page One-Shot
December 7, 2001

PREFACE: The technology that provides the basis for this story is real. When the concept of a “space elevator” was introduced to the scientific community in 1975 by Jerome Pearson of the Air Force Research Laboratory, it was considered ludicrous: a tube extending from the Earth to a space platform in geostationary orbit 35,000 kilometers above, through which electromagnetic vehicles would travel to carry people, payloads and power. The potential was astounding; not only would such a transport system cut payload costs from $17,000-per-kilogram (via solid rocket boosters) to a mere $200-per-kilogram, but solar panels set in a vacuum, with no clouds, weather or nightfall to contend with, could provide an uninterrupted source of clean energy to be forwarded to Earth. An audacious dream? Perhaps. But advances in carbon nano-tube technology have caused scientists to rethink possibilities. Current theory has it that a working space elevator could actually be built by the end of this century. Of course, with a man like Tony Stark on the job, that timeline could be reduced considerably...

STORY: We open in outer space in the year 2042. IRON MAN, in a glittering suit of red-and-gold Smart Metal armor, is directing exterior work on the Stark Enterprises space station that will serve as an orbiting hub for Tony Stark’s greatest achievement: the space elevator. Suddenly, a proximity alert shrieks, and sensors show a meteor fast approaching on a collision course. A technician reports that the installation’s phased ion field--an energy shield meant to protect the station, and the transport tube that will connect it to Earth--is still a few minutes short of going online. Iron Man says, “No problem.” and flies out to face the threat. However, as he nears the craggy projectile, onboard analysis indicates that the meteor is behaving oddly, either accelerating or moving on an erratic trajectory. But before Iron Man can investigate this anomaly, crimson energy streaks from behind the meteor to zap him. Reeling from the blast, Iron Man sees that the meteor is about to hit the space station. He tries to scan the meteor to see if it contains sufficient iron ore for reverse magnetism to shove it away. But even though he’s clothed in the most sophisticated machine ever invented (the armor), Tony Stark is still a 70-year-old man. His mind is brilliant, but has been slowed by time. He gets flustered, activates the wrong program, and is ultimately forced to blast the meteor with palm repulsors before it can reach the station. However, the meteor shatters into smaller chunks which inertia carries forward. Iron Man tries more repulsor shots, but his reactions are slow; even with the aid of targeting computers in his armor, some meteorites get through and breach the station’s hull. As atmosphere escapes and workers inside scramble to get into environment suits, Iron Man zips around, sealing the largest holes with thermal plasma from his armor, and is able to reestablish hull integrity in time to prevent innocent deaths. But then the proximity alert sounds again: another meteor is heading their way! However, the crew is able to get the phased ion shield activated at the last second and the meteor is deflected. In its wake, they see a man-shaped red glow hovering in space. But before Iron Man can reach it, the glow streaks away and vanishes.

As Iron Man returns to Earth via a reusable shuttle module that attaches to his armor, he thinks that he’d made a tactical error, and that people could have died because of it. He was slow, but tells himself he’s just tired, he’s been working too hard, devoting too much energy to the Space Elevator Project. The same thing could have happened to anyone. (He never considers, at least consciously, that he’s physically not up to this sort of activity any more.) He decides that he’ll have to increase the subdermal stimulants his armor provides. Sure, that should do the trick...

Back on Earth, Tony (a vibrant, straight-backed 70-year-old) returns to his office at Stark Enterprises in San Diego, where he’s told that “Senator Cabe” is there to see him. A secretary shows BETHANY CABE in and the two chat about the Space Elevator Project and its political and economic ramifications. (This is where we can tell the reader exactly what the Space Elevator is, how it works, etc.) As Beth leaves, Tony says something like, “Don’t forget to pick up a quart of milk at Ralph’s, and give the dog his pill.” Beth turns and smiles: “Why Mr. Stark, you act like we’ve been married for twenty years.” As she turns away she adds, “Oh, yeah...we have been!”

Over the next few days, Tony focuses totally on the Space Elevator Project. As other crises come up, he assigns them to department heads that we will specify if this story goes to a detailed plot stage. Along the way, pieces of the meteor that had pierced the space station are analyzed, and a startling discovery is made: the rock had come from Earth, not space! Tony’s suspicions that the attack had been sabotage, deliberately disguised to look like an accident, seem to be confirmed, and he thinks he may know who’s responsible. Since the Space Elevator would facilitate the delivery of cheap solar energy, oil companies--who have been lobbying against this project for years--would lose power and profits. And the energy glow that had accompanied the meteor attacks points a finger at a possible culprit.

