Reilly2040's Blog

IGN once again comes up with the goods, this week in the form of a preview of this week’s Iron Man #27.

I’ve been meaning to blog about the current Iron Man storyline since #25, however a couple of things immediately jump out at me.

Firstly, its nice to see the issue of Pepper being Rescue being addressed.  To be honest, I really enjoyed her stint as an armoured hero during World’s Most Wanted, and her pain when she found out that she had to lose it all to save Tony was a great emotional moment from Matt Fraction.

That said, now Tony’s back, it really makes sense that she’d petition him for a new suit.  Tony’s arguments that he needs her running the company come across as a bit thin (he ran Stark Industries while moonlighting as Iron Man for years), so it’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Another interesting thing is Tony’s assertion that he’s never made a suit to be primarily a weapon.  Granted Pepper immediately calls him on it with the Hulk Buster, but you just have to look at the cover of the book to see how much Tony’s kidding himself here.

Its also interesting though, as it once again seems like a bit of retconning (or at least, the character kidding himself).  Iron Man #25 for example had Tony playing up repulsor technology as this brilliant keystone power source, as well as telling Thor he’d never built his company up from scratch, and the big show of ditching the military contracts.

All these things work within the context of the story of course, but they also share the fact that they ignore past history.  Tony’s rebuilt his company from scratch several times over the course of the series, be it Stark Enterprises, Stark Solutions or now Stark Resilient (gotta admit, its not the best name he’s come up with either).  Repulsor tech was never that big a deal, and Tony cutting military contracts was a big thing from the get-go after getting caught by that landmine.

These things also have another thing in common.  They’re all big parts of the current movie series.  So its clear that the tail’s wagging the dog to an extent, and that in order to make the comics accessible for the audience who’ve found the character via the movies that these aspects are being brought in.   For the most part, I can happily live with it, and as I say, within the context of these books its well written and works.  But it’d still be nice if it died down a bit now this new direction was in place, and Tony claiming he’s never built the suit as a weapon is straight from the movies and blatant rubbish.   At least, as I say, Tony’s called on it, which does feel a bit like Matt Fraction throwing a bone to the longer-term fans who’re having to ignore continuity a bit for the sake of the movies.  And for that, I’m glad

And talking of War Machine, I notice aspects of the movie design have crept into his new armour.  No surprise though, and as a fan of the character, its just nice to see him having a recurring role in the books again lately.

Of course, its not like any of this is new.  Spider-Man gaining organic web shooters for example?  And it does make sense to capitalise on the movies in this way.  I can’t complain about that really, but its more just the way its presented with all this movie-based stuff suddenly appearing.

I will say though, fanboy continuity niggles aside, I’ve been very much enjoying this current storyline.  After all the Dark Reign stuff, Matt Fraction is once again showing his solid grasp of Tony’s character, and while its not original, its still always fun to see Tony flexing his mental muscles to rebuild his company.  The inclusion of the Hammer sisters has been interesting so far and yes, while its another way of referencing the movies, Justin Hammer was always a good nemesis for Tony, so its nice to see his daughters being established to give Tony a corporate enemy.  Something he’s not had as often as he maybe should have over the years.

One final niggle however.  I wonder when we’re going to get the new armour properly showcased?  I miss the days when the new suit would show off all its capabilities against Iron Monger or Firepower.  So far we haven’t really seen much of what this suit can do at all.

Another great-looking Iron Man trailer.  Interesting to see another suit of armour revealed (I guess Tony decides he needs an emergency more portable suit) and we see a little more of Black Widow (but not much).  Most interestingly we see Whiplash’s involvement in the main plot and Hammer recruiting him.

Line of the trailer is either “Oops” or “Agreed”.  Probably the later

This film can’t come soon enough

So the post-Dark Reign landscape of the Marvel universe is slowly starting to take shape, and with the latest solicits on IGN there are a few surprises.

The Heroic Age Magazine #1 cover presents an interesting line up.  Some are obvious.  We’ve got Black Widow (currently appearing all over the Marvel Universe for several months – she must have gotten Wolverine’s agent – and will no doubt enjoy a big push come the release of Iron Man 2), Spider-Man, Thor and of course, Tony in his new Iron Man armour.

