"Guardians of the Galaxy: Somebody's Got to Do It"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Guardians of the Galaxy: Somebody’s Got to Do It” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            When the technological alien race the Phalanx began their invasion, the alien race the Kree needed a team to stop them. The Phalanx infect and assimilate with organics to subvert them into their collective. The Kree recruited Terran space adventurer Peter Jason Quill/Star-Lord, Kaliklak warrior Bug, Shi’ar murderess Deathcry, Celestial Madonna Mantis, Terran hero Gabriel Vargas/Captain Universe, enhanced life form Rocket Raccoon, and Flora-Organism King Groot for the mission. They had to go into a Kree facility on the Kree capital world Hala that was infested with Phalanx and destroy their replication machine with no technology since the Phalanx were able to control all technology, which meant they had to go in with basic weapons and uniforms that dampened their heat signatures to avoid detection by the Phalanx. Rocket and Groot formed an immediate bond, but Deathcry did not approve of Captain Universe saving her life as it went against Shi’ar creed. As they battled the Phalanx, Captain Universe and Deathcry got into an argument that ended in the friendly fire demise of Deathcry. Groot was also blown up by the Phalanx, but was able to survive as a sprig offshoot. Captain Universe had to cleverly use the power of the Uni-Force that gave him his abilities to defeat the Phalanx and complete the mission. However, the Kree were not quite so eager to give up on this new team.

            Following the Phalanx Conquest, Star-Lord was able to convince Mantis, Rocket, Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Phyla-Vell/Quasar and Adam Warlock to form a strike force to protect the galaxy from future threats such as another invasion. They took up a base at Knowhere, the severed head of a Celestial and established a liaison with Cosmo, the head of security at Knowhere and used the Continuum Cortex to provide rapid transit via passport bracelets. Their first mission pitted them against the Universal Church of Truth, who used their beliefs to give them strength, on their Templeship the Tancred, to destroy the Font and prevent it from falling into a fissure. Another fissure opened around the vicinity of 56 Hydronis, which the team investigated, where they discovered Vance Astrovik/Major Victory of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a spacefaring team of adventurers from an alternate future. The team took him in, but he was suffering from a form of amnesia. He knew he was there for a purpose, where and when he belonged, but he couldn’t remember why. Another fissure opened near Binary Stasis Twelve Dyson Sphere, an artificial habitat shell with s caged sun at its heart. The team, now christened the Guardians of the Galaxy, attempted to come to the rescue of its fifty-two hundred inhabitants, but they had all been fused into one biomass. The Universal Church of Truth attacked again, while on Knowhere, a villain called Starhawk attacked and damaged the Continuum Cortex, preventing the Guardians from using their teleport passports. The team was able to survive, but Gamora was severely burned.

            Back on Knowhere, it was discovered that there were Skrulls, a species of shapeshifting aliens, who had infiltrated the station and that anyone could be a Skull. This caused great distrust among the Guardians, and the Administrative Council on Knowhere gave the team a hard time for setting up shop upon Knowhere without permission. Drax attacked three Luminals, leading to suspicion that he might be a Skrull. Quasar discovered Drax setting up synaptic disruptor charges, while Starhawk reappeared, this time in a female form, claiming the future tense was in flux and claimed she had to destroy Knowhere to save the future tense. Meanwhile, Warlock discovered Cosmo hiding a group of Skrulls on Knowhere. Before anyone could attack, Drax set off the charges, temporarily killing everyone on Knowhere so he could locate the Skrulls. Upon revival, the Guardians were able to apprehend Starhawk. Cosmo was able to convince the Guardians of the Skrulls upon Knowhere’s innocence and purpose upon Knowhere. Following this, Drax revealed the secret truth behind the forming of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a secret Star-Lord and Mantis had been keeping the whole time, a secret that imploded the entire team.

