Review: Invincible Iron Man: Stark: Disassembled hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[This review by Doug Glassman, who blogs at Astrakhan Industries.]

When last we left Tony Stark (in Invincible Iron Man: Worlds Most Wanted), he was brain-dead and Norman Osborn was victorious as the Iron Patriot. As the Siege of Asgard unfolds around him, Tony battles for life. Siege isn’t too important to this story, except that it does explain where these issues fit into the overall event narrative thanks to the Ghost.

The title Iron Man: Stark: Disassembled refers back to the Avengers: Disassembled event, which precipitated Iron Man’s Extremis armor, House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. Matt Fraction clearly intends this story to end that chapter of Tony Stark’s life and start a new one. I believe that he succeeds in reference to both Stark’s story arc and Stark’s character. Tony starts over in more ways than one, and while the ending of this story has been called a deus ex machina, the context of later issues diffuses feelings of a simple ending.

Not only is Tony rebuilt (both physically and metaphorically) in this story, but so are his friendships. War Machine, Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, Thor and the original Captain America are necessary to revive him, and it even ends up being their choice to resurrect him in the first place. Other allies, such as the Black Widow, the current Captain America and Dr. Strange, are also on hand to help Tony. After years of stories in which the Marvel heroes have become fractured and, to an extent, unlikeable, Stark: Disassembled lays the cornerstones for the new Heroic Age, in which differences won’t have to be settled with Negative Zone prisons and Norman Osborn rising to power.

Opposing Tony’s resurrection is the Ghost, who starts to rise to the position of one of Iron Man’s top enemies. I feel that Stark: Disassembled puts him on the level of the Mandarin, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo and Spymaster. His anti-corporate leanings have come to the forefront after being sporadically used, making him a perfect foil for Stark. Only a last-minute hoisting with his own petard stops the Ghost, and it also starts him on his road of change as seen in the Thunderbolts series. I do like that there’s a clear point where he leaves the Thunderbolts’ mission to Asgard to attack Stark, as delineated both in this book and in Siege: Thunderbolts. It seems like Marvel’s various titles are really starting to sync up.

Also opposing Tony is his own mind, and a good half of the story is dedicated to his internal battle to return to consciousness. One of Tony’s driving factors has always been guilt; the Armor Wars is the best example. Even his friends aren’t sure whether he should come back, leading to a frank discussion of resurrection in the Marvel Universe. There’s a sequence in which Stark confronts the people who have died because of him, most notably Happy Hogan and Ho Yinsen, but also a few more obscure people. Although they aren’t named, I’m fairly certain that a glasses-wearing man is supposed to be Tony’s technical genius Abe Zimmer, while a blonde woman may be Kathy Dare, the stalker who shot him and destroyed his spine.

Salvador Larocca continues his epic run on Invincible Iron Man. The Fraction/Larocca team may go down in history alongside the Michelinie/Layton runs as one of the best consistent Iron Man writer/artist teams. One of Larocca’s strengths is that his characters can actually show emotion, an ability key to this storyline. He does use some interesting motion blurs, which can be distracting at times, but it does demonstrate how far comic book technology has come. Larocca also did the intriguing cover designs for the issues. The cover for the trade isn’t an example of these (although it is fine artwork), but Larocca created modern-art covers with unique color palettes and a circular design scheme. I really wish unique covers like these could be used more often.

While Stark: Disassembled ends Invincible Iron Man’s two-year-long story, it also ends a seven-year-long character arc. Tony Stark has gone from a Secretary of Defense, to a superhero registration enforcer, to a Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to a troubled businessman, to a criminal fleeing from what used to be his organization, and finally to a brain-dead shell. This is truly the rebirth of Iron Man, and I highly recommend picking up this trade and those before it.

Thanks Doug! New reviews and more coming next week ... don't miss it!

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Review: Iron Man: Armor Wars trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest review by Doug Glassman]

Like many long-running comic book characters, Iron Man has a cyclical history. Tony Stark’s alcoholism is one recurring problem, resulting in two major story arcs, “Demon in a Bottle” and the “Stane Saga," the latter of which provided the villain Obidiah Stane for the first Iron Man film. Another, even longer-running problem is Stark’s difficulty in keeping his technology out of the hands of his enemies. This is one of the major themes of the current Invincible Iron Man series and was also a major plot point in the second Iron Man film. However, Stark’s insecurities are well-founded, and they mostly stem from one of the most famous Iron Man storylines: “Stark Wars.”

