The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times

The Ages of Iron Man: Essays on the Armored Avenger in Changing Times. Joseph J. Darowski, editor. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

Anthology of critical essays.

Reviewed by Kristen Koopman, SFRA Review #322 (Fall 2017): pp. 17-19, our source here,[1] who tells us that "Joseph Darowski notes in his introduction to The Ages of Iron Man [...] that the character and the world he inhabits have had to respond to changes in social norms, political structures, and the technological bleeding-edge."

Some of the essays in the anthology "focus on Tony Stark’s relationships to warfare, technology, and/or business. Stark’s relationship to the military-industrial complex, for example, is thoroughly interrogated through different eras and different analytical lenses." Especially important, and relevant here, "the Cold War represented [...] a major turning point in the character (shifting him from a weapons manufacturer to a more technologically fluid industrialist) [...]" (Koopman, p. 18).

RDE, finishing 8Oct.20