"Iron Man: The Future"

 

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

            The Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane began working together, along with Vibro, Firebrand, Chemistro, Blizzard, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, Living Laser, Melter, Whirlwind, Mauler, and Firepower to commit terrorist attacks. Following the Serpent’s War, Tony Stark/Iron Man invited the elf Splitlip to join Stark Resilient. Tony and Splitlip also worked on getting sober. Tony was subpoenaed for the Iron Man armor’s biometric information for the prior thirty days after it was suspected he piloted the Iron Man armor drunk. Mandarin, Stane, Justine Hammer, and Sasha Hammer began plotting to take down Tony Stark. Tony piloting the armor drunk hit the news. Sasha Hammer was promoted to the head of the Detroit Steel Corps following the apparent death of Lieutenant Doug Johnson, the face of Detroit Steel. The Stark Resilient Board of Investors voiced their concerns over CEO Virginia “Pepper” Potts’ activities as the armored hero Rescue following a leaked photo of Pepper crying in Pepper’s office while in the Rescue armor. Stane discovered that Tony’s Repulsor Unit that kept Tony alive was damaged, and Mandarin sent Living Laser to attack Iron Man. Stark Resilient Head of Security Bethany Cabe revealed to Pepper that Cabe was the one who leaked the photo of Pepper crying so Cabe could make the money that Pepper was not providing Cabe. Justine Hammer secretly had Spymaster infiltrating Stark Resilient, and Justine planned to have Spymaster make a move against Stark Resilient. Living Laser compromised Tony’s Repulsor Unit further and put Tony in cardiac arrest. Stane discovered he and all the villains the Mandarin had recruited had been implanted with bombs. Tony was revived at Lenox Hill Hospital and physically resisted treatment from the doctors. Mandarin had Stane working on Dreadnought machines, and when Stane showed resistance, Mandarin revealed Mandarin was using one of the Mandarin’s rings to control Stane’s mind. General Babbage informed James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine, Stark Resilient’s liaison with the United States government, that Babbage felt Tony was unfit to pilot the Iron Man armor. Mandarin sent a fleet of Dreadnoughts to attack Three Gorges dam in China. Iron Man, War Machine, and the Chinese superhero team the Dynasty put a stop to the Dreadnoughts’ attack. In Paris, a deranged Doug Johnson, identifying as Detroit Steel, secured a path back to the United States. Tony provided the data on the Iron Man armor to the Feds. Tony was forced to wear a governing device on his Repulsor Unit that would allow Babbage and Justine Hammer control when Tony could be Iron Man and be able to deactivate the armor. Iron Man fought Whirlwind, but Iron Man was deactivated during the fight, and Whirlwind was able to escape. Melter attacked Downtown Los Angeles. War Machine fought him, and Whirlwind and Living Laser joined the fight. Tony discovered he could not remove the governing device after it was attached to his Repulsor Unit. Tony and Rhodey faked Rhodey’s death as part of Tony’s plan to fight back against the Mandarin.

            Iron Man fought Firebrand and Crimson Dynamo, but Iron Man was deactivated and Sasha Hammer and the Detroit Steel Corps were allowed to finish the fight. Tony told Steve Rogers/Captain America and Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel that Tony was taking a leave of absence from the Avengers. Stane’s Dreadnoughts failed, much to the Mandarin’s displeasure. The Mandarin’s mole in Stark Resilient Leonard Pimacher/Spymaster violently attacked Stark Resilient employee Tim Cababa. Tony informed Babbage he would no longer be Iron Man and purged himself of the Iron Man armor. Stane removed the Mandarin’s bomb from Stane’s body. Spymaster attacked Stark Resilient employee Carson Wyche, but Cabe and Stark Resilient secretary Bambi Arbogast came to Wyche’s rescue. Firepower attacked internation waters near Somalia, and Rhodey arrived as the new Iron Man arrived to defeat Firepower. Tony publicly announced that he was no longer Iron Man. Johnson/Detroit Steel attacked Sasha Hammer and abducted her. Stane attacked Mandarin, furious that the Mandarin had been manipulating Stane, but Stane was easily stopped by the Mandarin. Cababa and Spymaster were taken to Seatle Medical Center to treat their injuries. Johnson brought Sasha to Hammer Industries, demanding a trade of her life for his old armor. Justine agreed, planning to detonate the armor as soon as Johnson climbed into it. Spymaster attacked the police in the hospital, and the police put Spymaster down for good. Tony removed himself from Stark Resilient. Iron Man and Rescue saved Tony from an attempt on Tony’s life. Johnson had overwritten Justine’s programming of the Detroit Steel and Johnson attacked the Hammer girls. Sasha fought back and ended Johnson. Tony discovered that the Mandarin was in Tony’s head and could control Tony.

