Iron Man Week

05 Aug 2009 View Comments

by Nikkiin comics Tags: , , , ,

Honestly.  Can anyone tell me why Marvel thought it would be a good idea to release two IM titles on the same day?  I’ve never been good at resisting temptation and, thus, I’ve already read them both.  I hate myself sometimes.  I really, really do.

I am, however, resisting the temptation to read the other comics I bought by writing this blog entry.  So far, it is working.

But back to Iron Man.

Wow, is it possible to have two storylines that are more different than the current one in Invincible Iron Man and Iron Man: Armor Wars?  IIM’s has been running for god-knows-how-long now, is angstytastic, vaguely melodramatic and, all and all, a rather heavy storyline.  Don’t get me wrong – I love it to pieces.  I’m always one for some drama, especially the relationship-heavy drama of IIM #16.  Armor Wars, on the other hand, is light, cheerful story – funny, happy and full of the necessary buttwhoopage.  (Even if it is Tony’s butt getting whooped, or almost whooped, a lot.)

Allow me one obnoxious fangirl moment about IIM #16 (yes, I tricked you into seeing this under a cut or by permalink) – eeee Tony chooses death over betraying Pepper!  Shipper me is happy!  Of course, shipper me was happy when Tony slept with Maria a few issues back (and with Maya however long ago that was) – with Tony, I pretty much ship anything.  But I especially ship Tony/Pepper.

Okay, fluff aside, let’s get into the good stuff.  I like how they’re doing the concurrent storylines here.  Very well balanced – whenever they switch between Maria and Tony (or between Maria, Tony and Pepper a few issues ago), I’m pissed because I want to see more but, at the same time, happy at whatever is going on on the page now.  Very nice – I’m usually completely annoyed by concurrent storylines and always tend to skim one so that I can get to the good stuff.  I think, in this case, it’s because 64% of the book is for Tony, Pepper and Whitney, 32% for Natasha and Maria and Osborn gets himself a single page of unhappiness.  Sucker.

And now I’m going to complain about stuff because that’s what I do best.  In this case, I’m going to bitch about Tony’s ‘proprietary’ Western Digital Caviar hard drive.  Last I checked, Tony didn’t own that company.  And WD is one of the bigger hard drive manufacturers – in fact, all the hard drives in the computer-I’m-building-as-soon-as-I-get-home are WD drives.  (And one of them is even a Caviar.  The other is a VelociRaptor but that’s aside the point.)  The point is, any bloody computer out there can read a SATA drive.  Unless, of course, it’s bloody ancient and all.

Okay, okay, so the sticker may have been slapped on there to disguise the fact that it’s a super awesome Stark tech drive and maybe it isn’t SATA.  But then, pray tell, would the crazy guy in a itty bitty room be able to tell Natasha that from a picture of the label on her iPhone?

Apparently nobody working on this title knows anything about computers.

And now for Armor Wars.

Oh man, this miniseries is win!  I think Pepper threatening a reporter with her bright green stiletto sealed the deal for me.  I’m all for Pepper kicking ass.  And Tony’s little thwack on Trump’s head was great too and, well, the entire comic.  (A stapler?  Seriously?)  For complaints… well, I haven’t got any.  That’s new.

I also thought it would be interesting to point out the similarities between the two titles – both of them involve the Crimson Dynamo in some way, shape or form, both involve Pepper kicking ass and both have an incapacitated Tony – IIM has Tony with suits but not the brainpower to use them, Armor Wars has Tony with the brains but no suits.

Interestingly enough, both stories have allusions to the movieverse – the preview of IIM #17′s cover is a pretty obvious reference to the movie what with the suit laying in pieces in the Afghanistan (I assume) desert and Tony walking off in a wife beater.  For Armor Wars, it seems to be more of a blend of the movieverse and the comicverse – Tony’s living in LA (in a mansion on a cliff overlooking the ocean with similar architecture as the movie’s mansion) and has recently stopped the production of weapons.  There’s no Stane in sight and Tony referenced how his weapons were sold to people with bad intentions.  It’s not movieverse entirely, however.  Rhodey’s not AF, Tony has a whole slew of suits and he’s operating under the “Iron Man is my bodyguard” facade.

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled on about Iron Man enough for this week.  Time to read Wednesday Comics!

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  • http://www.to-action.com monoclelad

    Uhm, well in Iron man 2 Tony has a whole slew of suits. Didn't you see the preview images!? (http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/galleries/pre...) The artist probably knew about that. I'm kinda glad they are making a movieish iron man comic cause that movie was great, and it should be allowed to remake the character proper.

    I hope this tony is running from the man arc ends soon. its losing my interest now. Except that osborne is making some form of captian america/iron man hybrid armor. That will be cool to see in action.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    Nope, I don't ever bother looking for previews and stuff. And I don't read any blogs or anything news related so I'm generally blissfully ignorant and such.