            Rocket and Groot stayed with the Guardians, adding Mantis and Major Victory as active members, and recruiting Bug to the team. The Guardians went up against the alien race the Badoon, who conquered the galaxy and exterminated the human race in Major Victory’s future. Meanwhile, Warlock and Gamora went off after the Universal Church of Truth, which Warlock intended to lead, while Drax and Quasar went off in search of a girl named Cammi who had a mysterious importance to Drax. Meanwhile, Star-Lord went after the Kree to protect them from the Skrulls, but was caught by Ronan the Accuser, who accused Star-Lord of crimes against the Kree and banished him to the Negative Zone, where Star-Lord ran afoul of Blastaar, newly crowned King of the Negative Zone. Blastaar ordered Star-Lord to get him into 42, the Initiative Prison located in the Negative Zone, so Blastaar could enter it to access its portal to Earth so he could invade. Star-Lord broke in, where he was taken in by vigilante Jack Flag and his crew, who refused to believe his story about the Guardians of the Galaxy. Meanwhile, Drax and Quasar went to Titan, home of the Eternals, to ask Mentor if he could locate Heather Douglass/Moondragon, Quasar’s lover and Drax’s daughter, but instead Mentor killed them both. Star-Lord was able to contact the Guardians of the Galaxy to break him out of 42 and prevent Blastaar from entering Earth, while Warlock and Gamora met with the Matriarch of the Universal Church of Truth to convince them to believe in him, but the Matriarch had a coccoon that contained another Adam Warlock, lending doubt to the authenticity of the Adam Warlock that had been trying to sway the Universal Church of Truth to his sway. While in their death state, Drax and Quasar ran into Maelstrom, who tried to steal the Quantum Bands from Quasar and feed them to the Dragon of the Moon, a creature that Heather had transformed into upon her death.

            Okay, that’s the synopsis with as minimal amounts of spoilers as I could, but let’s face it, it’s hard to review a 400+ page book with multiple stories without giving away spoilers. Anyway, let’s talk about my opinion about this book for a little bit, then I’m going to give a numeric score to this book and tell you if I personally recommend this book to you or not. So, I will say that I found this book to be relatively enjoyable. Personally, I’m a fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy, so reading about how the modern team formed was actually quite pleasurable to me, and it was an experience I liked. I thought the Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord story was well-written. His ragtag team was quite interesting to read about, and their adventure was entertaining to read. I liked the stories about the fissures. The Secret Invasion tie-in story was quite enjoyable to me, and I really found the ending to be quite a shocker and thought that was brilliantly written. The remaining adventures were all fun to read, and I had a fun time while I did. Now we’re going to talk about the art. Modern Era Epic Collections often tend to have multiple artists, and that can often hurt my enjoyment of the consumption of these graphic novels. I have to say, I honestly have no complaints about the art. I found all the artists to have done an excellent job, and it was consistently pleasing to my eyes.

            Now, before I go into my numeric score, there is something I have to discuss first, that being accessibility. When I say accessibility, what I mean is how easy it is to just pick up, read, and understand this book, even if you have little or no prior knowledge about the Guardians of the Galaxy or Marvel Comics. I will say this book is pretty accessible. Yes, it occurs during two events, those being Annihilation: Conquest and Secret Invasion, and that often hurts understanding of a Modern Era Epic Collection, but in this case, I honestly don’t feel it’s a problem. Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord is actually a four issue limited series and is pretty much stand-alone, so not actually reading the rest of Annihilation: Conquest really doesn’t feel like a hindrance in my opinion, and I will tell you that I never read the rest of Annihilation: Conquest myself and was able to follow this story just fine. As far as Secret Invasion goes, this doesn’t impact the rest of the event, which takes place on Earth, so not reading the rest of Secret Invasion will have absolutely no effect on understanding the tie-in issues contained in this book. Yes, there are a few things knowing more about Marvel would help with, such as the existence of 42, which stems from Civil War, but if you’ve never read anything Marvel before and are looking for a place to start, I feel like this is actually a pretty safe bet for you. And if you’ve never heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy and think this sounds interesting, I think you’d be able to pick up this book pretty easily and get most of what is going on in the story.

