My Five Holiday Wishes for Iron Man

A bit late, but I figured it was still relevant since we have another day in the holiday season. But like everyone, I have my wishes for things to happen for Iron Man in comics. And while it looks like I'm getting one long time wish of extremis being eliminated, I still have a few others. So here are the five things I wish most for Iron Man (in no particular order):

1) New Armor
I don't hide my dislike for the extremis armor. Its neither streamlined nor complicated, seeming unable to decide which is wants to be. The faceplate makes him look alien, and there is nothing special about this armor at all, aesthetic or technical. Its time for a next generation armor that looks cool and actually performs good to, unlike the extremis.


2) A New Colorist
Another pet peeve of mine. I really disliked the colorist during the Knauf's run on DOS, and I don't care much for the current colorist on the Invincible series. I've seen Larocca's work in the past, and it's much better than this. The current color makes his art look very flat and 2D, and every person seems to have a pudgy face. Just look at the Legacy of Doom series and you can see what a good colorist(s) can do for someones art.


3) Rhodey to Lose the Terminator Crap
Not really Iron Man, but Rhodey is easily the best supporting character in his history, and even he has gotten the shaft. His torso and half his face are all that's left of his organic body, and it's just plain stupid and serves no purpose. So here's to a return of the real Rhodey.


4) Be the Hero Of Dark Reign
Yeah, I know, it's not happening. I'm sure he'll be blamed even more at the end of it. Marvel will somehow make it his fault. Again.


5) Marvel to Treat Iron Man Right
I don't think this is too much to ask. For three major events in a row Iron Man has been blamed, and done so deliberately without even good excuses. He's been written out of character to do it too, adding insult to injury. At my comic book shop the other day I was talking to one of the workers who is a Spiderman fan and doesn't pay attention to Iron Man much. But he even said he's sick of them stretching to blame Iron Man for everything and it's to the point of ridiculous. I'm sorry, but when even a non fan thinks the character is being crapped on this much it's a sad state of affairs.

Happy Holidays!

Sorry, no real upate this week, way to busy with life.

Hope everyone has a happy holiday season though.

Extremis is Gone

So if you have missed some recent interviews with Matt Fraction, extremis is gone.

Thank god.

I have detested this since it appeared. Now, thats not to say extremis in itself is bad. Its a good idea especially if used properly. The problem is its so ill-fitted to Stark it becomes a terrible plot device.

One of the main premises to Tony Stark is he's a man. Intelligent, suave, rich. Yes, all of those. But deep down he's human just like you and me. In a way we want to be him, but in a way we would be too afraid to be. And that humanity is what extremis took away, and his quote at the end of Bias Political Commentary (Civil War according to Marvel) of "you know what it took to make me human again? War." shows that.

But now its gone because of the Skrulls infecting Starktech.

Yes, even though Extremis isnt Stark tech, it somehow is linked and is malfunctioning. An upcoming issue is solicited as Stark trying to erase something and it might kill him, the cover showing his head with a bunch of tubes going into it. One would think this is the issue where extremis is finally out of his body as he continues to operate the suit which needs extremis.

The plot device to get rid of it sounds a bit weak, but frankly I'm glad its gone one way or another. I felt this has dragged the character down and ripped out a major element that makes him so unique.

Secret Invasion: Iron Man Gets Screwed. Again.

Sigh. I'm amazed at Marvel. Not that they completely screwed up the ending of Secret Invasion by making it utterly predictable and lame, but once again they screwed over Iron Man.

Thor saying "I abhor what you've become" ??? Are you serious? Like him or not, Stark has always done what he's thought right, and you cant say the same for Thor, who has shown moral lacking on more than one occasion. And Bucky turning his back on him? The guy that let him be Captain America (against Steve Rogers wishes) and looked after him just goes and turns his back on Tony for no reason?

I mean, what the hell is wrong with Marvel? Why do they feel the need to screw over Stark every major event?

Civil war and Cap's death? Stark was the head for pro registration, so his fault.

World War Hulk? It was his idea to shoot Hulk into space (along with the other Illuminati), but only he gets blamed.

Secret Invasion? Despite the Skrulls infiltrating before Stark was even head of Shield, somehow he should have known. Despite that no other hero on the planet knew, Stark should have known. Despite Shield itself was infested with Skrulls keeping their presence a secret, he should have known. Despite all the Illuminati agreeing to preempt the Skrulls, it was just him who did it.

Oh yeah, and of all the Illuminati who knew when Stark brought them the body of Elektra, Stark was THE ONLY ONE WHO TRIED TO DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.

But that doesnt matter. It's Stark's fault.

I have to say, I'm really tired of this crap Marvel keeps pulling. What in god's name do they have against Stark that they have made him the punching bag and scapegoat for the last four years? This is so god damned petty and forced it's ridiculous.

Seriously, Marvel needs to grow up and stop shitting on the character, who they purposefully turned into an asshole by not correctly writing him.

