I was asked to do a variant cover for Marvel’s 2099 Variant Month and the assignment was IRON MAN, which super-excited my kids. Since there was no existing story to go on, I came up with my own…

Here’s my pitch:

Two science students in the year 2099 accidentally reactivate the Friday AI and unlock the secrets of Tony Stark’s future tech: a giant Iron Man mech designed to protect the world from alien threats on a galactic scale. But Stark’s own descendant, a young arrogant trillionaire, believes the suit is his birthright. Can they work together to stop an alien invasion??

Basically, it was my first job after coming home from Japan and I wanted to do an Iron Man Gundam story.

The robot was deemed too Gundam-esque by editorial so I edited it (you can see the difference between the sketch and the final cover below) but other than that I was pretty much left alone to do whatever I wanted. I even did up a quick Evangelion-inspired logo for it which Marvel didn’t use, but it was fun anyway.