            Okay, it’s time to go into what I feel is honestly the most important part of any Tim Cubbin review: the numeric score. My scoring system is extremely basic: I score on a scale of one to ten. One is the worst score I can give and means that this book probably truly deserves to be avoided at all costs and if you want to read this even after I’m telling you how horrible this is, I truly pity you. Ten is the highest score I can give, and that means that this is one of the best books I have ever read, and it should truly be read by everyone as soon as is humanly possible. Now, while I did find it enjoyable, I will say that I don’t feel like it’s anywhere near a ten. It was good, truly, but it was far from perfect. Honestly, if I have to give it a numeric score, and of course I obviously do since this is a book review, I’d have to give it a score of… an eight. Hey, that is still really good. I’m a pretty harsh scorer; I’m not in the business of just giving out tens. In all honesty, a default starting score is a nine, so since I didn’t find this perfect, I had to give it an eight. And that’s also good because I found no fault with the art, which could easily have brought the score down to a seven or even a six potentially, so getting an eight is actually pretty impressive. So, I say to the writers and artists of this graphic novel, excellent job!

            Now, as promised, I’m going to tell you if I recommend this book personally, and regardless of if I give it my personal recommendation or not, to whom do I recommend this book to. Now, you can pretty much guess that by the way I’ve been talking for the past three paragraphs that this book is going to get my recommendation, and if you’ve made that guess that I do, you are completely correct. This book emphatically gets my recommendation. As for to whom I’d recommend this book to, if you’re looking for a graphic novel of cosmic adventures, this is the book for you. If you’re a fan of Marvel from the movies or cartoons or video games or shows and are looking for a graphic novel to get into, I feel like this is an enjoyable book for you. If you’re a Guardians of the Galaxy fan of any form, this is the perfect book for you. If you’re reading this review and are interested in reading this book now based solely on what I’ve just spent the past several hours typing, I say go for it. Honestly, I’d recommend this book to just about anybody.

            Okay, I’ve been going on for quite a while, and I feel like it’s time for all of us to move on with our lives, so I’m going to wrap this up now. Before I go, though, there are a few more things that I have to say first. Starting with, this blog has tons of content. I’ve written almost 150 posts at this point, so there is plenty more to read. I have written several short stories, some poetry, a bunch of editorials, a few essays and articles, and dozens of reviews like this one. So, if you liked this post, keep browsing, there’s so much more for you to enjoy. I will say that I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection that gets released and will review it when I am completed, so there are reviews posted quite frequently. There are a few in my possession I have yet to review, and I do hope to rectify that eventually. At the moment, you can expect another review upcoming within the next two weeks, so keep checking back for that. And with that, I believe I’ve said all that needs be said for the moment, so I shall leave you with just three more words: Tim Cubbin… out!

"Thor: The Siege of Asgard"

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Thor: The Siege of Asgard” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Asgard had been relocated above Broxton, Oklahoma. For killing his grandfather Bor, Thor was exiled from Asgard and Balder was named king of Asgard. Thor’s hammer Mjolnir was damaged. Thor’s adopted brother Loki had secretly been plotting with the villainous Doctor Victor Von Doom. Doom offered the Asgardians a home in Latveria, the country he ruled, claiming it would be more suitable for the Asgardians. The Warriors Three Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral agreed to join Thor in exile from Asgard. Young Broxton local Bill was in a romantic relationship with Asgardian goddess Kelda and left for Latveria with her. Loki revealed to Thor that “her” new female form actually belonged to Thor’s lover, the Lady Sif, and that the actual Sif’s consciousness was trapped in a mortal’s form that was yet to be restored to her Asgardian self like the other Asgardians Thor had reawakened when he restored Asgard following Ragnarok. Doctor Jane Foster, Thor’s former love, discovered Sif was actually contained in Mrs. Chambers, one of her terminal cancer patients who was about to die, and if she died, Sif would be lost for eternity. To save Sif, Thor required a repaired Mjolnir, so he turned to his ally Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts to perform the magic to fix his hammer. Strange warned Thor that while he could do this task, it would require depleting the Odinforce from Thor and that should Mjolnir ever be damaged again, Thor would die along with it. Thor agreed to this deal, and Doctor Strange was able to repair Mjolnir and Thor was able to restore Sif to her true body before Mrs. Chambers expired. Bill found himself bullied by the Asgardians in Latveria, who were unable to accept Kelda taking a mortal lover, but Kelda came to Bill’s defense.

