More Iron Man

Watching IRON MAN 2 a couple of weeks ago perked up my interest in the character. I’ve written on here before about the stack of comics I got from a couple of my cousins on Christmas Day, 1963, and there was an issue of TALES OF SUSPENSE featuring an Iron Man story among them. In recent days I’ve read three collections that reprint a pretty long run from the current Iron Man series: WORLDS MOST WANTED, VOLUMES 1 and 2, and STARK DISASSEMBLED. The storyline that run through all three volumes finds Tony Stark on the run from Norman Osborn, the bad guy turned good guy (but really still bad guy) who runs H.A.M.M.E.R., the organization that replaced S.H.I.E.L.D. during the whole Civil War mega-event. Osborn wants all the secrets to Stark technology that exist in Tony’s brain, so Tony takes the desperate step of shutting down certain areas of his brain and turning himself stupid, just so Osborn can’t get the information he’s after. Tony has a plan to “reboot” himself, though, but in order for it to succeed, he needs the help of numerous allies like Captain America, Thor, the Black Widow, and Maria Hill, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.


The scripts by Matt Fraction, who continues to write the ongoing Iron Man series, are pretty good, with sharp dialogue and quite a bit of action. I think the stories could have used a little more humor, but that’s just me. Fraction does succeed in making me actually like Maria Hill as a character, when every time I’ve encountered her before she came across as either so bland as to be invisible or too abrasive to be sympathetic. The art by Salvador Larrocca is okay, too, although he’s no Don Heck. (And I’m surprisingly serious about that comment, since we tend to like what we grew up with and I grew up first with Heck’s version of Iron Man and then Gene Colan’s, under the pseudonym Adam Austin).


These three collections brought me almost up to date on the current Iron Man series, which I’m going to start reading again. I still don’t like the fact that everybody knows Tony Stark is Iron Man (again, I grew up in a time when superheroes had secret identities, blast it), but the character seems to be in pretty good hands these days, after a long time of wandering in the wilderness. (Teenage Tony Stark? Really? Tony Stark secretly under the control of Kang the Conqueror since AVENGERS #8? Really? Man, what was Marvel thinking . . .)

Iron Man 2

Critics generally praised this movie, but many of them thought it was too busy and had too much plot. Well, let’s see . . . On the side of the good guys, you’ve got Iron Man, War Machine, Nick Fury, The Black Widow, Happy Hogan, and Pepper Potts versus the baddies Justin Hammer and Whiplash, plus throwaway bits setting up at least three more superhero movies to come (unless I missed a few, which is possible). I think that covers just about everything. And so I say to the critics who complained about this movie being too much . . . have you never actually read any comic books? This is classic Silver Age plotting. And in a nice bit buried in the closing credits, the filmmakers actually thank all the writers who came up with the source material in comics published in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, plus one or two who are currently writing Iron Man stories.


As usual in these superhero movies, the story is a mixture of plot elements and characterizations from several decades worth of comic book continuity. Tony Stark is dying because the element that powers the Iron Man suit keeping him alive is also slowly killing him, so he has to find a new element to replace it. At the same time he’s plagued by rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer, who teams up with rogue Russian physicist Ivan Danko (wasn’t he originally the Crimson Dynamo in the comics, instead of Whiplash?) to make life even more miserable for Tony, who is also having to cope with friction between him and the government. Yeah, there’s a lot going on. There are plenty of fights and special effects. Stuff, you guessed it, Blows Up Real Good. Plot developments fly by so fast that if you haven’t read the comics, I suppose you could get confused by what’s going on.


Of course that didn’t bother me. In fact, those little moments setting up things for later on were probably my favorite parts of the movie. Overall, I loved IRON MAN 2 and thought it was better than the first one. Your mileage may vary, as the old saying goes. But I’m very happy with what the movies are doing with the Marvel Universe these days, and the trademark closing moment after the end credits really has me looking forward to the movies still to come. If you’re a comics fan and haven’t seen this one yet, I highly recommend it.