    Osborn has been using a Captain America/IM hybrid armour for awhile – he's been using the name Iron Patriot. And I think there's only three issues left of the storyarc… I'm pretty sure that's what I had calculated from the solicitation info. One month there are two issues of IIM and then the next month is the final one of this arc.

  • http://www.to-action.com monoclelad

    Well I don't read any other the other marvel uni stuff so I'm not concerned with with what osborne is doing woulda liked if they explained in the IIM book how osbourne suddenly took over tony's job. :/ But at least it looks like it will end with Tony kicking Osboune's ass with a suit he picked up at the radio shack.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    IIM is the only Dark Reign thing I'm reading and I'm generally only reading miniseries or stuff set in the future so, yeah, dunno. Ummm, I'm at work so I can't actually tell you when he shows up as the Iron Patriot in IIM, but I know he does. Somewhere before now.

    And, yeah, I'm pretty peeved about how they didn't bother to explain how Osborn got Tony's job in IIM too. Maybe I missed something when reading back issues, but I'm pretty sure I didn't…

  • http://www.to-action.com monoclelad

    They didn't, something mysterious happens between Stane's legacy and the current arc thats possibly related to the stane thing that forces tony to step down and Osborne of all people to take over. Then tony started running away.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    No, from what I understand, Osborn or someone else blamed the Skrull invasion and all that crap on SHIELD, and thus Tony, not doing their job correctly. Thus, for some reason, Osborn got control of SHIELD and renamed it HAMMER.

    The problem is that I don't recall the main IM title dealing with the Skrull invasion. Ever.

    I really don't like how they expect you to read every series in the Marvel Universe just to know wtf is going on in each individual one.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    Uhm, well in Iron man 2 Tony has a whole slew of suits. Didn't you see the preview images!? (http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/galleries/pre...) The artist probably knew about that. I'm kinda glad they are making a movieish iron man comic cause that movie was great, and it should be allowed to remake the character proper.

    I hope this tony is running from the man arc ends soon. its losing my interest now. Except that osborne is making some form of captian america/iron man hybrid armor. That will be cool to see in action.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    Nope, I don't ever bother looking for previews and stuff. And I don't read any blogs or anything news related so I'm generally blissfully ignorant and such.

    Osborn has been using a Captain America/IM hybrid armour for awhile – he's been using the name Iron Patriot. And I think there's only three issues left of the storyarc… I'm pretty sure that's what I had calculated from the solicitation info. One month there are two issues of IIM and then the next month is the final one of this arc.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    Well I don't read any other the other marvel uni stuff so I'm not concerned with with what osborne is doing woulda liked if they explained in the IIM book how osbourne suddenly took over tony's job. :/ But at least it looks like it will end with Tony kicking Osboune's ass with a suit he picked up at the radio shack.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    IIM is the only Dark Reign thing I'm reading and I'm generally only reading miniseries or stuff set in the future so, yeah, dunno. Ummm, I'm at work so I can't actually tell you when he shows up as the Iron Patriot in IIM, but I know he does. Somewhere before now.

    And, yeah, I'm pretty peeved about how they didn't bother to explain how Osborn got Tony's job in IIM too. Maybe I missed something when reading back issues, but I'm pretty sure I didn't…

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    They didn't, something mysterious happens between Stane's legacy and the current arc thats possibly related to the stane thing that forces tony to step down and Osborne of all people to take over. Then tony started running away.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    No, from what I understand, Osborn or someone else blamed the Skrull invasion and all that crap on SHIELD, and thus Tony, not doing their job correctly. Thus, for some reason, Osborn got control of SHIELD and renamed it HAMMER.

    The problem is that I don't recall the main IM title dealing with the Skrull invasion. Ever.

    I really don't like how they expect you to read every series in the Marvel Universe just to know wtf is going on in each individual one.

  • http://www.to-action.com monoclelad

    Thats exactly why I don't like them making crossovers canonical. Its one of the ways true hardcore fans are ruining comics XD Thats why I gravitate to the mini-series non-canonical stuff.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    Indeed. They keep making comics more and more inaccessible. I don't want them to go back to the standalone issue format since I'm such a whore for longform storytelling, but they need to stop making so many crossover events things.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    Thats exactly why I don't like them making crossovers canonical. Its one of the ways true hardcore fans are ruining comics XD Thats why I gravitate to the mini-series non-canonical stuff.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    Thats exactly why I don't like them making crossovers canonical. Its one of the ways true hardcore fans are ruining comics XD Thats why I gravitate to the mini-series non-canonical stuff.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    Indeed. They keep making comics more and more inaccessible. I don't want them to go back to the standalone issue format since I'm such a whore for longform storytelling, but they need to stop making so many crossover events things.

  • http://anovelconcept.net aethre

    Indeed. They keep making comics more and more inaccessible. I don't want them to go back to the standalone issue format since I'm such a whore for longform storytelling, but they need to stop making so many crossover events things.

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