There are enumerable splash pagey ways to establish your characters, recap things a bit, and set the scene. These days it’s devolved to showing a box with the character’s face next to an adjoining box with a description of the character, followed by a third rather large box describing what’s been happening so far since there are virtually no more “done in one”s.
Then there’s this blast from the past beauty by John Byrne. It shows the cast reflected in Iron Man’s helmet, sets the scene by indicating that he’s about to tee off with some unhappy looking West Coast Avengers, and that he’s none too happy about the decision he made that precipitated it. All accomplished in a clever and striking way. It would lead down the road to innumerable reflection in Iron Man’s helmet imitators. It makes the case once again for John being the preeminent comic book artist of his generation.
