"Iron Man: World's Most Wanted"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Anthony Stark is a billionaire playboy technology philanthropist genius. He ran the company Stark Industries, where he created weapons for the United States military. While in captivity, he was gravely injured and invented a suit of armor that saved his life. He quit the weapons business and secretly became the armored superhero Iron Man. He was a founding member of the superhero team the Avengers. He eventually bonded with Extremis, a technologic substance that interfaced him with his armor. Following the superhero Civil War, where every superhuman must register with the peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D. or face imprisonment, Tony was appointed Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and in charge of the database of all registered superhumans. Maria Hill, former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., was demoted to Deputy Director, a position Hill was not particularly happy with. During the Civil War, Tony also went public with his dual identity as Iron Man.

            Tony is made aware of terrorist bombings involving technology like Tony’s own Iron Man technology. The perpetrators of these crimes are Advanced Genocide Mechanics. The technological mastermind behind all this is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane, former business rival and Tony’s nemesis the Iron Monger. Stane has upgraded himself with biotechnology, effectively becoming a living weapon, enough to rival Iron Man himself.

            At the Starkdynamics Gala, a bombing occurs, leaving Tony’s former secretary and love interest Pepper Potts gravely injured. Tony gives Pepper the same treatment that saved his life.

            Stane plans to take down Stark Industries and Tony Stark himself by bombing key Stark Industries locations in the hope Tony will be present at one at the time of an attack. Tony and Stane meet for a decisive battle, and Tony must take drastic action to ensure his technology is not used to cause more harm in the world.

            In the aftermath, Front Line Newspaper Managing Editor calls in photographer Peter Parker for assistance with a story. Peter is secretly the unregistered superhero Spider-Man and used to work for Tony Stark. Spider-Man swings into action, but Tony is reluctant to team-up due to him being Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Spider-Man being an unregistered superhuman, and this causes Tony to doubt in his abilities as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

            This doesn’t last long. The shape-shifting aliens known as the Skrulls launched a Secret Invasion on Earth. During the Invasion, the Skrulls unleashed a virus in Stark technology, causing catastrophic worldwide failure of all Stark tech, including Tony’s Extremis armor. Tony was stripped of his role as leader of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. was made defunct. Norman Osborn, formerly the supervillain the Green Goblin, then Director of the government-sponsored supervillain rehabilitation team the Thunderbolts, was the hero against the Skrulls, and was promoted to Director of the new peacekeeping agency H.A.M.M.E.R., S.H.I.E.L.D.’s replacement. Maria Hill was also fired from her position as Deputy Director. Osborn hoped to gain access to the superhuman registration database, but Tony unleashed a virus wiping it out of H.A.M.M.E.R.’s computers, but there is an existing copy… implanted in Tony’s head. Tony decides he can’t let Osborn get access to this database, and out of fear of getting captured and having it forced out of his head, and not wanting termination, he feels the only way to prevent Osborn from gaining what he desires is to wipe his memory and start his life over. Maria and Pepper object, but Tony tricks Hill into initiating the process that will destroy Tony’s memories. Osborn, unaware of this turn of events, issues an order for the arrests of Tony Stark and Maria Hill, making them the world’s most wanted fugitives. Tony asks Maria to infiltrate a Stark Subsidiary facility in Texas called Futurepharm to obtain a hard drive, which Hill finds out has been taken over by the supervillain the Controller. Meanwhile, Pepper has been left in charge of Stark Industries in Tony’s place. She discovers an armor Tony left behind for her and dons it to become Rescue. At the same time, Osborn has been making deals with supervillains such as Namor, the Hood, and Madame Masque to put a bounty on Tony Stark. Tony makes a deal with Russian superhero the Crimson Dynamo to try to get access to a Stark workshop. The Iron Man technology he has been left with after the Secret Invasion is substandard, and the Crimson Dynamo armor is a bit more advanced. Pepper locates Tony, whose memory is direly failing him. Hill, desperate to uncover the content of the drive, attempts to find Captain America, and turns to Natasha Romanova/Black Widow, superspy and former S.H.I.E.L.D. ally. Black Widow and Hill are captured and brought to Avengers Tower, Norman Osborn’s base of operations. Pepper and Madame Maque have a face-off… literally. Pepper steals Masque’s mask and infiltrates Avengers Tower to rescue Hill and Black Widow. Tony heads back to Iraq, the birthplace of Iron Man, to lure Osborn/Iron Patriot into a fight that will defame Osborn publicly and may also be the end of Iron Man.