            Tony went to Mandarin City in China to work for the Mandarin. Resilient announced their plan to launch their new product, the Swarm. Rescue teamed up with the new Iron Man to defeat Vibro. Tony worked with a mentally damaged Zeke Stane on Mandarin’s Dreadnoughts. Justine Hammer took Babbage off the board. Tony and Melter got in a fight in Mandarin City Mess Hall. Mandarin attempted to detonate Melter’s implant, but Tony saved Melter, much to Mandarin’s displeasure. Tony gave Mandarin a list of needs for building the Dreadnoughts. Mandarin sent the villains out to get the items, who came into conflict with Iron Man and Rescue. Tony operated on Stane to restore his cognitive functions. Mandarin revealed to Tony that the rings were living aliens and Mandarin planned to implant the aliens in the Dreadnoughts. Rescue fought the new Iron Man and deduced that Iron Man was Rhodey. Mandarin began implanting the aliens in the Dreadnoughts. Tony tried to incite the supervillains to fight against Mandarin. Pepper began to believe the J.A.R.V.I.S. AI in Pepper’s armor was compromised. When Pepper and Wyche tried to fix J.A.R.V.I.S., the AI attacked Pepper and Wyche. Tony built a new Iron Man armor in secret. Rhodey/Iron Man came to Pepper and Wyche’s rescue. The Resilient employees used the Swarm to locate Tony. Justine Hammer, now in Babbage’s position, refused to send aid to Tony. Iron Man, Blizzard, Living Laser, Whirlwind, and Stane united against Mandarin. Pepper turned to Triumph Division and the Dynasty to rescue Tony. Mandarin revealed he planned to destroy the Earth. Pepper destroyed the Rescue armor and the J.A.R.V.I.S. AI. Iron Man and his allies had a final battle with Mandarin and the Dreadnoughts for the fate of the world. Tony took heat from S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill. Tony planned what Tony wanted to do for his future.

            Okay, now we have the plot synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to my individual segments. So, as I always do in my reviews, I’m going to start with my own personal opinions on the book. I will say that I really enjoyed the stories. The running plotlines were really entertaining to me. I liked how the whole book focused on the Mandarin and his machinations against Tony/Iron Man. Some of the reveals were really great. The Mandarin being in Stane and Tony’s heads, the rings being living aliens, the identity of the mole in Stark Resilient, Cabe being the leak on the picture of Pepper crying in armor in her office, Johnson having survived being turned to stone, there were some really good plot twists and surprises in this book. The gaggle of villains added to the entertainment value, with so many great foes for Tony, Rhodey and Pepper to fight. The whole back and forth between Tony and Mandarin was exciting, with each making their moves, including Rhodey faking his death. Stane’s arc was interesting, going from being a villain to ally and his part in the final battle with the Mandarin and the conclusion of Stane’s story. The Hammer girls were entertaining antagonists as well, and the Detroit Steel story was enjoyable to read. Overall, I found this to be a fun, exciting, intriguing read. However, this is a graphic novel, and I will say that the graphics were not enjoyable for me. Some of my regular readers may recall my grievances with Salvador Larroca, I’ve brought him up several times in other reviews. This whole book was illustrated by him, and I just did not like the work he did on this book. I don’t like the way Larroca draws faces, so looking at the artwork detracted from the entertainment of the experience of consuming this book. I would like to share my opinion on the title as well. This collection contains eighteen issues, making three story arcs, each issue having its own subtitle, so technically, there were twenty-one choices for a title for this collection. “The Future” was one of the storylines, lasting for seven issues, and it was the longest storyline in the collection. As far as choices for titles go, I feel like this was a good pick. We’re also going to talk about the cover. It shows Iron Man flying. It’s simple, yet it’s still perfect. Was it the only cover that could work for this collection? No. But it still works as a representation for this book, and it does deliver on its promise, so I feel like it’s totally appropriate for this book. This book was an entertaining read, and I feel like it delivered on what it advertised, but the artwork was difficult to enjoy.