But most interesting in the lineup (and seen in the Avengers posters the other week) is Captain America, who appears to still be Bucky.  With Steve’s return and headlining Seige it seemed obvious that this was Steve back as Cap, with Bucky hopefully finding a new costumed identity of some description.   Instead its looking like Bucky will be staying on for a bit (hopefully not as a misdirect, only to get killed in issue 1 spurring Steve donning the costume again).

I for one am very happy if Bucky is staying on as Cap for a while longer.  He’s been generally well accepted in the role, helped enormously by the strength of Ed Brubaker’s writing in first re-establishing his character and making him interesting, and then slowly bringing him into the role, showing his own unease at taking on Steve’s legacy.  When Cap Reborn was announced, I felt that there was still life yet in Bucky as Captain America, so this is a welcome move.   I wonder if it means that there’s other plans in place for Steve.  I imagine, for example, that they’ll be needing someone to helm the HAMMER replacement once Norman’s booted out.

However, even more excitingly for me, as an Iron Man fan, is the solicitation for Rescue.  A new series starring Pepper Potts, back in her armour once again.  Pepper’s storyline has been incredibly strong under Matt Fraction’s writing during World’s Most Wanted and Stark Dissassembled, and you really felt for her when it was revealled that Tony’s revival would not only rip away her repulsor generator, but also involved ripping apart her Rescue armour.   Seeing Pepper enjoy the chance to finally be a superhero herself, after supporting Tony for so long was a great side-plot by Fraction so, much like Bucky as Cap, I’m really happy to see Marvel giving Rescue some more room to be explored.   Who’d have thought I’d be excited at the thought of a Pepper Potts series?

Finally, in amongst the various Deadpool solicitations (I love the character, but I know I’m not alone in fearing Marvel are pushing this one too far), I notice he’s got a team-up with Captain Britain.  I’m not sure if Captain Britain’s appeared since the Paul Cornell series was axed, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of MI-13 turn up or are referenced.  I hope so, as I’d hate to see Marvel throw away that team.

This weekend, we got a look at Iron Man’s upcoming revamp, following on from the events of the last year.

With the revelation that the Skrull virus had nuked Tony’s Extremis upgrades, rendering his current suit a nightmare to control, and now his self-inflicted lobotomy (and the idea of him rebooting his brain from an old backup actually suggests Tony may not have any memories of anything post-Extremis), it was always a given that the opportunity was in place for Tony to update his armour once again, however rather than wait for it to be revealed in the book, Marvel have instead released this image to all the news sites.

I’m not really overwhelmed to be honest, but it looks nice enough.  I notice that the helmet looks to borrow from the movie version rather than the previous Extremis suit (which suits me, there was an angular, serpentine (for want of a better word) quality to that helmet that I never liked).  I’m not sure about all the smaller lights up from the unibeam as I feel they distract a bit from the unibeam itself (making the unibeam just a larger piece in a series rather than a specific piece of the look in itself).  The upper part of the legs again remind me of the movie look, although the lower parts look more streamlined.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it save for a few quibbles.  I do feel for artists who have to design a new suit though, as its gotten increasingly tricky over the years.  The iconic look remains the original 60s red and gold, and moves to redesign the armour too radically never stick, which means the artist can be quite limited in what they can do versus, say giving Kyle Rayner a new look.

A pity as one of my favourite suits remains the Silver Centurion, although I’m aware of the complaints that suit got at the time for getting rid of the gold colouring, that have pretty much ensured that every suit since now sticks with the red and gold colour-scheme.   Another favourite for me remains the mouthless suit from the 90s and its a pity it didn’t stick around for longer (despite making it into the spin-off cartoons at the time).   I thought it did a pretty good job of sticking to the basic feel of the Iron Man look while actually changing a fair bit, although its certainly arguable that it perhaps felt like more of a superhero costume and less of an actual armour, which is a feel the Extremis suit definitely gave off.

Designing the armour is something I actually feel the movie did a really good job of.  There’s definite routes that can be traced to the (then current) Extremis suit while toning back some of its elements to be more like the classic look (at the simplest, changing the unibeam back to a circle, and adopting more normal-shaped boots).

