Sunday Splash Page #266

 

"Target Locked," in Iron Man #230, by David Michelinie (writer), M.D. Bright (artist), Bob Layton (writer/artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Janice Chiang (letterer)

Iron Spring's the perfect time to hang out with the cool exec with a heart of. . .damn it, Stark, your song's not fitting the aesthetic I'm going for here! Why's your name even Iron Man?

Like Incredible Hulk a few weeks ago, Iron Man is not a title I've ever bought regularly, and it didn't seem to end up in those grocery-store 5-packs as much as Hulk's book, either, so I encountered it even more sporadically. The earliest Iron Man comic I had was 203, when he gets Hank Pym to shrink him down so he can sneak into Obadiah Stane's computer files via the power of the Internet to figure out where Stane hid all his money. Which might explain my fondness for the "Silver Centurion" armor, though it also has the advantage of looking very different from almost every armor before or since. it also looks a lot better when the Bright/Layton art team are drawing it than when Al Milgrom's handling it in West Coast Avengers.

After that, there was an issue of Armor Wars II, some stuff from the "modular armor" era post-#300, which followed the "remote piloted armor" era.

None of that stuff is still in my collection. What is includes the original Armor Wars (although the comics themselves call the storyline "Stark Wars"), the big 150th issue trip to King Arthur's time with Dr. Doom, the Acts of Vengeance tie-ins (which include the sequel to the King Arthur story), and a couple random issues from further on.

I don't know why Iron Man didn't appeal to me more when I was a kid. Powered armor should have been pretty cool. I watched the early-90s cartoon, although that didn't do a great job selling the character. Especially the second season, where the armor could morph between different looks. . .when that effect actually worked. Made the armor look kind of shoddy, how often he'd try to use "Hydro-Armor" and the suit just shut down instead.

These days, it's easier to know where the problem lies: Civil War. I suppose the fact Stark went from, "I'm going to shut down all these armors even if it means fighting SHIELD and the government," to, "Everybody follow the stupid law, or else!" can be chalked up less to inconsistency than to Stark's defining trait being his apparent conviction that he's always right. Which could probably be chalked up to Bendis deciding Stark was a "futurist" who could anticipate not only market trends, but larger socio-political trends.

It's hard for me to take that seriously when Tony Stark - apparently always correct Tony Stark - is also the guy who got his entire company swiped from under him by a Lex Luthor knock-off because he decided to crawl inside a bottle of Johnnie Walker. The utter lack of self-reflection or self-awareness is off-putting. I really shouldn't enjoy seeing the ostensible hero get his ass kicked nearly as much as I did with Iron Man from 2006 through, well, at least 2010.

Hell, Matt Fraction tried to reboot Stark's mind to before all that (and before Warren Ellis' Extremis thingamabop) to make Stark not a toxic asshole. He managed to undercut the attempt by having Tony leave a recording for his friends - who he was relying on to save his life - where he said he'd do everything exactly the same. Keep in mind, one of the people he's asking for help is Thor, so this apparently means Stark thought making a cyborg murder-clone of Thor without his consent was a brilliant decision, actually.

As far as I can tell since then, he alternates between building new Stark companies up, with some bold-new initiative like interactive A.I. (which end up being sentient beings who feel enslaved), and losing all his money and starting from scratch. At least Danny Rand has the excuse he knows nothing about business and doesn't particularly care. Stark is ostensibly trying to be good at business, he simply apparently sucks at it.

Random Back Issues #92 - Iron Man #229

Hank Pym and Moon Knight are just glad it's someone else's intervention they're attending this time.

We're in the last stretch of Armor Wars by this point, and Stark is feeling the heat (though not as much as Titanium Man will be later in the issue.) He beat up Stingray thinking his armor was based on some specs from Iron Man. Then broke into the Vault to trash the Guardsmen armors and fought Captain America - sorry, I mean the Captain - while he was at it. 

So the West Coast Avengers feel they deserve some answers, and Tony provides them. Including why he didn't ask for their help, which was to keep them from ending up as wanted criminals like him. Hawkeye tells Iron Man he's gotta knock it off and Iron Man. . .puts on his helmet and flies off without saying a word. Well then. Problem solved.

Damn it, Tony!

Stark is actually going to invade the USSR to try and trash the armors of Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man at the same time. So he's putting together a Stealth Armor to sneak in. Looks cool, bends radar waves, but lacks a lot of protection, and only has enough power for 3 repulsor blasts. Nice to know he's giving himself some wiggle room. He tells Rhodey to go get the jet ready, then grabs those big rocket boosters and takes off alone. He's at least aware this is going to get him in hot water, and he won't drag Rhodey down with him.

