THANOS FIRST APPEARS IN AN IRON MAN COMIC.
Tales of Suspense #39 to the current run — the Silver Age keys, the Bronze sleeper,
and the box we check before we price anything · Comic King
Iron Man — The Complete Comic King Guide
In December 1962 Marvel put a wounded arms dealer into an anthology comic called Tales of Suspense, gave him a metal suit that was keeping his heart beating, and set the story in Vietnam. It is the most on-the-nose Cold War premise the company ever published, and it aged into something far more interesting than it had any right to. Sixty-three years later Iron Man is the character who started the modern superhero film era, which means most people arriving at this shelf know the screen version and nothing else — and the comics have a few surprises waiting for them. His first appearance is not in a comic called Iron Man. The armour is grey on that cover, not red and gold. And the single most valuable issue in a typical Iron Man run is not really about Iron Man at all: THANOS FIRST APPEARS IN IRON MAN #55, buried in a Bronze Age run that most dealers price by the inch. Comic King carries Iron Man in Edmonton across all of it — the trades that actually answer "where do I start", a deep and affordable Bronze wall, the current run on the rack, and a back-issue habit that means nothing leaves here mispriced in either direction. If the book you want is not on the shelf, we can special-order or source it on request.
Quick Facts
Story: A weapons manufacturer is wounded by his own product, builds a suit to keep himself alive, and spends the rest of his life trying to undo what he built — while being an alcoholic about it. The armour is the least interesting thing about him.
Length: Since March 1963, across an anthology and seven-plus volumes: Tales of Suspense #39–99, then Iron Man #1–332 and successive relaunches to the current volume.
Ask which title and which year.
Status: Current and healthy — a new volume is on the rack and goes to a twice-monthly schedule from December 2026, running toward a legacy-numbered 700th issue in April 2027.
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Age guide: Mostly straightforward superhero material and an easy visual sell to younger readers — the all-ages line covers him well. ⚠ One genuine exception: Demon in a Bottle is about alcoholism and is not a kids' book, so we shelve those two things apart.
Formats: The three anchor trades · Epic Collections · a deep Bronze back-issue wall · the current monthly · Omnibus and Masterworks by special order.
At Comic King: The Bronze run searched issue by issue before anything is priced, the anchor trades face-out, and staff who will tell you what Tales of Suspense is before you go hunting under I.
The Most Valuable Book in an Iron Man Run Isn't About Iron Man
IRON MAN #55, February 1973. Jim Starlin, writing and drawing, introduces THANOS — and not only Thanos: the same issue holds the first appearances of DRAX THE DESTROYER, MENTOR, STARFOX and KRONOS, which makes it one of the densest single issues in Bronze Age Marvel. Thanos went on to become one of the most famous villains in the world on the strength of films that made billions of dollars, and his first appearance is sitting in the middle of an Iron Man run. That mismatch is the entire reason this page exists in the form it does. People hunting Thanos look in cosmic titles. People pricing an Iron Man collection sort it quickly by decade and move on. Number fifty-five sits in the gap between those two habits, and it is worth more than the rest of a typical Iron Man run put together. We check for it every single time, before anything is bulk-priced, and if you are selling to us that habit is worth money to you rather than to us. The same logic runs backwards through the character's beginnings, because HIS FIRST APPEARANCE IS NOT IN A COMIC CALLED IRON MAN EITHER. He debuts in TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, cover-dated March 1963 and on sale that December — an anthology that functioned as Marvel's try-out book the way Showcase did at DC, and which files under T where nobody looks. That one masthead holds three major keys: #39 is Iron Man, #52 is the first BLACK WIDOW, who arrives as an Iron Man villain rather than a hero, and #59 begins Captain America's Silver Age solo return. The title then stops being Tales of Suspense and becomes CAPTAIN AMERICA at issue #100 — so a run that starts as an Iron Man book ends up shelved under a different character entirely. If you take one thing from this page: search Tales of Suspense, and check every Iron Man run for #55.
The Run, Era by Era
Sixty-three years, one anthology and seven-plus volumes, organized. Every era of Iron Man, the one issue that represents it, and why collectors care:
The Keys — Issues Everyone Hunts
TALES OF SUSPENSE #39 is the franchise key and it is broker territory — several thousand dollars raw, five figures by mid grade and six by the top, with copies trading rarely enough that every one is comped individually. We authenticate before we discuss money, because it exists as a facsimile edition and inside oversized reprints, and oversized always means reprint. IRON MAN #55 is the one we actually want you to remember: the first Thanos, plus four other first appearances in the same issue, at a few hundred dollars raw and trading weekly through the middle grades. That combination — genuinely significant, obtainable, and hiding in a run people sort quickly — makes it the single most valuable search habit on our Marvel wall. TALES OF SUSPENSE #52 is the first Black Widow and behaves like a proper Silver Age key: a few hundred raw, four figures by Fine, and it climbs hard because high grade is scarce. TALES OF SUSPENSE #48 is the quiet one — Ditko's red-and-gold redesign, under two hundred dollars raw, selling a couple of times a week, and rarely requested by name despite being the origin of everything anyone pictures when they hear "Iron Man". IRON MAN #1 from 1968 is a solid four-hundred-dollar-ish book that sells several times a week, and a good chunk of the people buying it believe it is the first appearance. It is not, and we will say so. Below those, two Bronze and copper keys are genuinely affordable and genuinely liquid: IRON MAN #128, the Demon in a Bottle cover, sells three times a week at about the price of a hardcover and gets bought for the image and the story rather than any first appearance; and IRON MAN #282, the first full War Machine armour, is cheaper still, with certified high-grade copies trading weekly. The rest of the long run is deep, affordable and worth completing — it is one of the more rewarding want-list projects in the store precisely because there is a real key buried in it. One honest note on the modern material: everything published after 2008 was printed into a booming market and is plentiful. Screen fame is not scarcity, and we will tell you that rather than let you assume otherwise. Key prices move constantly, so we buy and price against live sold comps — ask and we will pull them up on screen together.