            Egyptian god Seth learned of Thor’s exile from Asgard and saw this as the perfect opportunity to slay his foe and sent his agents, including Scarab, Gog, and Grog to do the job. Thor was hiding in a cabin in his mortal guise of Doctor Donald Blake. Grog attacked a highway, and Thor came to the rescue, saving a woman from being crushed, then quickly reverting to Don Blake. Blake then visited the woman in the hospital, but the facility was attacked by Grog, who wished to draw out Thor. Thor then had to find the strength to defeat Grog and Seth’s other agents.

            Sif decided to stay in Broxton with Thor under the cover of Sylvan, a “model from New York.” The Warriors Three took over the restaurant Bill vacated. Doctor Doom began performing experiments on Asgardians. Bill discovered this and paid the ultimate price for this discovery, but he did not go down alone, and he was avenged by Balder. Thor and his allies had to fight for their lives as Doom sent his Doombots to Broxton to slay them and collect their forms for his experiments. Kelda learned of Bill’s death and that Loki had responsibility in her lover’s demise and swore revenge against Loki.

            Doom’s plans involved taking parts from Asgardians in order to obtain immortality for himself. Loki attempted to lie his way out of responsibility in Bill’s death and was taken into custody to await trial. Doom used his experiments to battle the Asgardians until Thor arrived to fight Doctor Doom, who imperiled Kelda, then retreated. Loki revealed he could save her with Thor and Balder’s help, but Thor first had to battle Doom in his new Destroyer armor.

            Loki encouraged Commander of H.A.M.M.E.R. Norman Osborn to attack Asgard. He then contracted the Dísir, former All-Father Bor’s Valkyries who could only feed on the spirits of deceased gods and were believed to be a myth as deceased gods either went to Valhalla or Hel. Because of Ragnarok, Hel was inaccessible, and Hela, goddess of death, had no Hel to rule over. Loki made a contract with Hell-Lord Mephisto to give Hela a slice of his hell for one thousand and one years in exchange for the service of the Dísir for one hundred and one days. He also brokered a deal with Hela that when he died, he would not be bound to Hel.

            Volstagg was arrested for attacking a football stadium, a crime he didn’t directly commit. Asgardian seer Knut entered an Asgardian banquet, warning of the end of Asgard, but Heimdall did not perceive a threat, and Knut was not taken seriously. Loki then eliminated Knut and trapped Heimdall. Kelda visited Bill’s family to inform them of Bill’s demise. Volstagg released a video on the internet proclaiming his innocence. Norman Osborn arranged an attack upon Asgard. Volstagg was released from prison and was attacked by Thor’s evil cyborg clone calling himself “Ragnarok.” Tyr, God of war, led the Asgardian army against the forces of H.A.M.M.E.R. The organization also went to Bill’s family’s house to go after Kelda. The real Thor arrived at the ruins of Asgard to join the battle, despite the penalty of death placed upon the violation of his exile. Balder fought Loki and learned the truth about Loki’s part in Bor’s death. Following the siege, Thor’s exile was ended, but he refused to accept the role of King of Asgard again, leaving it to Balder and instead offering to serve on as an advisor. Kelda found the entry to Valhalla and saw Bill was there but could not get in herself. Ragnarok came to Asgard and Thor and Ragnarok had a fight.

            The New Mutants were staying at the Inferno Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Hela was holed up. Dani Moonstar, who had formerly been a Valkyrie, was contracted by Hela to usher in the dead from the siege of Asgard to her Hel. During her mission, she was attacked by the Dísir and teamed up with the not-so-dead Tyr to battle them.

            Mephisto made a deal with the Dísir: in exchange for favors, he would allow them access to a feast in Hela’s Hel. Hela contacted the Asgardians, who saw firsthand the threat the Dísir posed when their name is spoken. Thor and Tyr travelled to Mephisto’s Hell to combat them. Thor learned of the sword Eir-Gram, which would be able to defeat the Dísir, but the Dísir had already stolen it and placed a spell on it so that only the one whom it belonged to would be able to withdraw it. Thor learned that Mephisto was using Hell to torment the spirit of Gaia, Thor’s mother. Meanwhile, Kelda was planning to poison Balder, whom she blamed for Bill’s death. Thor and Tyr had to defeat the Dísir and end the conflict between Hela and Mephisto.