Way to go Marvel, you again prove how childish and idiotic you truly are. You cant even bring yourself to crap all over someone else.

Then again, when you have an idiot like Joe Q in charge, does this really surprise anyone?

Mutant Powers Through Suits

Am I the only one who finds this idea incredibly stupid? I am seeing this more and more as a way to “re-power” mutants after they were “de-powered” during the events of M-Day.

Now I understand why they went and took a lot of mutants powers away. There were too many and soon the Earth was going to be overrun. It may be a Dues Ex Machina, but honestly, it was one that was actually good for once.

But like anything, there are ups and downs. The downs being that many mutants who were the stable of stories (Magneto being the biggest one), now are no longer powered and hence little to no threat at all. So like the good writers they are at Marvel they work around this and come up with new characters right?

Haha, sure. Like we could actually expect that of Marvel. Why work around something when you can just come up with a way to ignore it? And that’s exactly what they’ve done by giving de-powered mutants suits that give them their powers back, at least to a degree.

Sigh. Yet again Marvel writers go for a cop out rather than actually taking the time and thought to work around something. But you know, maybe it’s not just laziness. What if the writers just aren’t good enough to get around it? Maybe they actually can’t think of a way to build around a story that wasn’t there doing.

Plus, it’s almost like they are admitting they made a mistake. Like they thought it was a good idea at the time but once they saw the consequences, went “aw shit!” and just came up with something really lame.

And here’s another thing. If these mutants are getting their hands on a suit that can simulate their powers, what’s stopping the likes of Shield or Dr Doom from getting it and making vast armies of people with these suits? I mean if someone can create a suit that can simulate powers as great as Magneto’s, wouldn’t every military organization want to get their hands on it? Now that I think of it, it would be kind of like the What If issue where Stark went public with his Iron Man technology.

I don't like this idea. It screams laziness and incompetence to me. But until they just retcon or do another Deus Ex Machina to reverse the de-powering we’re just going to see more of it.

Iron Man's Fate at the End of Secret Invasion?

I think we're all wondering what it is. And frankly, I have no idea where it is going to go. But I do know this: I dont feel comfortable with it.

Right now things are set up for Iron Man to be the hero. The Wasp is now a living bomb and has caught the heroes and Skrulls in some sort of energy field. Iron Man flew back to Stark Tower to get a new armor because his was about to fall apart. But it also means he's not caught in the energy field holding the other Earth heroes (and villains) captive.

Now, part of me wants to say Tony grabs a new armor, discovers Jarvis is a Skrull, says "you're fired" while lasting him with a repulsor saving Luke Cage's baby. He then flies in, grabs the Wasp and lifts her out of the atmosphere where she explodes (but he is out of the blast range), thereby saving the day, being the hero and getting rid of a crappy character in the Wasp.

But it sounds too good to be true. And that's why I dont think it will happen.

Marvel is keeping things under wraps, not even local comic shops have the images for post SI covers, meaning some real nasty stuff is probably going to happen.

One of the few things we know of in SI's wake are the Dark Avengers, who's picture (albeit shadowed" can be seen here:

Who it seems in that picture are Ms Marvel in her original red costume; Spiderman in his black costume, possibly even re-attached to the symbiote, Hawkeye who you'll remember grabbed the Young Avenger by the same name's bow and arrow and starting killing a bunch of Skrulls, and finally Wolverine in what appears to be his old brown costume.

The guy in the Iron Man armor? The only thing we know is he's called the Iron Patriot, and Marvel said the questions people should be asking is "who is the Iron Patriot?" (again, that worries me). He's got an armor that looks like Iron Man's but with a red, white and blue paint scheme. That's it. It may be Stark, it may be the current Captain America Bucky Barnes, or it could even be the return of Steve Rogers (possibly not fully healed from his wounds and needing the armor)? We just dont know, and no one at Marvel is talking.

We also dont know much what Dark Reign is going to be about, only it deals with the fallout of SI. It's widely speculated the villains take over, even if for a short time, following the possible decimation of Earth's heroes during the invasion. The Dark Avengers may be an underground team fighting to free the world from the villains control. Are they a team that works for the villains? They may be the characters we know whose personalities were changed due to the Wasp's energy field.

Guesses, guesses, guesses. That's all we've got.

Sadly, the way Iron Man has been treated over the last few events, not to mention how disappointing those events were (remember, a crappy ending can kill a story no matter how good the rest is), I just have a bad feeling us Iron Man fans are going to hate how this ends.

Let's hope I'm wrong and Stark comes out as the big hero after all is said and done.

Back Soon... Again...

Ok, so my trial version of MS Office expired, and currently I cant even copy and paste the articles I had ready to go into the site. Add in I am heading out of town, it's going to be a week or so before another post comes up, and I dont like doing hastily written posts I dont have a chance to even do a quick lookover with.

So yeah, sorry for the delay again : /