Newcomers to the franchise might be asking: “Don’t you mean ‘Armor Wars?’” Yes, this collection is better known (and titled) as Armor Wars, and in fact, Marvel solicited an “Armor Wars II” which took up much of John Byrne’s time on the title a few years later. But the story is officially called “Stark Wars," mostly as a pun on Star Wars.

Iron Man’s epic vendetta begins when his enemy Force becomes an ally and Stark discovers that Force's armor has elements of Stark’s designs. Many were leaked when Stane took over Stark’s company, and they are now in the possession of Justin Hammer, who applies them to the armors of his henchmen. After an unsuccessful court battle, Stark is able to procure files on the whereabouts of his technology from fellow Avenger Ant-Man -- all except one file. What happens next can best be described as a roaring rampage of revenge as Iron Man goes from one villain to the next, shorting out their armor and trying to locate the last user. He loses his reputation, teammates and even has to fake his own death before he finally finishes his quest.

The modern Iron Man is essentially defined here, starting with Stark’s infamous Jheri curl, which my generation remembers as his hairstyle on the Iron Man animated series. Thanks to colorist Nel Yomtov (every Transformers fan just shuddered), everyone who has black hair has it rendered blue; this includes Stark and Rhodes. You eventually get desensitized to it. After years of using the distinctive Silver Centurion armor, Stark switches back to the red and gold which he will wear almost exclusively through the present day. (The major exception to this is War Machine, but that armor has become so connected to Jim Rhodes that it almost goes forgotten that Stark wore it first.) He uses multiple armor types extensively for the first time, including the well-known Deep Sea and Stealth Armors.

More importantly, this is where Stark'ss paranoia and controlling tendencies come to the forefront. The weight of the deaths orchestrated by his technology being misused sends him into a frenzy, eventually causing Stark to kill someone himself; by this point, Stark had been fighting his past as a weapons maker for years. As a recovering alcoholic, Stark'ss control issues dominate his personality during this story. His guilt and feelings of ineffectiveness are best demonstrated in the last part of this trade. A coda with incredible art by Barry Windsor-Smith consists of Stark’s haunted nightmare of the crimes he feels responsible for and his attempt to get past this part of his life. You can tell that while he admits out in the open that he wants to put his troubles behind him, he never quite gets there.

“Armor Wars” features a huge amount of Marvel Universe supporting characters, guest stars and villains. The Beetle becomes part of Iron Man’s rogues gallery, and other featured villains include the Controller, the Raiders, Stilt-Man, Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo. Very early on, Stark also considers Doctor Doom as a culprit; the story never picks up on this, and to be honest, I feel including featuring Doom would have derailed the plot. Iron Man also attacks a number of heroes, including SHIELD’s Mandroids, the Guardsman, the Captain and Stingray. For those unfamiliar with late-80s Marvel Comics, the Captain is Captain America, who gave up his name and uniform after refusing to follow the orders of the United States government. The man who replaced him would later take the black Captain uniform and become U.S. Agent. Stingray is, well, very minor, a government-employed ocean-based ally of Namor and an Avenger for a brief period. Armor Wars is Stingray’s finest moment, and at least he is visually interesting.

Speaking of visuals, David Michelinie’s second run on Iron Man also brings back his frequent co-writer and finisher, Bob Layton, this time joined by Mark D. Bright. Layton’s art remains one of the most influential Iron Man art styles. It is hard to define this style; I like to call it “angled roundness," drawing a near-perfect balance between the very round armor of Jack Kirby and the sharper suits of Adi Granov. The most similar artist I can think of is Jim Aparo, although Layton’s characters lack Aparo’s long, thin heads. My policy is that every Iron Man artist has the right to create their own armor, and Layton’s new creation at the end of the series is known as the Modern Armor for its longevity. The shoulderpads (though not as bulky as the Silver Centurion suit), the angled red chest chevron, the heavily-outlined unibeam and “popped” collar would remain in effect for years, even when Stark had to move to a remote-controlled unit. The main new villain of the story is Firepower, whose bulk invokes the Iron Monger. It is an interesting design, even though it has a massive rocket strapped to its back for most of the story.

Armor Wars is the definitive Iron Man story, adding some extra action to the same introspective nature of “Demon in a Bottle”. Quite simply, the entire character of Iron Man changes in this story to become the character we know today, and it is entirely for the better. If you are at all interested in Iron Man, whether through the comics or films, Armor Wars is a mandatory read. At $24.99, it may seem a little steep for what appears to be a thin trade, but Layton’s art fits a lot of panels in a very small space.