Iron Man getting a new suit is always a big moment in his comics, so I’m looking forward to seeing how its approached in the story.  In many ways the Extremis technology was such a jump that it’ll be interesting to see how Matt Fraction makes this suit seem even more advanced, despite Tony no longer having the Extremis benefits available to him.   However given the sterling work Fraction has done this far with Tony, I’m willing to bet it’ll be believable (infact, with Tony being the futurist he is, it won’t surprise me if this suit is something that Tony actually designed around the same time he put in place the rest of the World’s Most Wanted plan).

The official Iron Man 2 trailer is now up on Apple’s site or around the net.

Looks superb.  Seems to have exactly the same tone as the first film and the cast once again looks amazing.  And, of course, there’s War Machine

Also interesting to note that Tony’s clearly in a new suit at the end of the film.  There’s a Silver Centurion-style triangular unibeam visible on it as opposed to the round one (the arc reactor) we saw on the Mark 3 in the first film.

Next summer can’t come fast enough

Its a big week for fans of Iron Man.  Not only do we get the latest part of the Stark Disassembled storyline, but we also get the final issue of the current series of War Machine.  Its worth noting that War Machine should be read before Iron Man, as Iron Man will spoil the finale of War Machine otherwise.

However just to be contrary, I’m going to review Iron Man first

Continuing on from last issue, Stark’s closest friends are gathered around his body as Rescue continues to recite Stark’s plan to bring himself back from the self-lobotomy he performed during World’s Most Wanted.  Interestingly Pepper’s reluctance to help last issue is revisited here in a way that makes complete sense as we see what exactly Stark’s rebirth will cost her.  Its a testament to Fraction’s writing and the development he’s done with the character that I really found myself feeling for her, and in some ways Stark’s plan seems cruel to her (although, of course, when it comes down to the crunch she signs up with little hesitation).

The contents of the mysterious hard disc Maria Hill retrieved during World’s Most Wanted are revealed, and while not being a great surprise, its perfectly in character for Tony.  In fact, despite being brain dead for the issue, Tony continues to get the best lines, via the holographic recording he left with Rescue.

Its also nice to see Ghost turning up here.  He’s a character I hadn’t really seen much of, prior to picking up Andy Diggle’s Thunderbolts run the other month, and he’s become a real favourite as mine.  There’s something wonderfully freaky about his design, and the way he operates completely under his own agenda under Osborn’s nose remains interesting (especially as that agenda isn’t the usual supervillain posturing).

There is also the symbolism at play here, as Fraction brings together the newly-Reborn Steve Rogers and Thor to help in Tony’s resurrection.  We’re seeing the big 3 Avengers come back together here, in preparation for the upcoming Seige event, and it does feel like something big is coming in Marvel just through these characters being together again.

While I wasn’t entirely sure about the ending of World’s Most Wanted, and this Disassembled arc from the solicits, I think its paying off nicely, helped in part by moving along quite quickly, obviously so we can have Tony back on his feet and in armour in time for Siege.

Over in War Machine #12, things aren’t looking particularly rosy for Jim Rhodes either.   While he’s not lobotomised himself, Osborn has captured him and has him on trial for war crimes and facing execution.

As a wrap up to the year of War Machine we’ve had this issue works brilliantly.  Osborn remains centre-stage as the villain of the piece and the main characters from throughout the run are all spotlighted with James’ mother visiting him in prison, Ares turning up to free his champion and team War Machine in their usual support roles.

Its actually a real shame to see this series come to an end, if only because this issue would’ve marked a major turning point that would’ve set things up to go off in a different direction to the first year of the run.  And with War Machine turning up in Iron Man 2 next year, you have to wonder how long it’ll be before we at least get a new mini-series.

I do like how Greg Pak turns Osborn against himself here.   There’s an interesting parallel between this and the ending of World’s Most Wanted, which in both cases sees Tony and Rhodey turn Osborn’s own arrogance against him (as we see with Osborn himself exonerating Rhodey from War Machine’s crimes).  In both cases, the resolution came down to the planning by the main characters, rather than a knock-down fight.  Which especially in the case of War Machine is an interesting way to go.