Tony makes some calls and, after turning over S.E. operations to his second-in-command, heads for the California desert. He arrives at an isolated, ultra-modern dwelling. The house is sealed and protected, and a voice from a speaker tells Tony that he will only be allowed to enter...in his armor! Tony seems unsurprised that the person inside knows his secret, and calmly dumps a sandwich and a newspaper from his briefcase--which then seems to melt and flow around him to form the Iron Man armor! (As Smart Metal, the armor can take any form Tony programs into it; so instead of carrying the armor in a tote, the tote is the armor.) He enters to find ARTHUR DEARBORN waiting for him. Arthur had been a loyal Roxxon Oil employee who had willingly been turned into the energy being known as SUNTURION to help his company (in Iron Man #142-144). Tony comes to the point, voicing his suspicions that Sunturion had attacked the space station on assignment from Roxxon. But Dearborn grins sadly and says that he hasn’t become Sunturion in decades--he got tired of killing people! He then explains that time had shown that the energy which makes up his body can cause cancer in people around him, an effect made ten times worse if he’s in his Sunturion form. So he’d stopped being Sunturion. He still works for Roxxon, but as a consultant via modem and fax machine. Iron Man is safe in his armor, and Arthur admits that it’s good to see him--he hasn’t talked to another human face-to-face (so to speak) in years. Tony is sympathetic, but says he needs Dearborn’s help to find out what’s going on. Arthur says he’ll do what he can, but he won’t advise Iron Man in any way that would harm Roxxon. As it turns out, this is a non-problem; Arthur’s hacking (facilitated by his microwave powers) tells him that Roxxon wasn’t behind the attack after all--but he thinks he knows who might have been. When Russia had finally gotten on its financial feet a decade or so ago, private companies had funded oil drilling in Siberia, where vast stores of fossil fuels had been discovered. Roxxon, looking for profits anywhere it could find them, had allied itself with Krychek Oil, trading some of its technology for a piece of the profits. That technology had included the process that had turned Arthur into Sunturion--though now modified to eliminate the radiation danger to others.

Tony returns to Stark Enterprises, mulling over his next move. He receives reports that the carbon nano-tube tunnel, being extended from a Pacific island base to the orbiting space station, is nearing completion. This is the final major step in getting the Space Elevator online in time for its scheduled inaugural run. Tony knows he doesn’t have much time to prevent further sabotage. He has to find out where the Krychek-employed attacker is headquartered, by any means necessary! As he ponders this problem, he receives reports from department heads that earlier crises have been solved, and that new ones have popped up. He almost casually assigns people to the new problems.

That night, Tony has dinner with Beth at their seaside home, and we learn a great deal through their conversation. We learn that they had reunited when they had met at JIM RHODES’ funeral twenty years before. Their shared dream of protecting innocents (the reason Beth had become a bodyguard in old continuity) and making the world a better place had led her into politics just as Tony’s path had led him into business. This thread segues into the topic of the Space Elevator, how it’s called “Stark’s Folly” because it’s so audacious and expensive. But Tony sees it as his final legacy, a risk that could pay off big if it works, providing cheap energy for the world and making outer space accessible to the Common Man. This causes Tony to express his concerns about sabotage, and he asks for Beth’s help: her position as head of the Senate subcommittee on something-or-other could give her access to information he needs to pinpoint the location of the Krychek operative. Beth is uneasy; she’s weathered criticism for her support of the Space Elevator, accusations of a conflict of interests, influence peddling, etc., when in reality she supports the project because she believes in it. But she understands Tony’s passion for the Space Elevator; his dedication and resolve is one of the reasons she’d first fallen in love with him forty years ago. But if she gets the info for Tony she knows he’ll do something hands-on, and that could create an international incident and a political bombshell for her career. Even more than that, she’s worried about him. She knows he’s been in conflict with himself about Iron Man, that the mistake during the meteor attack wasn’t his first. She reminds him that he’d promised to consider looking for a replacement to be Iron Man, and suggests tentatively that this search for saboteurs is less a question of protecting his dream than it is a struggle to prove that he’s still the man he once was. Tony reacts angrily, saying that he’s done this sort of thing for more than four decades, and he can still kick ass with the best of them! But Tony is a bit too loud in his denial; he knows it, and so does Beth. The dinner ends in silence.

The next day, Beth calls Tony with the info he needs. She tells him to be careful, and ends the conversation with a simple, “I love you.”

Iron Man flies to the Siberian research center that Beth’s info had specified. There he infiltrates and discovers that Krychek Oil had been developing its own corporate symbol/hero, their version of Iron Man, based on the revised Sunturion technology. They were planning to call this operative THE ULTRA-DYNAMO, playing on the name of Russia’s longtime national hero, “The Crimson Dynamo.” But before they’d had a chance to introduce him to the world, they’d decided to use him to assure their own survival instead, by sabotaging the greatest threat to their corporate future: the Stark Space Elevator. Thus they had sent the Dynamo into space to attack the Stark station--something that had not sat well with the would-be hero who had agreed to become the Dynamo. But when Iron Man trips an alarm, that employee proves he’s every bit the company man that Arthur Dearborn is, showing up as the Ultra-Dynamo to defend the Krychek complex against Iron Man--by knocking Shellhead’s dick in the dirt! Tony Stark is just too slow, his reactions dull, his mind not as sharp as it once was. He escapes, just barely, lucky to leave with his life.