            Next up, we’re going to discuss accessibility. Now, even though I’ve gone over this over seven dozen times before, I know there are always those new people who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and don’t know what I mean when I say accessibility when I apply it to media, so I shall have to explain it once again. If you already know what I’m about to say, please bear with me while I explain to the newbs. So, I’m asking if this book is accessible, and I’m asking if a person who had never heard of Iron Man before can obtain this book, read it, and understand everything they have just read based solely on the content in this book alone. I will say that answer is no. This volume is marketed as Vol. 6. This volume continues directly where the last story left off, and builds on stories collected in the three previous volumes of the series. However, this volume only contains issues from one series and does not tie into any events or crossover into any other storylines, so the story is self-contained to this volume. Following this series’ previous three volumes requires a requisite knowledge of the Marvel Universe from the time-period, so this series is not a beginner’s series. If you are looking into starting to read Marvel Comics, I would not only say that this volume is not a good place to start, but I would also say starting at Vol. 3 and reading through to this point probably isn’t the best place for Marvel beginners.

            Next up on our list of topics to discuss, we’ve gotten to my numeric score. My scoring system is extremely basic and simple to understand. I score on a scale of exact whole numbers ranging from one through ten. One is the lowest score I can give, and that means that this book is so horrible it should be avoided at all costs. Ten, however, is my highest score, reserved only for absolute perfection, and I do not give out a lot of those, but that means it’s one of the best things I’ve ever read and if you get me started talking about it, I will not stop for several hours. When I score a graphic novel, I’m scoring the quality of the story and the artwork, and the appropriateness of the title and cover. I will say that I thought the story was fantastic, but it wasn’t absolutely perfect and if this weren’t a graphic novel, it wouldn’t get a ten. The art was very much to my displeasure. The title was a good choice, and the cover was adequate. So, combining all these factors together, mixing everything up thoroughly, the score we’re looking at is… a six! Despite loving the story, I had to deduct points for the artwork, but the title and cover were just fine and did not require any point deductions.

            Next up is my recommendation segment. This segment has two foci: to tell you if I give this book the Tim Cubbin seal of approval and would personally recommend and tell you to read this book; and regardless of if I condone this book or not, who do I think the best audience for this book would be, based on the characteristics of the book itself and topics readers enjoy, and not based on fans of Iron Man, Marvel Comics, or fans of the creative team? To address the first topic, I would very much recommend this book to you, my readers. If you’re reading this review and are now interested in reading this graphic novel based solely on the words you’ve spent the past few minutes reading, I would tell you to get your hands on this book as soon as you can and read it, head to your favorite bookstore, comic shop, online retailer, local library, or see if any of your friends have this, and hopefully you enjoy reading it. As for whom I believe a good audience would be, I feel people who enjoy stories about people recovering from addiction, or people who are actually doing so themselves, could find Tony’s predicament sympathetic or even relatable. People who enjoy stories about technology would enjoy this book. And people who enjoy stories about industrial espionage could find this book enjoyable.

            Well, I think we’re getting to the point where we’re getting ready to wrap things up. There are some more things I need to discuss before I log off. I’ve been working on this blog for almost six years at the present. I’ve compiled over 190 posts, including short stories, poems, essays, articles, editorials, and over seven dozen reviews, so if you liked this post, feel free to keep browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com for plenty more content. I’ve reviewed prose novels, comic events, manga, and over seven dozen other graphic novels just like this one. The current main focus of this blog is reviewing Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. If you enjoyed this particular review and have some free time, you’re invited to check out my reviews of “Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted” “Iron Man: Stark Disassembled” and “Iron Man: The New Iron Age” for more Iron Man content. I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released and try to post a review if possible, so I post on a rather frequent basis. My next review is going to be “Star Wars: The Screaming Citadel” which should be up in the next two months following the date of this posting, so if you want to see more of my new content, keep checking back for it. If you have anything to say about this post, feel free to leave a comment, and please follow, like, share, retweet, spread the word to your friends, interact with me and get the word out. I would love to hear from you, my readers. Everything posted inside of these posts is all just my opinion. I welcome you all to feel differently than me on anything and to call me out on it if you do, or if you agree with me and want me to know, please let me. I value you guys and want to know what I can do to improve this blog for all of you, and I can’t do that unless you let me know. I hope you come back for more of my work, and if you read all the way to this point, you are THE BEST! Please keep coming back for more, I will be doing this blog for as long as I can, so you can expect that to be for quite a while. Thank you so much for reading. All I have to say for now is until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Carnage: Carnage U.S.A."

