The “lost” piece of Iron Man’s Ablative Armor art
Here’s the thing about the Ablative Armor, the one named Axol that’s only shown up in a few Iron Man issues: It’s a space armor that never went to space. Tony says it’s a prototype, so there’s no evidence that it ever made it past the prototype stage to explore celestial bodies (something it might have trouble doing anyway if you take real-world science into account).
Tony has gone to space many times. He had at least two space armors before the Ablative Armor and at least three after. He hung out with the Guardians of the Galaxy for a while and had a dedicated space armor for those trips. He also had the space armor Starboost (aka Gemini) in the MCU movie Iron Man 3, though he never wore it. So even though the Abatlve did pretty well against the parasitic goo in the “Vegas Bleeds Neon” storyline from Iron Man #415-417, it never got to go to space.
Until now!
A commissioned ink drawing of Iron Man’s Ablative Space Armor, Model 23 (“Axol”), by Jeff Slemons. Finished late September 2021.
No, that’s not a piece of art that was ever supposed to be used in a comic. It’s a commission piece by an artist I just started working with, Jeff Slemons. If that name sounds familiar, he’s the artist who just happened to include the Ablative’s arm in one of his Iron Man pieces, a painting I randomly ran into online. I really love his pen work, so I commissioned the piece above. Originally I was just asking for a single image, but he had the idea of creating a full comic page. It makes a lot of sense, because then you get to see the armor from multiple angles…you don’t want to show an image of Axol and omit the furnace on his back, do you? (You also don’t want to have an image that ignores his Iron Man codpiece.)
Thanks to Jeff, we finally get to see Axol in space, doing what he’s supposed to do. He’s riding around on a comet, using the smart forcefield to throw up a chaff cloud of tiles. Space! Action! Danger! An epic piece to be sure, and Jeff’s space work is amazing.
You can find Jeff’s site right here if you’d like to see more of his work or hire him. I’m certainly glad I did.