The KGB, anticipating Iron Man's moves, contact the two targets and suggests a team-up. Their combined festive Christmas spirit will be sure to triumph over the crass commercialism of that capitalist dog, Iron Man! Dynamo's just a loyal soldier in a suit serving out his term of service (one week from retirement!), so he's in. We saw Gremlin in ROM four months ago, and he's more hostile to the government now than he was than when he knew they were infested with shape-changing aliens. Which suits them fine. They expected he'd reject them, and what he doesn't know is they know the location of his "secret" lab, and have it bugged. When Iron Man shows up, they'll send Dynamo in to mop up two problems at once.

Except they didn't know about the stealth armor that lets Tony slip through the defenses. Still, Dynamo (flying slowly, hoping they'll kill each other before he gets there) getting pasted by Gremlin's security distracts Shellhead long enough for Gremlin to get in his suit ahead of repulsor blast #1. Iron Man bails - almost directly into Crimson Dynamo. But it gives Tony a chance to draw his guard with repulsor blast #2, then sucker-punch him and slap a negator pack on the armor. One down.

Titanium Man's a bit more of a problem. Stark tries using a camouflage function and repulsor blast #3, but dicks around too long and winds up having his other negator pack crushed. Look at the time. Gotta go! Titanium Man's got other ideas. He lock in a "stasis beam" then starts bear-hugging Iron Man. Tony cranks up his boot jets trying to break free. The jets are up against the legs of Titanium Man's armor, heating it until it combusts. Tony and Gremlin both freak out, as Tony notes titanium can't be put out 'until what's burning is consumed - totally!'

Gremlin does a splashdown in the sea, the KGB put on a good show of being outraged (probably just pissed the Dynamo armor is scrapped and they can't get Titanium Man's suit, either), and Stark bails. Back in Cali, the Avengers call a meeting and vote to kick Iron Man out. Stark says it was an 'act of self-defense,' which kind of ignores the part where Tony was the one who started the fight. It also really seems like at this point the Avengers ought to be arresting him, considering he's standing right there, but they don't.

Armor Wars had a couple of issues left after this, which would result in a new armor, one that returned to the red-and-gold color scheme. I think that design would stick until maybe issue 300?

{6th longbox, 7th comic. Iron Man #229, by David Michelinie (plotter/scripter), Mark Bright (artist, breakdowns), Bob Layton (plotter/artist, finishes), Bob Sharen (colorist), Janice Chang (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #20 - Solo Avengers #6

And I'd have gotten away with nuking Algiers, if not for your meddling mercenaries and that damn carny!

Hawkeye's stuck helping Silver Sable on a job, so she'll intervene on is behalf with French authorities after he showed up in the country illegally because he was abducted by his old teacher, Trick Shot, who wanted to commit suicide via archer, rather than wait to die of his terminal illness.

The job in question is to bust into the hideout of the Red Skull. Which you think you'd want more than just Hawkeye and Le Peregrine, champion of France, to handle. Especially since the first operative Sable sent has gone missing. Well, I guess she tried one person and that failed. Now, she's trying two. If they botch it, then it'll be, I don't know, the Prowler, Rocket Racer, and Will O' the Wisp. After that, she'll call the Fantastic Four. Or the Power Pack. Not sure what her stance is on child labor laws.

(Also, I love that Le Peregrine chides Hawkeye for being too noisy, one panel after he loudly announces his name while not knocking out the goon before he fires off a bunch of rounds from his machine gun.)

But this is the crappy knockoff Red Skull, not the one that got a cloned body of Captain America or whatever. So it's really just a matter of beating up a bunch of cannon fodder and recovering a timing device for nuclear warheads the Skull swiped.

I don't know if Clint is tired from fighting assassins, Trick Shot, Batroc, and Silver Sable's goons over the last few issues, or if he's just pouting about having to jump through this hoop to get home, but he really seems to be half-assing it. He purposefully misses the Skull with a bunch of arrows to, as he puts it, add some excitement to Skull's humdrum existence. Eventually he throws a henchman through a glass container full of sand the Skull has, because he loves hourglasses, and whoops, it's Sandman, Sable's other operative. Might have been helpful if Sable told Hawkeye to be on the lookout for him. She's a pretty crappy boss, honestly, something Spider-Man could probably attest to.

Even with the Skull having an energy cannon strapped to his chest (why not use that earlier against the two essentially mortal heroes?), the fight ends quickly after that. Sandman takes care of the nuke the Skull armed as a last-ditch act of spite. Afterward, Le Peregrine tells Sandman that was a bad move, because they were supposed to return the timing device, not break it, and it'll probably come out of Sandman's pay.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye just wants to get home.

{2nd longbox, 42nd comic. Solo Avengers #6, by Tom DeFalco (writer), Mark Bright (penciler), Joe Rubinstein (inker), Janet Jackson (colorist), Jack Morelli (letter)}