There’s also an interesting clearing of the decks going on across these titles in time for the new year and the new film.  It’ll be interesting to see how Matt Fraction continues to rebuild Tony for example, since he’ll now be free from Extremis, have a movie-styled repulsor unit in his chest, and have to rebuild Stark Industries from the ground up.  And how Rhodey will feature into the Marvel universe will be interesting to see.  If nothing else, it might be nice to have him feature in Iron Man for a while again (while Tony’s getting back on his feet).  Certainly I hope the character doesn’t languish like he did after his first ongoing was cancelled.

After 12 issues, the strong of Tony Stark being on the run from Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R. has finally come to an end.

I must admit.  As much as I really enjoy Fraction’s work on this book, I’m unsure how I actually feel about this conclusion at the moment.  The run has been filled with great moments.  Pepper, Maria and Natasha make a great team, and the twist of Madam Masque being in the Rescue armour was a great moment.  Watching Norman crow about how good a day he was having while the three women were in his headquarters causing havoc (including J.A.R.V.I.S. trashing all of Norman’s captured suits of Iron Man armour) was great.

Another highlight was the final Tony/Norman fight.  By this point, Tony’s virtually incapable of putting one foot in front of the other, and is wearing only his original Iron Man armour, while Norman’s at the top of his game, yet despite everything being in Norman’s favour, we see Tony’s victory as Osborn is outsmarted, revealed on television pummelling the defenceless Tony and discovering that the information he was so desperate for no longer exists.

Despite this though, I’m left feeling slightly unsatisfied.  This story was 12 issues long, so while its no Clone Saga, that’s still a long story in modern terms, where most aim for six issues in order to fit trade paperback requirements.  Despite this long run though, it feels like we end on yet another cliffhanger.  Tony is now in a vegetative state, having erased the contents of his memory, and his body is a prisoner in the HAMMER helicarrier.  We still don’t know what’s on the hard drive Maria and co were so desperate to retrieve (although its a fair bet it relates to however Tony’s going to get out of this mess in time for the upcoming Seige event).   Despite the story’s length, there’s still the feeling that the main beats aren’t resolved, which is a bit frustrating.    Given the status at the end of the issue, with Norman having chased Tony around the globe for nothing, and having lost all his Starktech except for his one suit of Iron Patriot armour, it should’ve felt like more of a win for Tony.  Instead it all felt a bit “too be continued”, a real shame after 12 issues.

However, I don’t want to be too down on this.  I don’t doubt that whatever happens next is going to be very interesting indeed, as we see Tony’s friends getting in touch with Donald Blake, who happens to be the executor of Tony’s Estate according to his will, in addition to being the secret identity of a certain god of thunder.  So its obvious all we’ve really seen is the conclusion of stage 1 of a larger plan (again, we have Fraction playing on Tony’s ability to think three steps ahead).

This has been a great ride.  Matt Fraction’s done a great job of showing Tony’s descent as his intelligence slowly left him.  He’s also greatly captured Norman Osborn’s character showing how dangerous and deranged he can be (witness his right-hand woman freaking out over how Norman’s going to kill them all when he learns of Pepper’s escape).  There’s a great supporting cast in place here, and so all we really need is to see exactly what Tony’s got up his sleeve for how he’ll get out of this.  And then, of course, I have to presume that we’ll be getting one of those great Iron Man moments as we have the unveiling of a redesigned suit of armour (since the Extremis suit is now useless).  With the damage done to the character during Civil War (a good idea, badly handled in my opinion), its hard not to really feel for Tony as he desperately tries to string together a coherent thought while Norman is pounding on his armour, and that is possibly the greatest strength of this run.  Its made Tony Stark a character that you’re cheering for again.

A while back I blogged on the trailer for the upcoming Iron Man cartoon, basically saying it looked terrible.  Having now caught some of the episodes on Jetix though I feel an update is required.

Its not terrible.  In fact, I’m really quite enjoying it.

Obviously, the show plays really loose with the Iron Man mythos.   The key parts are still there, heavily influenced by the  movie.  However the key players are all now 16.  Obidiah Stane is one of the main recurring villains thanks to the movie, having taken over Stark Industries after Howard Stark dies and is turning all the Stark Tech into military hardware much to Tony’s disgust.  As he’s only 16 Tony’s can’t take control of the company until he’s legally an adult, so instead is forced out, living with his best friend James Rhodes while also using the Iron Man armour to try and dig up any dirt he can on Stane and expose him for the evil so-and-so he is.