Back in California, Tony Stark wrestles with the hardest decision he’s ever had to make. Basically, he’s forced to confront the reality of Time. With all of his power--technological, political, economic and more--even he can’t stop the aging process. And despite the denial that he’s been nurturing for months, if not years, he faces the fact that he just can’t do all he used to do. He goes to a cabinet, unlocks and opens it to reveal a dusty bottle of whiskey. He’s kept this bottle ever since he made what was previously his toughest choice: to stop drinking. He’d kept it around to prove that he wasn’t just avoiding alcohol--merely staying away from it--but that he was strong enough to resist its temptation. The bottle is a symbol of an absolute change he’d forced himself to make; admitting that he was an alcoholic had taken more courage than even he’d known he possessed. He grins thinly, closes the door, locks the cabinet. That courage is one thing that hasn’t changed! He calls Beth: “You win. I’m hanging up my guns.”

And so Tony sets about finding a replacement, a new Iron Man. He narrows possibilities down to a handful of candidates, and puts them through field trials in a new suit of programmable nano-armor, the next generation battlesuit that he was designing for himself. But everyone fails, falling into tactical traps that Tony places before them during the testing phase. However, one young man--NICK TRAVIS--avoids trap after trap, until he’s ultimately foiled by a twist of circumstance (a trick) that is blatantly unfair. Tony counters Nick’s accusation by saying that life itself isn’t fair, and the kid wouldn’t last long as Iron Man if he doesn’t know that. When Beth accuses him of not really trying, Tony counters by saying that whoever wears the armor will be his responsibility, and he’s not going to have some eager wannabe’s blood on his hands because he’d rushed things. But in truth, while he’s accepted the reality that he needs someone to fill his shoes, he still doesn’t want someone to fill them. Iron Man is part of how Tony Stark has defined himself for almost half a century; he is Iron Man. Only him.

More time passes, and Tony is in a deep depression as the day of the Space Elevator start-up arrives. This should be the most triumphant day of his life, but his soul is still in turmoil. Tony walks through the nearly deserted S.E. grounds; there have been no further acts of sabotage, but security at the Pacific island Elevator site is extreme, with most of S.E.’s own security forces having been transferred to the obvious target area. This turns out to be a big mistake as the Ultra-Dynamo arrives and attacks Tony Stark! And since Tony had promised Beth not to be Iron Man any more, his armor is locked in a vault or something. With luck and the help of a skeleton crew of security guards, Tony is barely able to avoid a fiery death. But fortunately, Nick Travis is one of the guards who’d remained behind, and breaks ranks to get to the experimental armor he’d used in the test he’d failed. Through combined efforts--Tony coaching, using his mind while Nick wields the armor--the Ultra-Dynamo is finally defeated and the Krychek sabotage plans are revealed to the world.

In the aftermath, Tony thanks Nick, saying that maybe he’ll give the kid another chance on the testing grounds. When Beth arrives, she points out that the Krychek group hadn’t sent an assassin after Iron Man; they’d gone after Tony, which means they obviously considered him--his mind, and what he could do with it--to be the real threat. This revelation causes Tony to understand that he isn’t a part of Iron Man; Iron Man is a part of him. He may move slower these days, may not be able to take first place in the office handball tournament any more, but years or no years, Tony is still Tony--as smart, courageous, and noble as ever. And, he thinks as he smiles for the first time in days, maybe just a little bit wiser.

We then end at the James Rhodes Departure Center on the Pacific island that is home to the now-completed Space Elevator. Various employees report the successful resolution of minor crises they’d been assigned throughout the story. Tony then addresses the crowd of reporters and dignitaries, announcing that this is the proudest moment of his life--and the most humbling. He’s learned a lot in the last few weeks, not the least of which is the most obvious: the inevitability of change. He’s learned that to fight change is to lose--and he’d almost lost himself. He now knows that the only way to win is to accept change, embrace it, and use it to make things better. Just as changing technology had made this Space Elevator a reality. In acceptance of this basic truth, he announces that he’s altering the name of his company from Stark Enterprises to Stark Universal, as a symbol of change. He then draws a gasp from the audience as he announces that he is also retiring Iron Man. A forward-thinking company needs to leave the past behind. But

it must also prepare for the future. Therefore, he takes great pleasure in introducing Stark Universal’s new corporate symbol: METALLIX! (Name likely to change in the actual plot stage.) At this point Nick Travis flies onto the scene, dressed in his own suit of programmable armor. Amidst the cheers of the crowd, the first official rail car of passengers heads up the tube of the Space Elevator. On board are Tony and Beth, his arm around her shoulders. Beth is concerned but Tony assures her that he’s at peace. He’s accepted what he is--and what he isn’t. He knows that everything he used to do will still get done, that he’d been grooming a replacement for Iron Man all of his adult life. Beth looks puzzled, and Tony points to the crowd below, to Metallix and the gathered employees who had stepped up to solve crises and keep the company going while he was out obsessing. “I’m not Iron Man...” Tony says, content at last. “We...are Iron Man.

THE END

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