Bob Layton

And again, they had their connection through one of the Kubert School teachers at the time.

He found out that Jim Shooter and Bob Layton were hiring, and on, and on, and on.

So after they were working there for a week or two, I was working my summer job where I was a landscaper.

I was out raking and planting trees, and pulling weeds, and doing all that stuff, uh, getting a great tan.

They had wrestling magazine comic book stuff.

Right.

I was supposed to do a wrestling story first to make sure everything was cool, um, and then I was supposed to work on X-O Manowar number one, with Bob Layton inking me and Jim Shooter writing.

So, uh, I got to work on the wrestling story, and worked on it.

That led me to reading Iron Man.

as well and i was iron man when bob layton was writing for it who i then became friends with at some point so that wow i remember when iron man got shot and was was slumped over you know shot by a jilted lover uh ends up in a wheelchair for a while yeah i mean that was the iron man era i was watching i was

reading and like and that how it had mature theme i remember reading it as a kid whether it's sabertooth you know, killing innocent people or mutant massacre.

The scene where Harpoon has, he's crucified with the wings.

Our editor is Jim Owsley.

page count of the story is 23 and our writer is tom defalco penciler ron friends inker bob layton letterer joe rosen and colorist bob sharon this was also reprinted in marvel tales featuring spider-man issue number 291 back in 1994 but and oddly i'm kind of surprised it didn't show up any place else i think maybe this era hasn't gotten much of the reprint treatment which is kind of a shame because it's pretty good.

I

really enjoyed this era.

There's a lot of stories that I really think about fondly back from then, including this one.

So let's get into the details here.

We have our cover, which is by Bob Layton himself.

And in fact, actually, there's some smudges on my cover.

He did so many covers that I love from Spider-Man, Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man.

And then shortly after that, they fucking announced Bob Layton.

Yeah.

which is goddamn yeah another bronze age artist like give me all your monies yeah exactly and you say i will do it here you go

So I'm like, okay, great.

That's awesome.

And then since they added Bob Layton, Bob Layton's done covers with Keith Pollard.

So my goal, what I wanted to do was have like a solo book signed by Milgram, a solo book signed by Layton, and then a Keith Pollard-Layton cover signed by both of them.

...

John Byrne doing our pencils and Bob Layton doing the finishes.

Yeah.

And I have to say, I was es- I was very curious going in to see how much Bob Layton, how much he would influence Byrne's art because, you know, we're f- all familiar with Byrne when Terry Austin's inking.

We're all familiar with Byrne when he's inking himself.

I wanted to see how much of that kind of Iron Man aesthetic Layton would bring to Byrne's work, and I was actually kind of surprised to find out it's quite a bit.

Yeah.

Took a quick look, realized that it, she played a major part in the story, but kinda just left it at that.

And I'm like, "Oh, they did that for me.

That's, uh, that's pretty cool." Uh, but, uh, uh, completely related/unrelated, one of my favorite versions of Iron Man, uh, the, my one of my favorite versions of the Iron Man armor from the comics is the version designed by Bob Layton in the '80s, the, the silver and red one that nobody except for '80s kids seem to like.

It- sometimes it's called the Silver Centurion armor.

I throw that in the same category as al- other alternate costumes, like Spider-Man's black suit or Wolverine's brown outfit, things like that.

I guess he saved me $1.29.

So thank you, Bob Layton.

I can't believe it.

Anything interesting in your world, Brian?

This is an epic issue.

It's drawn by John Byrne, inked by Bob Layton.

Uh, I wanna say Bill Mantlo wrote it.

It's got Iceman, it's got Angel, it's got, uh, the Sentinels, and Master Mold, the basically the most, uh, formidable of the Sentinels.

Uh, Dave Cockrum did this sketch.

George followed it very faithfully.

Bob Layton inked it.

I've seen Bob Layton do recreations of this.

Yeah, me either.

And I suppose as a testament to Bob Layton's finishes, I didn't even actually realize that there had even been a change.

So apparently this Jerry fella has a very compatible style comparable to John Romita Jr., and Layton just was able to do the finishing, and no one was the wiser.

Yeah.

At this point in time, that's my Ironman that I started out with.

You know, for me, it's a coin toss.

I just, uh, the Bob Layton, John Romita Jr. is so ingrained in my mind, but I still kind of drift back a little bit to like the George Tuska, you know, like the, the fifties, the fifties to sixties issue numbers era, because that was where i really got started and really became a big iron man fan so it just kind of depends on which way the wind's blowing for me yeah i wonder

what