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Carnage: Carnage U.S.A.” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Tech billionaire Michael Hall recovered the body of Cletus Kasady/Carnage from space after Carnage had been ripped in half by the superhero the Sentry. Francis Barrison/Shriek, Carnage’s lover and a supervillain patient at Ravencroft, a sanitorium bought over by Hall Industries, was being transported to a Hall Industries facility. The Spider-Doppelganger, who thought of her as its mother, sensed her presence and attacked the truck carrying her. Shriek’s psychiatrist, Doctor Tanis Nieves, tried to use her car to run the truck off the road. Tony Stark/Iron Man and Peter Parker/Spider-Man came to stop the creature, but Shriek used her mind control powers to incite an angry mob against the heroes. Two tech powered employees for Hall Industries, Royal Blue and Firebrick, joined the fight and shot the Spider-Doppelganger, hitting Nieves as well. The truck got away, and the mob quieted down. Nieves was outfitted with a high-tech prosthetic arm from Hall Industries that was laced with a piece of the Carnage symbiote. Spider-Man visited Nieves in the hospital, suspicious of Shriek’s part in the riot, and Nieve’s confirmed she was Shriek’s doctor but did not implicate Hall Industries. Stark found traces of the Carnage symbiote left behind from the skirmish with Royal Blue and Firebrick and told Spider-Man, who had a long history with symbiotes. Nieves demanded to see Shriek during the middle of an experiment, and the symbiote in her prosthetic arm took over and attacked. Stark pieced together that Hall was involved, and Iron Man and Spider-Man went to Hall Industries, where they were attacked by the tech soldiers Paris Green, Firebrick, Royal Blue, Burnt Orange, and Gun Metal. Nieves freed the Carnage symbiote, and the symbiote attached to her. The tech soldiers were called in to fight Carnage. Iron Man and Spider-Msn joined the fight. As Shriek was being moved, the Spider-Doppelganger tried to rescue Shriek. The Hall employees moving Shriek fought the creature, and Shriek attacked the guards to save the creature. Carnage found its way to the cell where Cletus Kasady was secretly being kept alive. The symbiote left Nieves and rejoined with Kasady. Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hall tech soldiers fought Carnage, but Carnage pulled the symbiote tech from the soldiers and added it to himself. Shriek found Nieves and informed her she was carrying Carnage’s baby. Tanis cut off her prosthetic arm to try to prevent bonding with a symbiote. Shriek attached the arm to herself, then joined Carnage in the fight, mind controlling all the civilians to her side, along with the Spider-Doppelganger. The tide turned against the heroes, and as it looked like the heroes were losing, Nieves became the symbiote hero Scorn. Scorn forced Shriek to use her sonic powers to destroy Carnage’s armor, but Carnage himself was able to escape. Nieves was then placed under Stark’s care.

                Carnage escaped to Doverton, Colorado, where he took over the entire town. Kasady sent the sheriff out with his demands. The Avengers, Spider-Man, James Howlett/Wolverine, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Steve Rogers/Captain America, and Ben Grimm/Thing were called in to rescue the town. Upon arriving, they encountered Kasady, who expanded the symbiote and corrupted the Avengers, except for Spider-Man. The government, in response, sent in two contingency plans, all symbiote powered agents, Contingency A was Scorn. Contingency B was soldiers Marcus Simms/Lasher, James Murphy/Agony, Rico Axelson/Phage, and Howard Ogden/Riot. Spider-Man was rescued by the citizens of Doverton who were able to escape from Carnage and were hiding on the Ralsby Estate outside Doverton. Carnage sent the wife and children of one of the escapees to the Ralsby Estate to kill their family. They were unable to go through with their mission. Carnage briefly lost control over Captain America, and Cap called in a third contingency plan: Eugene “Flash” Thompson/Venom. Spider-Man and Contingencies A and B fought Carnage and the symbiote civilians of Doverton and the symbiote Avengers until Venom arrived. Scorn set up a trap that separated symbiotes from their hosts and plowed Carnage into it, but unintentionally also drove Venom into it as well. Flash and Cletus fought without their symbiotes. The government fired on a localized area of Doverton to destroy the symbiote mass, and Cletus Kasady was arrested and detained.