Its interesting to see how Stane’s success in the movie has moved him firmly into the role previously occupied by Justin Hammer.  Its especially interesting given that Hammer himself is featuring in the next movie.

The other running villain is the Mandarin.  In something very similar to season 2 of the 90s cartoon, there’s a running plot through the series of the Mandarin trying to retrieve all his rings.  However in this series there’s only 5, hidden in various temples across the world, and all have a test that must be passed so the Mandarin can prove himself worthy of the ring.  These tests allow the writers to work other villains into the show.  For example the test for the third ring finds Iron Man and the Mandarin facing off against Ultimo.

The Mandarin however is quite different to his comics incarnation.  The rings project a suit of demonic-looking samurai armour that identifies the Mandarin, however under the armour is secretly a 16 year-old classmate of Tony’s, who is using Tony to try and locate the other rings  (Howard Stark had located the second ring and researching them was one of his passions).

Iron Man’s rogues gallery is pretty well served by this show, although again most of the characters can be quite different to their comics versions.  In the episodes I’ve seen, outside of Stane and the Mandarin, there’s also been appearances by the Crimson Dynamo, The Controller, AIM and Madame Masque.

If you’re a continuity fanatic then this isn’t the show for you, and to be honest, I really expected to hate it.  However, its sucked me in.  Yes, reimagining everyone as 16 years old takes some getting used to, but in general I think this is a pretty well-made cartoon, helped in part by the plot arc with the Mandarin, while also setting up other plots that come back in later episodes.  The only real complaint I’d make is that sometimes the CGI animation results in the characters looking quite plasticy.  In some lighting it doesn’t really render skin all that well, but most of the time its ok.

Dark Reign rumbles on in the Marvel Universe, and it still sucks to be Tony Stark, as he’s quickly shot down after wandering into Russian airspace on his way to the latest of his private facilities.

The person doing the shooting turns out to be Tony’s old friend, the Crimson Dynamo who’s unimpressed by this person wandering into his country in an outdated armour that’s easily taken down.  He’s even more surprised when he realises it is indeed Tony Stark in the suit.

This is something Matt Fraction’s doing that I really love.  In the past, whenever Tony’s armour has been trashed, its been almost cliche that he’d spend 5-10 issues running around in the classic 60s armour, before its overwhelmed and he’s forced to build a new suit.   This rarely made sense, as in some of those situations he could’ve easily gone with a suit more advanced.   In this story, Tony’s reasons for adopting such an old suit make perfect sense, as his intelligence is compromised, and his reaction times slowed.

The other thing Fraction does which was previously ignored, is address that in the modern Marvel Universe, the 60s armour is rubbish.  Yes, it looks good.  But its old technology.  In previous instances where Tony’s worn this suit as a substitute, he’s generally held his own to a point, until becoming overwhelmed.   Here there’s no pretence that he can hold his own.  He’s quickly shot down by the Crimson Dynamo and his armour rendered useless.  Fortunately once the situation has been explained, the Dynamo is more than happy to lend Tony his armour to help him out.

We also go back to Pepper, who’s more than happy to flaunt Osborn’s authority in order to track Tony down.  Sadly, she’s playing straight into Norman’s hands, as he’s been watching her, waiting for her to run to Tony.

Talking of Norman, there’s a great scene where he contacts the Russians for permission to chase Tony in their territory, only to be bluntly told to shove off.  Its a nice scene, and its interesting to see that internationally, other countries seem to be well aware of Norman’s past, and don’t trust him one iota.

Meanwhile War Machine #7 continues Jim’s quest to shut down the research into the Ultimo virus.   Having successfully distracted American Eagle in the previous issue to allow him to get to the US military base housing the research, Jim quickly begins dismantling their defenses only to discover that the head of Ultimo is being used to house the project.

Again, a real part of the fun here is the Dark Reign setup, mainly with American Eagle’s interactions with Norman Osborn.  Again we’re seeing someone in authority tell Osborn to get knotted.  Its  a situation that’s sure to escalate, since as more and more people tell Osborn to take a hike, you can see him getting further and further out of control and throwing around his authority.   As a direct result of this issue you see military personnel questioning exactly why there was an alien superweapon hidden on their base by Osborn.  Hopefully these are hints that Osborn’s ascendancy to power isn’t nearly as all-encompassing as may have first appeared, and there’s still a good few people out there questioning what’s going on.