For a final remark, it is amazing the publicity one film can create. Before the first Iron Man film came out, you were lucky to find old Marvel Masterworks editions and the occasional Mask in the Iron Man trade. Now, the Iron Man section of your local comic book store has dozens of Iron Man trades, collecting both the newest arcs and the “Golden Age” of the 1980s and mid-1990s. All we need are “Crash and Burn” and “Hands of the Mandarin” trades to truly have a full appreciation of the best years of the Iron Man title.

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Review: Invincible Iron Man: World's Most Wanted Book 1 and 2 hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[This guest review comes from Doug Glassman]

My recent comic book store subscription haul can attest to the Iron Man 2 mania that has been building over the last few months. Three separate Iron Man titles were within it, and that isn't even counting The Invincible Iron Man, which is in the running for Marvel's flagship title. How amazing is it that Iron Man and Green Lantern are now the marquee characters for Marvel and DC?

A few years ago, they were both in the slumps, until Matt Fraction and Geoff Johns reinvigorated them with powerful new titles and concepts. Invincible Iron Man even won an Eisner for "Best New Series." I reviewed the first hardcover, The Five Nightmares, a while ago, and I've decided to lump the next two, World's Most Wanted Book 1 and Book 2, into one review, in part to help me through my Iron Man trade backlog.

Book 1 picks up not quite where The Five Nightmares left off. The Secret Invasion event takes place in the middle and affects the character in a major way, driving the entire "World's Most Wanted" arc. Thankfully, the collection includes a recap page to explain broadly what occurred, and most of the details are brought out throughout the story. Essentially, the Skrulls, an evil shape-shifting race, crippled Iron Man and ruined all of his technology during their invasion. Norman Osborn was able to kill the Skrull leader and gain the trust of the public, rising to lead HAMMER, the replacement for SHIELD.

Putting aside my own personal feelings about Dark Reign (it's an interesting concept, but how stupid are the people in the Marvel universe to go along with all of this?), it all sets the stage for a year-long story. Osborn wants the Superhero Registration Act database, the cause of the Civil War event. Unfortunately, only one copy exists . . . and it's in Tony's head.

What follows is an extensive chase scene, as Tony starts to lose his memories, skills and intelligence after he mindwipes himself to erase the database. This is padded out a lot in Book One, especially with a confrontation between ally Maria Hill and the Controller that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Other elements make up for some of the slow pace, including meet-ups with War Machine and Namor, and Iron Man's longtime assistant Pepper Potts becoming a superhero. This is actually a good turn for a character that sometimes gets pushed to the side by other, more action-oriented characters like Maria Hill. Potts' entire cause is encompassed by her name: Rescue. She's aided by an element that migrated from the Iron Man films: the JARVIS AI system.

All of this ends with a fantastic set-up for the second half of the series, and Book 2 does not disappoint. Even more of Tony's allies and enemies arrive, including as Madame Masque, the Crimson Dynamo and the Black Widow. After going through a variety of armors in decreasing levels of complexity, Tony finally makes it back to where it all began: the cave in which his first armor was built. If there was any question that Invincible Iron Man is dedicated to incorporating the movie's style into the comics, then there is one line in this segment that will destroy all doubts. Like many things, it's too good to spoil, but all I can say is that it ties into a popular Internet meme.

At the end, there's the long-awaited face-off between Tony, wielding the first armor, and Osborn, clad in the ultra-modern Iron Patriot suite. You might expect that this isn't a fair fight, and you'd be right . . . but that's the point. Surprising, Tony is left in the end comatose . . . and ready for the next part of the story.

Fraction and Salvador Larroca keep up the quality of The Five Nightmares and skillfully combine action with intrigue. At times, there tends to be a little too much navel-gazing on Tony's part . . . but then, that's a flaw that nearly every Iron Man story since the 1980s possesses, so I really can't hold that against them. War Machine's appearance is especially well-done, although if you didn't know that Rhodey was a cyborg for some time, you might be shocked at his appearance. Salvador Larroca continues to produce fantastic art, even if he veers into cheesecake every now and then with the Black Widow. I also have to give him a special kudos for giving the Iron Patriot movie-style air brakes in one panel.

If you enjoyed The Five Nightmares -- which is probably most readers -- then World's Most Wanted is a perfectly-suited follow-up. If you haven't bought The Five Nightmares yet, then you can get the contents of all three hardcovers in one Omnibus edition for a surprisingly low price. Right now, Invincible Iron Man is the best Marvel has to offer, and combined with the second Iron Man film, it's a very good time to be a fan of Ol' Shellhead.