                Carnage managed to bust out of custody from the Thunderbolts Mountain Maximum Security Prison. Venom was called in to hunt him down. On the footage of Carnage’s escape, Venom saw a small creature. Venom called his contact, Daily Inquisitor reporter Katy Kiernan, who sent him a report about the Prometheus Pit in Houston, Texas. Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider, who operated in Houston, found a survivor of a crime scene, who seemed to be afraid of him. Katy flew to Houston to investigate the story and met with Doctor Ketola, who had built a version of the Prometheus Pit at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Carnage attacked the Space Center, and Scarlet Spider swung in to try to stop him. A group of small creatures joined the fight and forced Ketola to activate the Prometheus Pit. Carnage grabbed Katy and stepped through it. Venom arrived at the scene and lost control of the symbiote and attacked Scarlet Spider. After a brief fight, Flash regained control of the symbiote, and Scarlet Spider and Venom stepped through the Prometheus Pit. The two arrived in separate locations in the Microverse. Venom was discovered by the Enigma Force. Scarlet Spider arrived in front of the Redeemer. Carnage was brought to the Body Banks. Enigma Force traveled through the Microverse with Venom to fight Marquis Radu. The Redeemer brought Scarlet Spider to Marquis Radu’s location, where they were attacked by Carnage. The Redeemer was endangered, and Scarlet Spider broke off the attack. Marquis Radu abducted Venom, the Enigma Force, Katy, and Carnage and brought them to the Body Banks. Marquis Radu used the Venom and Carnage symbiotes to create an army of symbiote soldiers. The Enigma Force and Katy managed to break free. Carnage escaped from the Microverse. The Redeemer used his powers to return Scarlet Spider, Venom and Katy to Houston, but they did not arrive full-sized. Scarlet Spider and Venom battled the symbiote soldiers until they returned to regular size. Venom detonated a sonic bomb, destroying the symbiote soldier and knocking out Carnage. Scarlet Spider then lobotomized Cletus Kasady. Carnage was apprehended and sedated.

                Bentley Whitman/Wizard staged a prison break to recruit Carnage for his Frightful Four, along with Ulysses Klaw and Karl Malus. Wizard was dying due to dementia caused by a fight with Black Bolt and wanted to impress his estranged clone/son Bentley-23 before he passed away. However, Wizard was unable to bend Carnage to his will. Wizard decided to control Carnage, Wizard would have to change Carnage’s host. Wizard performed a blood transfusion between Cletus Kasady and Malus. Wizard decided the Frightful Four would stage an attack on City Hall in New York City and take down Mayor J. Jonah Jameson. As the Frightful Four attacked City Hall and entered the mayor’s office, they were greeted by Otto Octavius/Spider-Man and his Spider Patrol. The Superior Spider-Man then had to fight the Frightful Four and the Superior Carnage to save City Hall.

                Okay, I think that’s a good enough synopsis summary. Now it’s time for my personal input for the review. We’re going to start, as always, with my own personal opinions on the book. Some of my longtime readers may recall that Carnage is my favorite supervillain. So, of course when I found out Marvel was putting out a “Carnage” Modern Era Epic Collection, I was super excited. And I will say that I loved this book. Mind you that I did read these stories years ago, but it’s been at least twelve years on parts of this book, so the refresher was needed. But I thought these stories were excellent. I’ve always been a fan of Carnage, and I also enjoyed Flash Thompson/Venom and Kaine Parker/Scarlet Spider, so having all three of these characters featured in one volume was a huge thrill for me. Some of my longtime readers may recall that the “Minimum Carnage” storyarc was also featured in “Venom: The Savage Six,” so the story has been reviewed before in my review of that graphic novel, if you would like to compare them. Anyway, “Carnage” was interesting to me, I liked how Hall made his technology out of the Carnage symbiote, and Scorn was an interesting new character in my opinion. “Carnage U.S.A.” was highly enjoyable to me, the whole concept of Carnage taking over a whole town was highly entertaining. I loved “Minimum Carnage,” the Scarlet Spider/Venom crossover event was a great idea, in my opinion, taking these two vastly different characters and forcing them to try to achieve the same goal was genius. “Superior Carnage” was compelling, watching the Wizard making a last-ditch effort to impress his son almost made me root for the villain, which I actually felt was quite a brilliant twist. While I loved the stories, the art presents a little bit of a problem. For the most part I enjoyed it, but I have a few complaints. While I enjoyed Clayton Crain’s work on “Carnage” and “Carnage U.S.A.” I will say that I felt that his coloring was a little too dark. Also, I was not a fan of Declan Shalvey’s work on “Venom” in “Minimum Carnage.” That said, the rest of the art was, in my opinion, fantastic. But the biggest problem I have with the art is Cletus Kasady’s legs. Crain drew Kasady as he had been torn in half by the Sentry, with a prosthetic lower body. This lower body was destroyed during his fight with Flash Thompson during “Carnage U.S.A.” However, all the other artists who drew Kasady in human form gave Kasady flesh and blood legs. This inconsistency greatly bothers me. I feel it is something the editors should have noticed. Otherwise, I felt this book was a stellar Modern Era Epic Collection and hope to see more “Carnage” Modern Era Epic Collections in the future. Also, I felt that the title “Carnage U.S.A.” was highly adequate.

