Popverse's top stories

• MTG's head designer wants to change the way we talk about mana
• What Zainab Akhtar learned from taking a year away from ShortBox Comics Fair, and why she's excited for 2027's return
• One Piece Film God Valley will be the first canon film in the series history

Before even the first Iron Man movie was released by Marvel Studios, there was talk of a spinoff. We're not talking about the MCU; we're talking about a comic. Writer/director Jon Favreau and one of the Iron Man movie designers (and comic artist), Adi Granov, launched a tie-in series the same summer that the Iron Man movie came out, titled Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas. But like some of the hands I've played at the casino, it didn't pan out and only two issues of a planned four were ever released.

But now, there's talk of a return.

Granov, who eventually segued out of being a comics artist into a career as a full-time movie designer and comics cover artist, recently shared in passing that interest in the now 18-year-old unfinished Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas is picking up.

"Funny you should mention that," Granov wrote on Facebook as a reply to a post about the Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas series. "Lots of talk about it this year."

This would dovetail nicely with Marvel Comics' executive editor Tom Brevoort's recent statement that Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas, which he was the sole editor on, is "the sore spot in my history" that he'd like to see at least collected, but possibly finished.

"You go long enough, everything kinda gets collected, so the hope is always there," he concludes.

To date, there have been two released issues of Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas, and it featured not only Iron Man, but also Fin Fang Foom and Elsa Bloodstone. The Adi Granov-drawn cover for a third issue was advertised, but since the comic was never finished, Marvel repurposed it as a 2010 Iron Man comic cover unrelated to Granov and Favreau's story.

Back in 2008 when Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas was first released, he said Marvel Comics gave him carte blanche, and the director, who has based a number of his movies (including Iron Man) in Las Vegas, chose Sin City.

"It's such a playground visually," he explained to Las Vegas Review-Journal's Carol Cling. "[And it provides] a great background for a big fight."

It's unclear if or when Favreau or Granov would have the time to finish Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas; the director has two Disney movies on his 'to do' list, and Granov just signed on to be a senior designer for an as-yet-unspecified upcoming Marvel Studios movie.

Interested? Here's where to find your closest local comic store, courtesy of Sweet, and here's a guide to how (and where) to read comics online. If you're looking for the best comics in recent memory, check out the Eisner Awards winners and the Harvey Awards nominees. And if you like free comics, here's everything we know about Free Comic Book Day 2027.