            Okay, so the synopsis is now covered, let’s get to my part of the review. First off, let me say, I really didn’t enjoy this book. Honestly, the stories just didn’t grab me. I found them to be relatively bland. First off, the Asgardians relocating to Latveria made no sense. They know this is Doctor Doom’s country. They know he’s a villain. They know he’s up to schemes. Why would they go there? Especially since Loki was orchestrating the whole thing. How could Balder possibly think he could trust Loki? And the whole thing of Thor’s exile was also kind of dumb to me because again, Balder was trusting Loki. And Loki getting Sif’s body so Sif couldn’t be restored with the other Asgardians also made no sense to me. There were a lot of things there that made no sense. “The Hand of Grog” was a subpar storyline in my opinion, I actually found it kind of boring. As far as Kelda goes, I actually found her to be a bit of an annoyance. I admit she furthered the storyline, but she just wasn’t a character I liked. “Latverian Prometheus” was another storyline I didn’t like. As far as “Siege” went, “Siege” was actually published during a time when I wasn’t a regular reader, and I never actually read the main event, and Modern Era Epic Collections don’t actually contain events if they are published about specific characters, and since this was “Thor” there were no issues of the main event in it, and I found myself rather confused by not knowing the full story of exactly what was going on in the story itself. The inclusion of “Hel’s Valkyrie” to me made no sense considering it was an issue of “New Mutants” and this book was “Thor” and Thor doesn’t even actually appear in that issue, so I honestly have no real idea as to why the editors thought it was important to include this specific issue in this Modern Era Epic Collection as it really did nothing to the rest of the book. And “The Fine Print” was a storyline that actually confused me a little bit, I didn’t fully understand what was going on in the story, and you can probably even tell that based specifically upon my explanation of the synopsis being a little weak. All around, I just found the stories in this book to be highly disappointing. And as far as the art went, most of the time, I was displeased. I just found the styles to be in general unappealing. This whole book was just not my cup of tea.

            Next, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now, when I say this, what I mean is how easy it is to pick up and read this book, even if you know nothing about Thor or Marvel Comics. As I mentioned before, this book contains the Thor issues of “Siege” but doesn’t actually include any of the main event, which makes this book highly inaccessible. Plus, it picks up directly where the previous Volume of the series left off following on the knowledge of said Volume, so missing that is missing a substantial chunk of the story, too. I’ve been reading Marvel Comics on and off regularly for twenty-four years now, and I missed this storyline and I was lost reading this graphic novel, so imagine being a reader with no experience with Marvel at all just picking up this book and trying to read it, I just don’t think they’d be able to follow the story. This is not an entry level graphic novel. So, if you’re a fan of the MCU and want to start reading Marvel Comics because you love Thor that much, I’m telling you, this is not the right book to start with.

            Okay, let’s get to the main reason we’re all here, or at least what I think is the most essential part of a Tim Cubbin review: the numeric score. My scoring system is quite basic: one to ten. One is the lowest score, meaning that this book should be avoided at all cost, ten is the highest score and that this book should be in every comic book collector’s collection. So, you can obviously guess that this book is nowhere near earning a ten. Now, I had to think really hard about giving this book its score, and I honestly feel that it is… a one. I’ve very rarely given out a score of a one, but I feel like this book deserves it. It was just an all-around disappointment, and I just found it highly unenjoyable upon careful consideration. The stories were just so bland, and the art was subpar, I just can’t possibly give this book a good score. So yes, this book gets a rare one.

            Next up, we’re going to talk about if I recommend this book with my personal seal of approval, and regardless of that, to whom do I recommend this book. I think you can pretty much guess that I’m not going to give this book my recommendation. I honestly do not recommend this book at all. If you’re actually a die-hard Marvel fan and read “Siege” and want a companion book, I would say this might be an enjoyable book for you, but if you haven’t read “Siege,” I would tell you to avoid this book at all costs.

