Wow, that was a lot more difficult than it should have been.
I'm talking about finding an image of the cover on Google, which turns out to be a Walmart-exclusive variant (I found one with the title logo in blue, but apparently only Walmart had it in, y'know, Iron Man colors).
It should be noted that all these Sunday Marvel Sunday comics were originally obtained via Walmart three-packs.
Anyway.
Marvel continues to know what the hell to do with Iron Man. Perversely, the company seems committed to screwing with the character in every way possible. This has been going on in ridiculous fashion since the '90s, when Tony Stark was, inexplicably, a teenager for a while. This was okay, in the '90s, if it was Ray Palmer, because even in the '90s Ray Palmer (the teenage thing was thanks to Zero Hour, in case you were wondering, and was featured in Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans) was not really a significant character (he had his heyday in the '70s, I think, in a partnership with Hawkman). This is not to say The Atom is not a great character. But very few writers seem interested in him. I mean, even Ant-Man, with one of the worst publication histories of any major character, now has his own movies. Ray Palmer in the Arrowverse is basically Iron Man, with shrinking powers. Played by Superman.
Okay. I kind of got sidetracked. Anyway, this rant about how ridiculous Iron Man comics have been of course ties in with the fact that Iron Man has literally been the most significant superhero of the past decade, because of, y'know, the MCU. And Marvel figured it was okay to exploit this opportunity. To continue making terrible Iron Man comics.
Iron Man's dad, in the comics, isn't even Howard Stark, by the way. Multiple writers affirmed that some convoluted adoption nonsense was the new status quo. And Tony died. And came back. And died. And as of this comic? Is kind of dead. And alive. At the same time.
Somehow the idea that Tony's a tech genius has gotten widely out of control. In comics, being a tech genius is futurism, not smartphones. Tony operates on such an advanced level (and yet, as with his armor, still doesn't...technically share it with everyday peons. despite running a massive business. somehow) he beggars all imagination.
Part of this is superhero comics as they now exist, almost totally divorced from the real world. This issue, by the way, is a tie-in with War of the Realms, just another cosmic story in adventures that no longer have anything to do with problems any of us is likely to ever experience outside of, well, a comic book, or another MCU flick. It's particularly egregious when Marvel does it because this is supposed to be the company that's painfully reflective of everyday struggles. And yeah, by token references to Tony's alcoholic past, it is. Pretty much. His new body has the same history as his old body (just don't even ask).
Never mind that Marvel is once again replacing Tony as Iron Man, by the way. Forget that DC may have just fired Dan DiDio because it had second thoughts about a Marvel-like attempt to line-wide replace the icons, again.
Forget that this was a golden opportunity, with Tony's death in the movies, to remind any interested fans, that Tony's adventures continue well past Robert Downey, Jr. in the comics. Maybe. Probably. Sometimes. Unless they can help it.
Anyway, it doesn't matter who's writing Iron Man. Bendis did it for a while, and he actually was kind of more interested in Doctor Doom. Or Mary Jane. Or Riri Williams. This issue it's Gail Simone, the writer most likely to not really conceive of anything outside of comic book logic. Unless it offends her. And gives her a career.
Anyway, I'm noticing that Thought Bubble Comics really only has a readership of one these days (thanks, Pat!), so it really doesn't matter what I say. Some of these are going to be rants, and some are actually going to have nice things to say about Marvel. But most of them will be rants. Coming at you weekly!
I'm sure you have a lot of Phantom Readers out there, like I do.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read a lot of Iron Man comics. I remember reading a Warren Ellis volume from early in this century and not really liking it much. Maybe it was like that beforehand but Civil War kind of made Iron Man a dick since he was the one who sided with the government and became the head of SHIELD or whatever. They've kind of been digging out of that ever since.
The Warren Ellis comic you're thinking about is probably the one that partially informed Iron Man 3 (the bits about the new kind of armor, I think).
DeleteYeah I think Extremis was in it, though it was a little different than the eventual movie version.
Delete