IRON MAN #228

Cover shows strong gloss and sharp corners with no visible creasing or color breaks. There is minor edge wear at the bottom right corner and a faint scuff near the spine, with the spine itself appearing tight and free of stress lines. The book is in a protective sleeve which slightly obscures fine surface detail; interior and back cover were not assessed.

Iron Man #228, cover-dated March 1988, is the fourth chapter of Armor Wars, the eight-part David Michelinie and Bob Layton storyline that redefined Tony Stark for the Copper Age. Plotted by Michelinie and Layton with script by Michelinie, layouts by Mark Bright and finishes by Layton over a Bright/Layton cover, "Who Guards the Guardsmen?" sends Stark against the armored guards of the Vault and puts him in direct conflict with Steve Rogers, then operating as the Captain following his break with the government in Captain America #332. The confrontation is the emotional pivot of the arc: Stark's obsession with reclaiming his stolen technology costs him a friendship, and the fallout carries into Captain America #341. Cameos by Jim Rhodes, Mr. Hyde and Titania round out the issue.

Commercially the book behaves as a strong story chapter rather than a first-appearance key. Print runs from 1988 were large, survivorship is high, and raw copies circulate freely through dollar bins and dealer run stock, which caps the low and mid brackets near replacement cost. Demand is concentrated at the top of the grade scale, where census populations remain modest because few collectors submitted mid-run Copper Age Iron Man for certification until Armor Wars gained renewed attention through Marvel Studios development announcements. That attention lifts the whole #225-232 sequence together, and #228 benefits from the Captain America crossover element, which draws bidders from two collecting bases rather than one.

Buyers divide cleanly. Run collectors and readers absorb the raw supply and are price-sensitive, treating the issue as an inexpensive component of a complete Armor Wars set; registry and high-grade specialists chase certified copies, where the spread between a 9.6 and a 9.8 is disproportionate relative to the raw market. Newsstand copies from this period saw heavier handling and rack wear, so genuinely sharp examples are scarcer than direct-market equivalents even though the two were printed in comparable quantity, and that scarcity is beginning to register with high-grade specialists. Expect the raw brackets to remain stable and the certified end to track any concrete screen adaptation news for the Armor Wars property.