                Next on our list of things to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I’ve explained this at least six dozen times at this point, but I know I always have new readers every time I do a post who don’t know what I mean when I use the word, so I shall explain myself once again. When I say “accessibility” I mean if a person who knows nothing about Marvel Comics can pick up this book, read it, and completely understand what they have just read. I will say this book does have some accessibility factors, but there are some details that are off-putting to readers who are unfamiliar with the comics. First off, Flash Thompson is not the best-known Venom, Kaine Parker is not the most well-known Scarlet Spider, and readers who don’t know Marvel would have difficulty with Otto Octavius being the Superior Spider-Man. But it does have a standalone kind of feel to it, particularly the fact that most of it is limited series. This volume is comprised of three limited series, two one-shots, and four regular issues from two ongoing series. Would I recommend it as a first read for someone who wants to start getting into Marvel Comics? Not particularly, but it’s not the worst place a new reader can start.

                Okay, now that I’ve been prattling on for a long time, I think it’s high time I move on to the point that is one of the key components of my review: the numeric score. I’m not going to say it’s the single most important part of my review, everyone reads my reviews for different reasons, but the score is a very integral part of any of my reviews. So, I score on a very basic system, on a scale of one through ten. One means this book is smelly garbage that should be avoided at all cost. Ten means this book is sheer perfection. People who have read my reviews before know I’m very particular about what I consider perfection and I’m not in the business of just posting every book I read is a ten. And I will say this book is just not perfection. While yes, the stories were fantastic, the art had its problems, with the color pallet being a little dark in Crain’s work, and Shalvey’s work didn’t appeal to my visual tastes, and yes, there was the forgetting of Cletus Kasady having been cut in half. However, I still thought this was an excellent book, and I feel like the score I give should reflect on that. So, when I put the book into my metaphorical review-mixing blender and turn it on and mix this book until it’s a fine liquid, taking everything in this book into account, the fantastic story, the relatively decent art, the adequate title, and I pour it out into my metaphorical cup, this score is… an eight. I felt like this book had an exemplary story, and if a different artist had been selected for “Venom” and if the artists had remembered to follow continuity on Kasady’s body, the score could have been higher, but for what it was, this book was a phenomenal effort.

                Next on our list of things to do is the recommendation. In this segment I do two things. The first is I tell you, my readers, if I personally recommend this book to you, or if I were to talk to anyone about this book, would I recommend it to them? The second thing I do is say regardless of if I would recommend the book or not, whom do I think would be the best audience to read this book. So, to answer the first question, you can probably already guess at this point based on the excellent review I’ve given that this book gets my personal recommendation. And if you guessed that, you would be absolutely correct. I do recommend this book to anyone within the sound of my voice and anyone reading this review who is interested in reading this review based solely on what I am writing right now should definitely make every effort to try to obtain this book, either going to your favorite online retailer, or bookstore, or if you’re really lucky your local library might have it, just do whatever you can to get your hands on it, I think this is an exceptional book and well worth the read. As to whom I think the best audience for this book is, I would say anyone who is a fan of Carnage or any symbiote storylines. I would also say people who like horror comics would really enjoy this. And I would also say people who like psychological comics would definitely be a target audience.

