When it comes to superhero poses, there are few as iconic as Iron Man and his three-point landing pose, which Deadpool called the “superhero landing” in his movie last year.
The man behind the pose is artist Adi Granov, who came up with the pose for the cover of The Invincible Iron Man #76 in 1998.
Granov was recently in Singapore for the Singapore Toys Games and Comics Convention (STGCC), and we took the opportunity to get his thoughts about that particular pose becoming a pop culture sensation.
“The inspiration behind this pose came from Japanese mech, where anime and manga characters do such poses. It’s great to be remembered for this,” said the 29-year-old Bosnian.
“It was my second Iron Man cover and I didn’t consider it as ground breaking then. It was just a cool pose! But it has become a real part of pop culture and that has made me very happy.
"It is actually a very uncomfortable pose – it only looks good from the front. When Hot Toys did the die-cast figure of Iron Man, they had to include a different torso so it could execute the pose!”
According to him, the success of that Iron Man cover also had to do with good timing. “Iron Man wasn’t a very popular character at the time, and my covers helped make him look cool. This was subsequently boosted by the movie’s popularity,” he said.
The STGCC celebrated its 10th anniversary last month with a stellar lineup of guest talents, including Granov, Arthur Adams, Frank Cho, Sonny Liew, David Mack and CB Cebulski.
“I really like it here, namely Asia in general, due to its vibrancy,” he said during an interview at the convention. “My friends from ASEAN countries are also here, which makes this such a great hub to meet people and the food is excellent!”
Like his fellow STGCC guest artist Adams, Granov has not drawn a full comic book in a while. So, what exactly has he been up to lately?
“I spent the last two years working on movies, doing character designs for Avengers: Infinity War, and the Black Panther. I’m also doing a lot of statue designs for (US pop culture collectables company) Sideshow and (Japanese toy company) Kotobukiya,” he said.
As for comics, Granov said that he has only been doing comic covers for Marvel of late.
“Interiors take too long and too much commitment; if I take on an assignment, I won’t be able to do all those (aforementioned) exciting things.”
Looks like we can forget about ever seeing the conclusion to the 2008 Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas four-part miniseries then, as Granov confirms that there’s no progress on the book and the writer, Jon Favreau, is too busy with his films.
Favreau, of course, directed Iron Man, which launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and followed that up with Iron Man 2 and The Jungle Book, and is currently working on the live-action adaptation of The Lion King.
Granov said that if he does pick up another interior art job, he would prefer to focus more on layouts and story telling, and not include the same level of detail he does with his covers.
“I used to believe that interiors must look the same like covers but now I believe that it should be simpler,” he explained.
“Looking back at Extremis (a 2005 Iron Man story) ... I wanted everything to be perfect, so I spent so much time on each panel and it slowed down the entire process. It took about 2.5 months per issue, which is 2.5 times from what Marvel would prefer!”
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