Iron Man 2020 and The Future Flash

Continuing off from yesterday's cover, I finally get a chance to feature the cool costume that Wally West of the future wore in a memorable story line from The Flash.  There have been many alternate looks for the Scarlet Speedster, but this one is my favorite,  It is still clearly The Flash, but with a nice modern feel that still manages to evoke the original Jay Garrick outfit.  I was kind of hoping Wally of the present day would graduate to this costume once Barry Allen returned but, alas, DC had other plans.

Batman Beyond and Iron Man 2020

The idea here was to put two heroes of the future together, but Arno Stark won't be a future hero for much longer when you consider that 2020 is only 6 short years away.  Isn't the "future" from Back to the Future Part II supposed to be coming right up as well?  Man, it really makes a guy feel old when he catches up to the futuristic tales of his youth!

The Decoders

I had fun assembling this team.  I tried to select members based on the function they could serve.  Max Headroom would be the conduit to all media, C3PO would handle communications with any type of language or code, Tron is the ultimate inside man with his ability to enter the computer grid, Arno Stark is the high-tech muscle, and Oracle runs the show and coordinates the operatives.  I almost included Cypher from the New Mutants but C3PO covered his skill set.  Looking at the team, I think their varied personalities would make for some fun interaction as they worked together.

Batman and Iron Man 2020

The Machine Man mini-series that introduced the Iron Man of 2020 is one of my all time favorite titles from the Bronze Age.  I loved the Barry Windsor-Smith highly detailed artwork (including the awesome covers that featured Machine Man being built from the circuits up) and his design for Arno Stark's suit of armor was incredibly cool.  I must not be the only one to hold that opinion, because Iron Man 2020 seems to keep popping up in various titles every few years.  Now there's another suit of armor that I'd love to see show up in the Iron Man movies, even as an Easter egg in the background!