The other thing that really surprised me in this issue is the cliffhanger.  Jim manages to hack the Ultimo project’s database and discovers the locations where Ultimo’s main processor has been stored (after being split up).  To stop him, Osborn calls in his latest line of defense against Jim. Someone who looks a lot like Tony Stark, leaving the Stark Solutions offices.

I’m really wondering who this is going to be.  Assuming I’ve not missed any issues where there was a clone of Tony kicking around or something, this is hugely interesting.  ”Tony” is carrying his signature briefcase, so it seems to be hinting towards another War Machine/Iron Man confrontation, but what’s the twist here?

A really nice part of this issue is that we finally see the sequence of events that resulted in Jim’s injuries.  Interestingly, he was serving as an advisor to the military (in something reminiscent of his role as a liason in the Iron Man movie).  We quickly see Jim’s determination to save others no matter the personal cost.  Its nice to finally see what actually happened there.

While I’ve by no means been buying more than a fraction of Marvel’s Dark Reign titles, I’ve still been enjoying what I’ve bought a lot, so I figured it made sense to do a more general catchup than focus on specific issues.

Iron Man I’ve talked about in depth on the blog before, so I’ll not really go over that again, except to say that its been great.

The other main Dark Reign titles I’ve been buying have been War Machine, Dark Avengers, and lately Ms Marvel.

Dark Avengers has been a bit of a mixed bag.   In that, I love the basic idea for the series and the team composition, and I think that seeing how this team react to their new public personas should be interesting.  However the first arc has been tied up with a big fight alongside Doom against Morgana Le Fay.  For myself I’d rather have seen more about the team trying to settle into their new roles as the “official” Avengers team.  The Doom/Morgana storyline has been fun, but just not what I was expecting.

However Ms Marvel has currently been exactly what I was looking for.  With Carol Danvers seemingly (recent solicits have her back) dead, Moonstone is now the only Ms Marvel in town, and so has been headlining the book.

While its only been two issues so far, its been fun seeing Moonstone fit into the role of Ms Marvel.  Obviously the general public have no idea who she really is, so we see them reacting to her killing escaping villains for example.   The latest issue is the first of  storyarc that saw her go up against AIM.  Of course, Osborn wanted to offer them a deal, but the fun in this story is seeing the different viewpoints.  We have the version that Osborn gives to the public, but then we have Moonstone’s report to Osborn.  However this plays over the third version of events, which is what actually happened, so we’re seeing that Moonstone is more than happy to try and play Osborn at his own game.

Its this aspect that I think makes Moonstone one of the most interesting of the Dark Avengers.  The likes of Venom and Bullseye, its a question of how long Norman can keep them on a leash.  With Moonstone, there’s a feeling that she could be Norman’s equal in many ways, and will only be willing to play Osborn’s game as long as it suits her.

War Machine has so far been operating a story largely removed from Dark Reign.  Osborn did show up for a bit though, with War Machine telling him to stuff it, so its a bet he’ll have a larger role in later issues, and of course, Ares is part of the Dark Avengers (and to be honest, this series has probably had the best characterisation of Ares so far, its not to be missed if you like the character).  The latest issue sees Rhodey and his team about to launch an attack on a US military base where an Ultimo virus was being developed, so its a safe bet Osborn and HAMMER will be keen to get their hands on him.

However, there’s probably another aspect to it.  We’ve seen Osborn find one of Tony’s armouries in Dark Avengers, and retrofit (or at least copy, its not clear) one of the suits.  However we also know from Iron Man that while Osborn has Tony’s suits, he’s been unable to properly use them.  He can’t access the repulsor technology that is key to Tony’s technology.  He’s tried to get it from Pepper’s suit, and I wonder if he’s wanting to get at Rhodey’s cyborg body to try and unlock the Iron Man technology for himself.

Overall I’m finding Dark Reign a big success so far.  Marvel have been really great with their big events introducing big change to the Marvel Universe, whose impact is felt across the line.  First with Civil War, and now with Secret Invasion/Dark Reign.  There’s a very strong feeling that the Marvel Universe is currently a very dangerous place to be a superhero in.