Every Format You Can Buy
Screen & Series Status
Updated August 2026: the live event on this character is a PUBLISHING one rather than a screen one, which is unusual and worth saying plainly. The current series goes twice-monthly from December 2026 specifically to reach a legacy-numbered ISSUE #700 in April 2027 — a milestone number that will arrive with the variant covers milestone numbers always bring. We will be ordering it deep and we would rather you told us early if you want one. On the screen side there is no Iron Man film in production; the long-discussed War Machine project has been the subject of cancellation reports rather than a release date, so we are not going to imply anything is coming. What is permanently true is bigger than any single release: this is the character who started the modern superhero film era in 2008, and that reshaped how the entire industry values its own back catalogue — including the prices on our own shelves. The one lever worth watching is not Iron Man at all. Every time THANOS returns to screen in any form, IRON MAN #55 moves, and it is the clearest example on our wall of a key driven by a character who is barely in the book. Knowing what you have before that news rather than after it is the whole game. Exact release dates for anything upcoming live in our ordering calendar, not on this page.
Collector's Corner — Grading, Care & We Buy
Four habits govern this character at our counter, and the first one is the highest-value single habit on our entire Marvel wall. THE #55 PROTOCOL: every Iron Man Bronze run gets checked for issue 55 BEFORE anything is bulk-priced, without exception. The first Thanos is worth more than the rest of a typical Iron Man run combined and it is filed exactly where nobody looking for Thanos would search. THE TALES OF SUSPENSE SEARCH runs alongside it and is just as worthwhile: #39, #48, #52 and #59 are all in one anthology that files under T, and sellers routinely do not connect the title to any of the characters in it. THE ARMOUR-COLOUR SHORTCUT is how we sort quickly and it is worth knowing yourself: grey armour on a 1960s cover means the debut issue and you should stop immediately; all-gold means the earliest Tales of Suspense stretch and you should still stop; red and gold means late 1963 onward and the pace can pick up again. And THE FILM-ERA REALITY, which we will always be straight about: everything published since 2008 was printed into a booming market and there is a great deal of it. Screen fame is not scarcity, most modern Iron Man material is common, and we would rather tell you that up front than have you discover it later. Beyond those: Tales of Suspense #39 has a clearly labelled facsimile edition and appears in oversized reprints, so we authenticate before quoting; grade does heavy work on early Silver Age material and we grade conservatively and broker the serious books rather than shelf-pricing them. Bring the whole box rather than the issues you think are good — on this character in particular, the valuable one does not look valuable.
FAQ - Straight Answers
What is Iron Man's first appearance — and where does Thanos first appear?
Two questions that belong together, because both answers are the same kind of surprise. Iron Man first appears in TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, cover-dated March 1963 and on sale in December 1962 — an anthology title, not a comic called Iron Man, which means it files under T and is easy to walk past. He is in GREY armour on that cover; Marvel changed it to gold almost immediately because grey printed badly on newsprint, and Steve Ditko redesigned it into the familiar red and gold before the year was out. So the very first Iron Man cover looks nothing like the character people know. And THANOS first appears in IRON MAN #55, from February 1973 — not in a cosmic title, not in a Guardians comic, but in the middle of a Bronze Age Iron Man run, created by Jim Starlin. That same issue also holds the first Drax the Destroyer, Mentor, Starfox and Kronos. It is the most commonly missed key in Marvel collecting for exactly that reason, and it is why we go through every Iron Man run that comes through the door before anything gets priced. If you have a box of Iron Man comics, that is the issue number to look for.
Is Iron Man #1 from 1968 worth anything?
Yes, genuinely — it is a solid Silver Age key worth several hundred dollars in decent shape, and it sells regularly. But it is not the first appearance, and that distinction costs people money in both directions. Iron Man ran inside Tales of Suspense from 1963 to 1968; when that anthology was renamed Captain America at issue #100, Iron Man was given a title of his own and it started at #1 in May 1968, with the origin retold inside. So it is the first issue of his own series and the first comic with his name on the cover — a real key, just not THE key. We see it priced as a first appearance fairly often, and we also see it undervalued by people who have been told it "isn't the first one" and assume that means it is worthless. Neither is right. Bring it in and we will show you the live sold results for it and for Tales of Suspense #39 side by side, so you can see the gap for yourself.
Where should I start reading Iron Man?
It depends on what brought you here, and there are really three good answers. If you came from the films, start with EXTREMIS — Warren Ellis and Adi Granov, six issues, and by a distance the closest the comics come to the version you already know; the films drew on it directly. If you want the story the character is actually respected for, it is DEMON IN A BOTTLE: a nine-issue run from 1979 in which Tony Stark's drinking is treated as a real, unresolved problem rather than something fixed by the last page. Nobody in mainstream comics was doing that at the time, and it is the reason this character has any depth at all. If you liked both, ARMOR WARS is the third. If you would rather read the whole thing in order, the Epic Collections do that by era and are the best value per page. And if you want something current, there is a new volume on the rack now that goes twice-monthly from December and is building toward its 700th issue — we can put you on the pull list. One warning: Demon in a Bottle is not a children's book. If you are buying for a young reader, ask us and we will point you at the all-ages shelf instead.