                Okay, we’re getting to a point where we are just about ready to part ways. There are a few things I have to say before I go. The first is that I have been doing this blog for five years now and have done over 170 posts. Over seven dozen of them are book reviews just like this. I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after publication and post a review as soon as I possibly can after I read them. I post on a very frequent basis because of this, usually at least one post a month. You can expect to see my next post “Annihilation: Desperate Measures” within the next week after my publishing this post. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty of other content on this blog to check out if you enjoyed this post. I’ll be back soon, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Iron Man: The New Iron Age"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Iron Man: The New Iron Age” as presented in Mavel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Jun Shan was an award-winning filmmaker. On the night of winning a Golden Dragon for best film, he and his wife Chuntao were abducted by the supervillain, the Mandarin. The Mandarin gave Jun no choice but to make a film about the life of the Mandarin. As Jun interviews the Mandarin for details of his life, the Mandarin told lies in order to conceive what he thought would make the most award-winning film of all time. Jun went out to do research to learn the truth of the Mandarin’s life. Jun and the crew of the film secretly conspired behind the Mandarin’s back to show the true story of the Mandarin. The Mandarin wanted the villain of the film to be his archnemesis Tony Stark/Iron Man, and decided the film would end with the death of Tony Stark by the Mandarin’s hands, an event that did not actually happen. Jun shot the film as the Mandarin instructed, planning to humiliate him at the premiere and escape with his life and his wife.

            Tony Stark had recently erased his memory and got most of it back. In 2011 he turned to former Stark Industries employee Peter Parker/Spider-Man for help finding stolen plans for a Stark weapon. The two had been working on it before Tony fired Peter, and Tony did not have the memory of what it did. Peter was able to trace the weapon to the anti-super hero anarchist techno-terror cell the Bastard Sons of Wilbur Day. Iron Man and Spider-Man teamed up and found out that the terror cell had actually built the weapon and fought to take them and the weapon down. In 2052, Lord Mandarin was Emperor of Earth and Tony Stark was his personal valet. The Mandarin was on the verge of purging the Earth of the human race. Tony’s children, Ginny Stark/The Black Widows and Howard Anthony Stark/War Machine were humanity’s last hope.

            Tony went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to discuss the state of his life. He hoped to have dinner with his former secretary/current CEO of his company Stark Resilient, Virginia “Pepper” Potts, only to find out that he already had his chance with her before he lost his memories and that she wasn’t willing to give him another chance.

            Stark Resilient was preparing to pitch a proposal for a new home to the Asgardian Gods. Tony was attacked by Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus, who was dying. Octavius threated to detonate a nuclear bomb over Manhattan if Tony didn’t cure him and had his associates Electro and Sandman hold Tony’s employee Tim Cababa hostage and instructed them to kill Tim if Octavius didn’t check in with them every five minutes. Pepper came looking for Tim and fought Electro and Sandman but was unable to defeat them. Another Stark Resilient employee, Leonard Pimacher came looking for Tim and startled off Sandman and Electro, and Pepper was unable to prevent the villains from escaping. Tony was unable to cure Octavius and admitted it to him, and Octavius confessed there was no bomb, and he only wanted Tony to humiliate himself to Octavius and admit that Octavius was smarter. The Asgardians accepted Stark Resilient’s pitch to build a new Asgard.

            A time of fear and uncertainty gripped the world. Seven mysterious objects entered Earth’s atmosphere, cutting fiery trails as they crashed down all over the planet. Unbeknownst to Oron Man, these are artifacts called down by the Serpent, an Asgardian deity of evil newly freed from his ancient imprisonment. Seven devastating weapons to arm and empower his chosen servants, the Worthy. One crash site was Paris, France, and one of the Worthy was Paul Pierre Duval/The Grey Gargoyle. With his newly strengthened powers, the Grey Gargoyle froze everyone in Paris he made direct eye contact with in stone. Tony hired Bethany Cabe to be the head of Security at Stark Resilient. After finding a lack of life signs in Paris, Iron Man investigated and found the superpowered Grey Gargoyle. The two fought, and Tony was overpowered. He was joined by Doug Johnson/Detroit Steel from Hammer Industries, but Johnson was defeated and turned to stone and crumbled, and Tony barely managed to escape. Tony realized to win this fight, the heroes needed stronger weapons. Tony decided to make a sacrifice in order to draw the attention of Odin: his sobriety. Odin brought Tony to the workshops of Svartalfheim to work with the dwarves to craft weapons for the heroes of Earth in their battle against the Serpent. Sasha Hammer and her crew in mechanized armor were given the mission of recovering the Detroit Steel armor from Paris and were instructed to kill anything that moved. Pepper flew to Paris in her Rescue armor to try to save any survivors that might still be roaming the streets unfrozen. The Serpent had a dwarf snatch hair from Tony in order to empower the Golem. Tony continued to get drunk with the dwarves. Tony was attacked by a Mud Sprite and was able to defeat it with the help of the dwarves. Rescue and the Hammer Corps fought the Grey Gargoyle, but Sasha Hammer abandoned Rescue in the middle of the fight. Tony finished building the weapons and he and Thor returned to Earth to aid the Avengers in defeating the Serpent and saving all of reality.