            Okay, I think at this point that I’ve gone on for quite long enough, you and I both want to get on with our days and do whatever else we need to do. But I do have a few parting notes first. Starting with this blog is updated on a very frequent basis. If you liked this review, there are dozens of other posts like this, including “Thor: Reborn from Ragnarok” if you want to check that one out for comparison purposes and get a little more background on this book. Most of this blog is reviews of Marvel graphic novels, and at the moment my project is buying and reading all the Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections released and when I read them, I will post a review. There are a few I haven’t reviewed yet because when I last read them, I didn’t have a laptop but hopefully I will be able to rectify that problem. As it stands, I have two more reviews lined up to be posted in a time than less than over the next four weeks or so, so you can keep an eye out for them. I was an English major with a concentration in journalism in college, which is why I do this blog for you, without pay, out of the kindness of my heart. I’ve also written short stories, poems, articles, essays, editorials, and other kinds of content for this blog, over one hundred and forty posts at this point, so if you liked this, keep browsing on timcubbin.blogspot.com, there is tons of other content available for you to enjoy. I’m going to sign off for now, but I’ll be back in less than two weeks with a new review, so keep checking. And so, I’ll just say until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Iron Man: Stark Disassembled"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Iron Man: Stark Disassembled” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Tony Stark was injured in a jungle in Vietnam and taken into captivity. He had shrapnel close to his heart. With the help of Professor Ho Yinsen, Tony was able to create a magnet to prevent the shrapnel from reaching his heart, and a suit of armor that allowed him to escape captivity. With the help of James Rhodes, Tony was able to return to the United States, where Tony became the superhero Iron Man.

Many years later, Norman Osborn became the leader of the corrupt government organization H.A.M.M.E.R., formerly S.H.I.E.L.D., which Tony Stark had been in charge of. Tony felt he couldn’t let Osborn obtain the database of the superhuman secret identities and the secrets of the Iron Man technology, so he did the only thing he could do; deleted the data. But that included wiping his own mind. It put him into a persistent vegetative state. He left Pepper Potts, his right-hand woman, with a suit of iron and a repulsor generator of her own before this. He also had his second-in-command at S.H.I.E.L.D. Maria Hill obtain a hard drive with the assistance of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Pepper, Hill, and Widow gathered with Bucky Barnes/Captain America and Doctor Donald Blake/Thor to revive Tony.

Tony Stark was trapped in a repeated simulation in his own mind with his parents Howard and Maria Stark. In the real world, Tony’s allies watched a video which instructed them on how to prepare to revive Tony. Pepper, having lost her husband Happy Hogan, was hesitant about this, wondering why it was Tony who got to come back from the dead. Meanwhile, Osborn, who had placed a bounty on Tony Stark with a consortium of supervillains, called it off. Madame Masque, however, refused to let this go since her grudge with Tony went deeper, so she called on the supervillain Ghost to finish Tony Stark completely. She arranged a “Ghost Phone” which would allow Ghost to teleport to Tony’s location simply by making a phone call. Steve Rogers/Captain America returned from the dead and arrived in Broxton, Oklahoma, where Tony and his allies were hiding. The repulsor unit in Pepper had to be removed and implanted into Tony’s chest. The data drive Hill had obtained kept a backup of Tony’s memories, and they had to be implanted back into Tony. However, Thor’s attempt to revive Tony with a lightning bolt failed. Ghost was able to locate Tony at the Sooner Inn. Hill, Pepper, Doctor Lisk, and Mrs. Sooner moved Tony to the basement of a middle school to escape Ghost, where they called in Doctor Stephen Strange to perform a mystical surgery on Tony. Rhodey arrived but was immediately attacked by Ghost. In Tony’s mind, Doctor Strange tried to convince Tony that he had a life worth returning to but was pulled away from the surgery to fight Ghost, who defeated Strange. As Hill was losing to Ghost and Ghost was about to finish off Tony, Pepper made a phone call to H.A.M.M.E.R. to report on Ghost’s illegal activities, and as Ghost was about to attack Pepper, Tony returned to consciousness and defeated Ghost. However, Tony’s backup drive was not recent, and there were many things that Tony didn’t know.

Pepper imagined a conversation with her deceased husband Happy, where she recalled her time as the armored hero Rescue. Her suit wasn’t made to fight, but it was made to help save lives. Tony gave it to her while she had the repulsor technology in her and she used it while she was on the run from H.A.M.M.E.R.

