{"id":12987,"date":"2022-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=12987"},"modified":"2021-03-16T15:56:45","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:56:45","slug":"asm-annual-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/05\/13\/asm-annual-20\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM Annual 20"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the first, but this is one of several books I got in The Great eBay Hysteria of 2018 that didn\u2019t come in a bag, so I recycled a mycomicshop.com bag with a label for some other comic on it. Waste not, want not, eh? Yes, it\u2019s the Iron Man from that far off, unimaginable future time of\u2026 2020. 2020 wasn\u2019t THAT far in the future when Arno Stark, Tony\u2019s descendant, was created in a Machine Man miniseries in 1984. I mean, writer Tom DeFalco (Heard of him?) must\u2019ve realized he would still be alive to see how wrong he got it. And he is. Jump ahead 100 years, minimum. Anyway, this is ol\u2019 Arno\u2019s first appearance since that miniseries, which, as it happens, I own, but have not read. I got it at an estate sale in like 2016, alongside some really cool stuff like Jack Kirby\u2019s adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the previously posted Death of Captain Marvel, and others, but haven\u2019t read it yet. It\u2019s perpetually on the \u201cto-read\u201d pile. Maybe I shoulda read it before this, but I didn\u2019t! This one\u2019s \u201cbased on an original story by Fred Schiller,\u201d our 2nd mystery author in a row. Fred here created \u201cthe original story\u201d for this annual, and in the mid-90s, he\u2019s credited with 8 issues of Professor Xavier & The X-Men, an attempt to modernize the earliest X-Men stories, aaaaand that\u2019s it. He, too, has no Wikipedia page. The script is by Ken McDonald, who wrote this and a single issue of Dazzler, aaaaand that\u2019s it. What\u2019s up with this? Pencils by Mark Beachum, so hold onto your (skintight jeans-clad) butts, inks by Bob Wiacek, and colors by Bob Sharen. Despite being billed as The Iron Man of 2020, we meet Arno Stark in\u2026 the year 2015? What?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So there\u2019s some of his deal. He\u2019s Tony Stark\u2019s \u201ccousin once removed,\u201d and bought the company. Instead of being a superhero, his Iron Man is a mercenary, and he\u2019s trying to perfect time travel. He flies to some lab or something, and that Hawk guy is waiting for him? How\u2019d he get there before Iron Man? Arno\u2019s there to demo a \u201cplanetbuster bomb\u201d for some generic military guys. But Hawk bursts in (That guy\u2019s everywhere) to want him that a terrorist who looks like White Deathlok named Robert Saunders has learned of the bomb, and will \u201cdestroy Stark Enterprises\u201d unless the reveal its existence to the world by 6pm, a warning Arno ignores. Cynthia calls looking for Arno again, and is once again cut off by Hawk. This is a weird intro. So, Cythnia decides to take Arno, Jr. and crash the lab to show her husband they can\u2019t be ignored. That seems like it won\u2019t end well. Later, Arno\u2019s demonstration doesn\u2019t yield the devastation the military is looking for, and he worries that he\u2019s sold his soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes, Arno just flew out of an X-Wing from Star Wars, and that is not the last bit of design that will be egregiously stolen from those movies in this comic. What, like no one would notice? Arno arrives back at the lab just as Saunders is stealing a vehicle to escape, and you don\u2019t have to wait long for more Star Wars, because<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Arno\u2019s attempt to stop Saunders ends up exploding him. So now no one can defuse the bomb. Whoops. Only his retina scans can stop the bomb. But it turns out he was in a highly publicized incident with Spider-Man at 12-years old in 1986, and Arno has a time machine, so guess what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey handily wraps up Blizzard and his goons, and even gets some photos from The Bugle out of it. He tries to sell them, but Kate Cushing isn\u2019t in. And while he\u2019s in The Bugle, he notes a 12-year old kid imitating him as he walks down the hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beachum manages 3 butt shots in a page with only one (unnamed) female character in a speaking role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oh. I guess I\u2019m reading this too early, since Now Magazine hasn\u2019t opened yet. Oh, well, I\u2019m committed and I don\u2019t much care. Most of these annuals, I can\u2019t find out when they came out other than the year. I just guess. Our man\u2019s so happy he just swings in MJ\u2019s window to tell her the news, despite her protests that someone might see him. But when she learn the news,she reminds him tomorrow is Aunt May\u2019s birthday. Uh-oh. Jumping to the next day, we see Peter preparing to leave, anyway, saying he\u2019ll call her from the airport. Spotting Mrs. Muggins in the hall, he switches to Spider-Man to sneak out the skylight, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All things considered, that is a surprisingly restrained depiction of Candi & Randi. So this child of some rich person just went to Peter Parker\u2019s apartment unaccompanied in 1980s New York? Oooookaaaaay, Spidey drops the kid off at The Bugle because he refuses to say where he lives, and then bolts. But as it happens, Blizzard, already out of jail a day later, is driving around in a van looking for Spider-Man. He can\u2019t catch him, so he kidnaps the kid he saw with him. But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All this printed computer text is so small it\u2019s hard to read. Iron Man 2020 doesn\u2019t care about Blizzard and just zaps him, seemingly to death, and prepares to maybe steal the kid\u2019s eyeball. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey is really confused, and wonders if maybe he should just hand the kid over to Iron Man. He is an Avengers, after all, he\u2019d know if the boy were dangerous. But when it becomes apparent Iron Man is willing to kill the kid, he changes his mind. For his part, Iron Man is frustrated because his weaponry is so deadly he can\u2019t really attack without probably killing both Spider-Man and his quarry. But he zaps at them, anyway, and blows several skyscraper windows to bits, which badly injures Bobby. And that makes Spider-Man angry enough to stop running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man, who recently beat a Herald of Galactus into submission somehow, now thinks he doesn\u2019t have what it takes to beat Iron Man. What a dumb story that was. So now he beats Iron Man 2020 into submission in his fury, damaging all his systems and rendering him pretty useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All\u2019s well that ends well for Spider-Man. However\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nothing sells your shock ending like text that requires a magnifying glass. But even if it were easier to read, it\u2019s just statistics about the blast. Rough ending for Mr. Stark. I believe this is meant to be a prequel, to show why Arno was a villain in the Machine Man series, but that could be a little clearer. He would go on to several other pretty bad experiences and, I\u2019m told, later be\u2026 eaten by his own armor, which became a zombie. Really. Comics, man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the first, but this is one of several books I got in The Great eBay Hysteria of 2018 that didn\u2019t come in a bag, so I recycled a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[9,225,1034,253,261,1082,1081,13,26,1083,866,328,376,2],"class_list":["post-12987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-annual","tag-blizzard","tag-bob-sharen","tag-bob-wiacek","tag-fred-schiller","tag-iron-man-2020","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-ken-mcdonald","tag-mark-beachum","tag-mrs-muggins","tag-randi-candi-bambi","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13009,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12987\/revisions\/13009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}