            Okay, so let’s discuss how I felt about this book. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I wasn’t expecting it to be all that good, but I found that I highly enjoyed it. I thought it was very well written. I will say, however, that I wasn’t all that fond of the Extremis concept. A long time ago, I reviewed to prose novelization of “Iron Man: Extremis.” I never really understood how Extremis worked, so the fact that Matt Fraction, the writer of this book, so heavily used Extremis in the plot did get a little confusing for me. There were times past when the whole Extremis storyline seemed to have been forgotten, so Extremis being relied on in this book detracted from my enjoyment slightly. That said, I found the concept of Pepper becoming the superheroine Rescue to be highly enjoyable. Ezekiel Stane was also an interesting villain because he was more powerful than Iron Man, so the conflict resolution of their decisive battle was highly anticipated as I had no idea how Tony could possibly win. Also, Norman Osborn as the villain in the “World’s Most Wanted” storyline but not as the Green Goblin was refreshing. His masterminding the scheme of bringing down Tony and Maria Hill in an extensively long story arc was something I enjoyed as it continued and expanded. I also found that the story didn’t feel like it went on too long, either. It was a twelve-part story, and it felt right to me. Sometimes those seem too excessive, but this worked. It’s just like a movie that is three hours long and there’s thirty minutes of expository content that’s not needed. Were there moments that felt like they could have been done without? Yes. A comic is a certain length, it must be filled, so in twelve parts, there are going to be moments that feel like they don’t need to be there, but those moments for me were not particularly common. And I have to say, Salvador Larroca is an artist I have been a fan of for over twenty years, and his artwork in this book did not disappoint me. However, I must fault the colorists. Some of the characters’ skin tones looked all wrong and the colors seemed a little dull, faded and toned down in my opinion. I also must complain about the use of the acronym H.A.M.M.E.R. Fraction never explains why it’s written as an acronym, what it means, or if it even means anything at all. And why would it change from S.H.I.E.L.D. to H.A.M.M.E.R.? There is literally no similarity there. And there was a moment with Tony and Maria that I felt was highly unnecessary, but it’s kind of inappropriate, so we’re not going to go there in this review, we’re keeping this G-Rated. But honestly, I can’t complain too much about anything else.

            Okay, now we’re going to talk about accessibility. If you’ve read my work before, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve literally written dozens of reviews before, but if you haven’t read one and don’t know what I mean, I guess I’ll have to explain it to you. I mean how if you’re a person who, for some unbelievable coincidence, has never heard of Iron Man would be able to understand this book if you were to just pick this book up and try to read it. In this case, I would have to give a resounding don’t. This book really is for experienced Marvel fans. At the start of the book, we’re in a period where Tony Stark was Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Superhuman Registration Act was still in effect. Then we get to a point that spins out of Secret Invasion. If you know nothing about Secret Invasion, this book will get confusing. This also requires knowledge about Norman Osborn as Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. and that knowledge is not contained in this book. Honestly, if you don’t know about the aftermath of Secret Invasion, you’d be scratching your head trying to understand this book. This book is not for Marvel beginners. I don’t care if you’ve seen all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and shows but have never read the comics and are reading this now and are saying “Oh, Iron Man, I want to read this!” It’s not the right book for you. It has absolutely no similarity to the MCU at all. There are no common threads to pick up on, the MCU did not adapt any of these storylines, so you won’t be able to just be an MCU fan and try suddenly to be a comic fan, I’m sorry to say. Now, on the other hand, this is all just MY opinion, take it or leave it, if you want to try this book, you’re welcome to it. I mean, I understand it because I’ve been reading Marvel Comic Books on and off for twenty-three years now, and these issues were originally published in 2008-2009, which was even a lapsed period for me, but I’ve read comics published since then and know about the time, so that’s all just me. I’m just giving you the caution that I don’t think this is an entry level Marvel book. This is even listed as Vol. 3. Granted the comics in this book are “Invincible Iron Man” #1-19, that still doesn’t make it a jump on point. I believe more background knowledge is required if you are to get optimal enjoyment out of this book. But again, I also invite you to try if that is what you so desire, as I found reading this book to be an enjoyable experience. I’m not going to totally warn you away for that. I leave that to your capable hands to decide.

            Okay, I’ve blathered on for quite a while. I think you’re at the breaking point where you want me to stop typing and wasting your time and just give you my numeric score. That is, of course, if you know what to expect from one of my reviews. If not, you still probably want me to stop typing and get to a point where you can just stop reading and go back to doing whatever you were doing on the internet before you started reading this. So, let me just explain my scoring system to any of you who may be newbies. I score on a scale between one to ten. One means this book was absolute trash and not worth reading at all, ten means that anyone who reads this review should read this book regardless of that I warned you off. You can guess that this book does not fit on either of the extremes in my opinion and falls somewhere in between, and you would be right. So, I do have to take everything into account as I score this. As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been thinking about the score the whole time, just how exactly I’m going to score it. It’s been an extremely hard thought, but I’m going to give it a final settle on an eight. I’m a hard scorer and I don’t just go giving out tens, even nines can be difficult for a book to obtain, and although this book exceeded my expectations, it was not perfect enough to get a nine either. The unexplained use of Extremis was a huge detraction from my score. The colors are also wonky, I feel like it could have benefited if they were a little brighter. But overall, I felt like it was an enjoyable book and I give it exceedingly high praise.

            Finally, I must tell you if I recommend this book to you or not. I think I explained it well in the accessibility section, but I feel like it’s imperative to reiterate it here. I don’t recommend it to non-fans. But I’m not saying I’m not recommending it, either. In other words, I don’t recommend it to EVERYONE, BUT I DO recommend it. I hope that’s clear enough.

            Well, I honestly do feel like I’ve gone on for long enough at this point, I feel like I should set you off to go back to doing whatever else you may want to do, and I’ve been sitting here typing for over three hours, I think it’s time I moved on to something else, too. So, I’m just going to tell you that this blog has plenty of other enjoyable content on it. I’ve written short stories, poetry, articles, essays, editorials, and dozens of other reviews. You can expect another review in the next couple of weeks as there is another book about to be released that I intend to buy, so be on the lookout for that. I’m also toying with the idea for a short story, I’ve been saying it for months now, I just keep getting sidetracked and doing other things instead and never actually gotten around to just sitting down and typing it, but you can expect it in the next couple of months too. Well, I think I’ve said all I need to say now, so let’s all just move on after I say Tim Cubbin… out!