Mother and daughter business team Justine and Sasha Hammer pitched the idea of a new mechanical force called Detroit Steel to the United States Army but were turned down. Tony Stark learned that he had given his company Stark Industries to Pepper before he erased his mind and that he was essentially broke. Tony decided to plan his new business venture, one that no longer involved making weapons. The Hammers bought decommissioned H.A.M.M.E.R. technology to plan their move against Tony Stark. Tony founded Stark Resilient and pitched making his proprietary repulsor tech available to the everyday consumer to replace fossil fuels. The Army got back in touch with the Hammer girls. Tony partnered with carmaker Carson Wyche to build a new car that ran on repulsor power and not fossil fuels. Pepper told Tony she wanted the repulsor disc Tony had removed from her replaced back into her. Tony agreed. Bambi Arbogast, a former Stark Industries employee, signed on with Stark Resilient. During Pepper’s surgery, the Hammer girls staged a terrorist attack in Shibuya, Tokyo in order to promote Detroit Steel. Iron Man and War Machine flew in to help fight, but were made to look like fools, especially since the tech the terrorists used were old Stark Industries technology. Stark Resilient hired Cababa, Macken and Pimacher to help build their new car. The Hammer girls build drones to assist Detroit Steel, and created a “game” app, tricking players into thinking they were assisting Detroit Steel in a game, when in actuality they were flying these real drones and assisting the actual Detroit Steel. Tony created a new Rescue armor for Pepper. Stark Resilient planned to debut their new car at the 21-Green International Expo in the following six weeks and had to build two cars within that time limit. Rhodey pitched placing War Machine under military supervision as liaison to Stark Resilient, but General Babbage refused, preferring Detroit Steel. Stark Resilient held a Gala, inviting the Hammer girls. Tony took Sasha Hammer on a private ride, where she attacked him with cybernetic upgrades. Iron Man and Rescue fought her, but Sasha was still able to escape. Tony’s Alpha car was sabotaged and exploded during its test run, and only Tony’s implanted Iron Man armor was able to save his life. Because of the attack, the 21-Green Expo was cancelled. Tony decided to have the Betty car tested at their factory. As the test began, Detroit Steel and the drones attacked. Tony, Pepper and Rhodey suited up as Iron Man, Rescue and War Machine and fought the drones. Tony’s team discovered that the drones were being controlled by the gamers and that they were locking on to repulsor signatures, so Rhodey and Pepper powered down. It would take twenty minutes to shut down the cellular transmissions, but Pepper and Rhodey could only survive for fifteen minutes without repulsor power. Tony had to race against time to defeat Detroit Steel, survive the drones, and save Rhodey and Pepper.

Luna Inc. created Luna City, a community on the moon. They used an old Stark Industries machine that could control the weather, and it was having a negative effect upon the earth. Iron Man and Thor had to team up, fly to the moon, and stop Luna Inc.

Okay, so now we’ve done the synopsis, let’s get down to the Tim Cubbin part of this review. Obviously, you want to know if I liked this book or not and what I thought about it. While I did find this book to be somewhat enjoyable, I honestly can’t rave about it. I found it to simply just be mediocre. There honestly wasn’t anything special about it. The stories really didn’t stand out. While it was readable, it just didn’t have a super high level of enjoyability. We start off with a reprint of the first Iron Man story and a classic Iron Man story that got severely retconned and was actually somewhat offensive that I really couldn’t go into much detail about it in this review since I’m a nice guy and I don’t want to offend anyone who reads this blog, I want people to keep coming back for more, so I don’t want to do anything to scare people away. The story of Tony Stark trapped in a self-imposed simulation and needing to be rescued and revived really didn’t grab me, and I couldn’t find the suspension of disbelief required to believe in Tony’s revival. The way he deleted his memories and had them reimplanted just wasn’t plausible enough for me to accept. I can say, however, that I do enjoy reading about Pepper as Rescue. As far as the “Stark Resilient” storyline went, however, that at least saved the book for me a little bit. I enjoyed the concept. I liked how Tony had to start a new business venture, and I thought that the car was an interesting idea. I liked Sasha Hammer as a villain. I liked the drones being piloted as a gaming app, and while I thought the idea was brilliant, I also found it to be slightly predictable, as soon as they started talking about the drones, I knew exactly how they were going to be used, but it was still a great idea to include. I enjoyed the dynamics between Tony, Pepper, and Hill throughout the course of the book, their grudge against Tony for a reason I can’t talk about in a G-Rated blog, but I thought it brought good humor and drama to the stories. As far as the Iron Man/Thor “Fair Weather” team-up, I found that to be entertaining. As far as the main artist Salvador Larroca goes, he’s an artist that I love to hate and hate to love at the same time. His artwork is inconsistently good and bad. There are times when he totally nails it, and there are times when he totally fails it. There were points where his artwork was just totally amazing, and there were times when I just thought it was awful. Usually when I give a bad art review on an Epic Collection, it’s because there are a lot of different artists, and while this book did have several artists, Larroca was the main artist, and he was the one who disappointed me the most. As far as this book goes all around, this was not one of my favorites.

