“Iron Man: Something Strange!” — A Worthy Addition to the Mighty Marvel Team-Up

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Iron Man: Something Strange! is the fourth installment from the Mighty Marvel Team-Up original graphic novel line from Abrams Fanfare.

Written by Dean Hale (Rapunzel’s Revenge, Diana: Princess of the Amazons), illustrated by Douglas Holgate (The Last Kids on Earth), and colored by Ian Herring, this story follows the armored tech titan as he embarks upon a truly harrowing task, fixing the phones at Avengers HQ.

Previous books in the series (Spider-Man: Animals Assemble!, Spider-Man: Quantum Quest!, and Spider-Man: Cosmic Chaos!) featured Spider-Man stories told by author/illustrator Mike Maihack. He balanced quirky illustrations and a humorous subversion of superhero tropes (“With great power comes an ability to do AWESOME flips!”) to bring to life an unlikely competitor against popular children’s graphic novel titles like Dog Man, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Wings of Fire.

With the switch from the established quality of Maihack to the new team of Hale and Holgate, there were some obvious questions about whether the series’ quality would continue and attract readers. After all, there are nearly a century’s worth of superhero books out there, from the original comics to illustrated and non-illustrated chapter books to choose from. This new Iron Man arc is in a position where it truly must earn its keep, and it does.

For fans of the original Marvel comics, Iron Man is a questionable character to place front and center in a children’s original graphic novel. He is typically described as an alcoholic and a womanizer who also saves the world from alien invasions on the side. All that typically places any Iron Man story a few too many parental advisories on the wrong side of the line to qualify as appropriate for young readers.

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and television series, on the other hand, might be surprised that Iron Man was not the central figure of this team-up series from the get-go, especially after Robert Downey Jr. breathed life into the character starting with the 2008 John Favreau Iron Man film. From Downey Jr.’s own public personal history of substance abuse and debauchery to some truly cringeworthy dialogue in Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, there were certainly reasons to feel uncomfortable dressing your child up as Iron Man during that massive merchandising landslide that ensued.

Iron Man: Something Strange! walks a clever line in its characterization of Iron Man. It sidesteps some of the more challenging topics associated with the character, but it does not whitewash him in the process into a generic, replaceable superhero. Instead, Hale focuses on Iron Man’s arrogance, self-reliance, and stubbornness. These qualities have been true of Iron Man for decades, and in shifting away from the billionaire playboy side of things, Hale has focused on traits that massive audiences of young readers can relate to.

Iron Man’s tech reliance is challenged by the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange. What ensues is a science versus magic battle similar to Gimli and Legolas in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, each trying to down more foes than the other. The competition is fun, but it also challenges children to confront their own ego in a number of ways and may have them thinking:

Maybe I should listen to my parents when they ask me to hold hands while walking through a busy parking lot. Maybe I should accept my teacher’s help. Maybe I should let my younger sibling participate.

In addition to using a recognizable and beloved superhero, the delivery mechanism for this broader sense of understanding is humor, and, surprisingly, this new installment is right on par with the previous three when it comes to jokes. A good example is when Iron Man consults Thor about the communications issues that precipitate the drama, and Thor translates a modern colloquialism into the King James English of Asgardian culture.

“Whoa, friend!” Thor says. “Slow thine roll. I seek only to help.”

Much of the superhero media that dominates modern culture is the result of teenagers during the comic book boom of the 1990s becoming both the primary consumers and primary producers of print and visual media. That means that a book like Iron Man: Something Strange! is likely to function as a bridge between the interests of a parent and a child. The Mighty Marvel Team-Up series facilitates interactions like this by populating its books with a wide variety of superheroes and villains beyond the titular hero. Parents can expect conversations as below:

“Dad, who’s this guy?”

“Keep reading, buddy.”

“Mom, what’s Mr. Fantastic’s deal?”

“Well, he was bombarded by cosmic rays…”

Iron Man: Something Strange! is a great book for parents and children alike. It targets children ages five to nine years of age or roughly kindergarten through fourth grade, children right on the cusp between listening to their parents read and reading the book themselves.

The original graphic novel hits stores Tuesday, June 17, 2025, and is currently available for pre-order.

For folks struggling to wait that long, feel free to check out Spider-Man: Animals Assemble!, Spider-Man: Quantum Quest!, and Spider-Man: Cosmic Chaos! during the wait. All three are deeply entertaining, and they give readers a good idea of what to expect from the forthcoming Iron Man books.