Iron Man 2020 takes place in the slight future (Of Earth 8140), but most of the current generation of heroes are gone. The new Iron Man is Tony Stark’s cousin, Arno. It’s interesting to see how they depicted the future back in the ole days. Things have definitely changed a lot over the years.

The first comic deals with Arno attempting to stop a bomb from detonating. It would destroy just about everyone around so the stakes were pretty high. The only person who could diffuse the bomb was dead, so Arno was forced to go to the past and find him. Unfortunately, Arno ran into Spiderman and doesn’t handle the situation well. After he injures a innocent bystander, Spiderman is forced to go all out. It’s a very one sided fight and I guess that’s what we can expect. This issue was definitely the best from the collection and it also contained the best fight.

In the next few issues, Arno is hired to take down the Machine Man. Since the Machine Man’s tech is so old, it should be no problem to defeat him right? Well, it’s not the armor that makes the man, but the other way around. Arno is a really bad fighter and every fighter he makes contact with, tend to mop the floor with him. This mini series is really about the Machine Man and Iron Man doesn’t even get to fight until the final two comics of the arc. It’s good to see the Machine Man getting his props, but it was basically filler. In the next comic, Arno takes on Death’s Head since he was told to do so. He doesn’t ask any questions and he just wants money….he gets less heroic by the comic.

In the 6 issue mini series, Arno hosts a party with a lot of rich people, but he’s attacked by one of his old enemies. Iron Man scrambles his fighters and he goes out to fight the robots. They’re mostly cannon fodder and the head of the villains is an average human, so he can’t fight. The collection of comics ends with a What If comic. It was good to see Iron Man take him down a couple of pegs and he was in his cool 90’s design.

Well, Arno Stark is a pretty bad protagonist. The comic shows his decline from (Arguable at best) hero to downright villain. He starts out by trying to save his planet and then he becomes a mercenary for hire. He drops one guy off of a roof and blasts another guy straight out of this life. He’s basically a twisted Tony Stark, but not quite as cool as the former. His armor is also laughably weak. He loses to robots from decades ago and one good hit is usually enough to weaken his armor. I also can’t say that I’m crazy about the design. Especially in the six issue mini series, it was very bulky.

Spiderman gets a pretty good role and he’s probably the best hero in the comic. He shows us what a real hero is and he gets the job done. Once he enters rage mode, he makes short work of his opponents. Iron Man 2020’s armor never stood a chance against those punches. War Machine looks pretty bad, (Granted that it’s a What If comic) but I think that we’ve come to expect that much. The real Iron Man looks pretty good and his armor definitely holds up to the times.

Death’s Head was an interesting villain. It’s always good to see a Transformers character make his way into the marvel universe and he definitely gave Arno a good fight. His sidekick definitely seems like an interesting character and a comic series about their exploits could be fun.

This is a pretty solid collection of comics. I’d recommend it thanks to the classic art and generally quick moving storyline. It’s never boring and it’s always good to expand your marvel knowledge. There aren’t a lot of popular characters in the book, but Spiderman and Iron Man guest star appearances will have to do.

Overall 7/10