Next, I’m going to talk about accessibility. I’ve literally said this at least three dozen times at this point, but I always have to do it again for my new readers since I know some of you have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and have no idea what I mean when I say “accessibility.” So here goes: Accessibility means if a person who has little or no knowledge about Iron Man or Marvel can pick up this book, read it, and fully comprehend what they are reading. In this case, I will say this book is highly inaccessible if you have not read the previous volume “World’s Most Wanted” as this book directly continues out of the storyline from that which was not finished in the previous volume, so if you have not read it, you have missed a significant chunk of the story and will have no idea what is going on at the start of this book. The entire story of Tony erasing his memories was told in the previous volume and he was left in a vegetative state, and that’s where this volume picks up. There are also many other threads that carried over from the previous volume that not having read it will have negative impact on a reader’s ability to fully comprehend what they are reading, including Pepper’s original run as Resue, why Tony had to be kept hidden, the fall of Stark Industries, Tony’s disconnection from Extremis, and the start of the dynamic between Tony, Pepper and Hill which I can’t talk about in a G-Rated blog, just to name a few, and one I can’t discuss that would spoil the ending of “Stark Resilient.” This book is marketed as Vol. 4, and while Vols. 1 and 2 have not been released at the moment of my writing this review, Vol. 3 is an essential read prior to reading this book.

I’ve been going on for quite a while now, and I’m sure you’re starting to get bored of me, so let’s move on to the most imperative part of a Tim Cubbin review: the numeric score. I score on a very basic scale: one to ten precisely. One means this book is a flaming piece of trash. Ten means this book is one of the best things I’ve ever laid eyes upon. Now, you can obviously guess at this point that this book is nowhere near getting a ten, and you would be absolutely correct. However, I wouldn’t completely call this book a flaming piece of trash, either. So, of course, we must take into account that this is a GRAPHIC novel, so art is just as important as story when I write my reviews. So, we have a mediocre story and inconsistent qualitied art, so you can imagine this score is going to be on the low side. So, imagine no further, as I am now going to tell you my score. Taking everything into consideration, I throw it all together and spit out… four. This book was readable, but it is not going to be on the list of one of my favorite graphic novels.

Next up, I’m going to tell you if I give this book my personal recommendation, and regardless of that, to whom do I recommend this book. Okay, so this book does not get my recommendation as it honestly really did not stand out to me. If I were to recommend this book to anyone though, I would say it would honestly mostly be for Iron Man fans of the comics from 2000 on, but the origin story that went on to be retconned is a huge turn off to fans from said period, and writer Matt Fraction even writes into the story that it was retconned just to redeem the change. Honestly, though, I do have a hard time recommending this book to anyone.

Well, I think we’re at the point where we should be parting ways, but first I do have a few things I have to say first. First off, this website has dozens of reviews just like this if you enjoyed it, so feel free to keep browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com, check out my “Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted” review, too, you’ll probably find that enjoyable. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, editorials, essays, articles, and several other kinds of content that you can check out, I’ve done quite a variety of work on this over the past four and a half years. There are almost 150 posts now, I’m sure you’ll find something else you can enjoy. My reason for doing this blog is because I have a degree in English with a concentration in journalism and currently remain unemployed in the field but still wish to remain active in it. I post on a very frequent basis, literally any time a new Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection comes out, I buy it, and I will review it. There are a few I haven’t reviewed due to the lack of having a laptop at the time, but they will probably eventually receive reviews. I have another review coming up, expect it sometime within the next two weeks. I guess that’s really all I have to say for now, so I’ll finish with just a few more words: Tim Cubbin… out!