Friday, November 12, 2004

Comic Review: Iron Man #1 and other stuff

Warren Ellis has taken over writing everyone's favorite armored Avenger as Marvel "reloads" Iron Man.

The "Extremis" storyline introduces yet another modernization of a superhero's origin. Now, Tony Stark got impaled by shrapnel from an exploding landmine during a Taliban attack, all revealed through an interview/flashback. Meanwhile, someone's stolen a experimental something that's called Extremis and it's been injected into someone, causing a most disturbing metamorphosis...

I like this story, though not much really happens during this initial issue. But it does a good job of introducing the tortured Tony Stark, trying to make up for his past designing weapons for the military. It sets up the story pretty well, and I am eager for future issues to find out what this Extremis is all about.

Adi Granov's digital art looks almost cinematic at times, like on page fifteen. I recommend this to all Ellis fans and Iron Man fans alike. The only real drawback of this issue is its $3.50 price tag.

In other news, Marvel released a Handbook of the Dead 2004, listing all of the dead characters. Bucky was fortunately still listed as dead. I was surprised to find Thor listed as dead, but that explains why there's a new young Thor prequel comic book out. I found it comical (no pun intended) that Phoenix was listed as dead, even though a new miniseries is being made to bring her back after only being dead for what, a year at the most. (See previous discussion of using death as a marketing tool.)

Also, the newest issue of DC's Identity Crisis miniseries seems to be indicating that Ray Palmer, the Atom, is the serial killer who's going after superheroes' family members. (Remember the other day when I was saying about heroes being turned into villains for shock value? Anyway, they should have learned from Hal Jordan.)

1 comment:

blueguitar said...

Hmmm sounds interesting. Why don't you ever point these things out when I am out shopping for new stories to read? It's cool when a story can be rewritten in a new and fresh way and give a classic tale a new twist.

It does seem like people who don't know what to do with their characters either kill the character or make them evil. I guess that's the way it is.

and why are you so happy that Bucky's dead?