($19.99 each, or $39.99 for the Omnibus edition including The Five Nightmares. Both contain all main covers and some variant covers. Book 1 contains Dark Reign house ads. Book 2 contains pencil drawings.)

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Review: Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares collected hardcover (Marvel Comics)

[This review comes from Collected Editions guest-blogger Doug Glassman:]

It’s sometimes tricky for a comic book company to coordinate its comics with its movies so that the latter can drive business for the former. Marvel found this out after viewers of the first X-Men film found that the X-Men comics of the time were rather impossible to crack into for newcomers (though this eventually led to Grant Morrison’s New X-Men). Spider-Man was given organic web shooters in a pretty terrible story in order to sync up with the films. As a big Iron Man fan, I personally wondered what Marvel would do to cash in on the film, which presents a rather accurate picture of Iron Man . . . at least, as he was until Civil War. Would readers really get into Iron Man, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Marvel found a rather brilliant solution in their second Iron Man title, Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca’s The Invincible Iron Man, the first seven issues of which have been collected into The Five Nightmares. On one level, it appears to be a deliberate movie tie-in. The villain bears the last name of Stane, Pepper Potts looks quite a bit like Gwyneth Paltrow, arc reactor technology comes into play and the banter between Iron Man and War Machine wouldn’t sound odd coming from Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard. On the other hand, this is clearly set in the current Marvel universe; Tony is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and we see Rhodey only as War Machine. Because the movie was so good and incredibly true to the character, the comic book and film elements mesh nicely.

The Stane in question is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah, a homicidal sociopath who can barely be considered human after all the changes he’s made to his body. His plans hinge around suicide bombs based off of Stark technology. If this sounds a little bit like the classic “Armor Wars” story, you wouldn’t be far off—Tony brings up that adventure and a hologram of the various people he believes to be using his technology includes Stingray, Firepower, the Raiders, Mach IV (who was the Beetle back then) and the Mandroids. Matt Fraction adds a more complex riff onto the old “Armor Wars” concept, with Tony fearing that he is becoming outdated and that his technology is once again becoming more common. Considering that Tony lost much of his human touch with the addition of his Extremis armor, this is a good way to go back to some of the old Iron Man drama.

An epilogue issue featuring Spider-Man compounds this feeling of “bridging the gaps” between movie, pre-Civil War and post-Civil War Iron Man. Spidey helps Shellhead take down a black market technology network. Iron Man continually tries to get Spider-Man to leave, citing the SHRA, but as Spider-Man points out, he’ll just keep showing up anyway. Tony’s rather weak protestations and Spidey’s remembrances of the days when heroes could just team up remind me of better times in the Marvel universe. Appearances from old-school foes such as Big Wheel and the Terrible Tinkerer compound this. An earlier cameo by Thor compounds Tony’s problems with his fellow heroes. I have no problem with new villains and developments—Ezekiel Stane especially is a wonderfully-done character—but I’ve found myself disagreeing with most of the changes wrought by Civil War. Invincible Iron Man seems to strike at all of my problems and ease me back into the Marvel characters.

Salvador Larocca's art is wonderful, drawing on elements of Adi Granov and Bob Layton simultaneously while keeping its own flavor. His Iron Man has intriguing eye holes with a small vertical slit that make him look like he is crying in close-ups. As mentioned before, his Pepper looks like the movie version, but his Tony is closer to Granov and Layton with just a bit of Downey Jr. mixed in. Stane looks maddeningly familiar, but I can't tell if he's been based on an actor. His characters are "on-model," his faces are expressive and his action scenes are clearly laid out. It's very solid artwork for a very solid story. I especially like the new Evangelion-inspired Raiders. Unfortunately, the hardcover has almost nothing in the way of extras—just a gallery of variant covers. I would have liked some design notes or at least an introduction.

Whether you’re an old Iron Fan disenchanted by recent events, or a new fan brought in by the best comic book movie that isn’t The Dark Knight, I would highly suggest giving The Five Nightmares a read. The Tony who stars in this book is simultaneously the one from the “Demon in a Bottle” and “Armor Wars” glory days and the one portrayed so well by Robert Downey Jr. in the film. You may want to wait for the trade paperback edition, but check it out all the same.

[Contains covers and variant cover gallery. $24.99.]

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