            Okay, that’s the synopsis of this book in a way I feel is the best I can describe it at this particular point in time, so now let’s move on to my personal input segments of this review. As always, we’ll start by my answering the question of: did I like this book? In general, I enjoyed it. But those first two words are key words. I enjoyed most of this book, but there were a few things about it I didn’t like. Let’s break it down story by story. I loved the “Mandarin: The Story of My Life” issue. It was interesting getting a huge section of the book devoted directly to the villain, and his displays of narcissism and egotism throughout the course of the issue were highly entertaining to me, I was hoping through the whole issue to watch it all unravel around him, and I will say, the ending had quite a twist, and I was satisfied. “The New Iron Age” was not my favorite story, I feel like it could have done without the whole future section, it didn’t have any impact on the rest of the book and felt unnecessary after finishing the issue and continuing to read the book. The Iron Man/Spider-Man story was fine, I had no problem with that, and if Matt Fraction had just published the issue as only that story, I feel like that would have sufficed. But I get that this was issue #500 and they had to make a big deal out of it and include extra content to make it all kinds of special, but it honestly was meaningless as Ginny Stark was not featured any further in the book, and forcing investment in her felt like a waste and a disappointment. And as for the time jump, the future dated was 2052, meaning in twenty-seven years from the point of my posting this, this future will be outdated, but I know that seemed like quite a long time away back in 2011. “What it Was Like, What Happened, and What it’s Like Now” resonated with me, being a recovering alcoholic myself, and the flashbacks of Tony’s life in his speech were informative to read and furthered my knowledge of Tony Starks’s history. “Fix Me” was actually my favorite story in the book. Doctor Octopus is a Spider-Man villain, so seeing him taunting, blackmailing, belittling, manipulating and humiliating Iron Man was actually rather refreshing. I don’t mean it was a good thing, I just mean it was interesting to see a villain who is usually consistently pitted up against one hero being given the chance to menace a different hero for a change. And it was shocking that Iron Man actually couldn’t beat Doctor Octopus because of the mind game that Doc Ock played against Tony Stark, and that this was a totally different kind of antagonism that Doc Ock has with Spider-Man, so this makes me curious to see Iron Man take on more of some other heroes’ nemeses in future installments, just to see the dynamics a foe swap has on their super battles. “How I Met Your Mother” was something that I felt was also unnecessary as it supposedly explained the first meeting of Howard and Maria Stark, but it honestly just seemed preposterous the way it was written. And “Fear Itself” was a story I enjoyed. Granted back in 2011 I was not an active current reader of Marvel Comics, so “Fear Itself” is an event I can’t claim to know much about, so what I understand of “Fear Itself” comes from surrounding series as I have never actually read the main limited series, but I have read some tie-ins. What I read of the event in this collection was enjoyable. I will say that I take offense with the title of this volume. The editors decided to call this “Iron Man: The New Iron Age,” which was actually just a one issue story. Compared to the three issue “Fix Me” story arc and the six issue “Fear Itself” and “Fear Itself #7.3: Iron Man,” I feel like it was the wrong title. I honestly don’t know why the editors didn’t choose to call this “Iron Man: Fear Itself,” that actually being the majority of this collection, it would have been a more sensible title. “The New Iron Age” honestly didn’t grab me when I first heard it, and I would much rather purchase a book called “Fear Itself,” that’s actually a much more appealing title in my opinion, but I purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection regardless of the title, that’s just my devotion to Marvel. I don’t know if Marvel is planning on giving another Modern Era Epic Collection a “Fear Itself” title in the future and didn’t want to give two volumes the same title or something like that. And as for the artwork, I enjoyed the work of Salvador Larroca in this book, but the other artists just didn’t do it for me. I’ve actually been an admirer of Larroca since 2001 from “X-Treme X-Men,” and I felt like his work in this book was adequate. Some of the human faces had unnatural features, but his action sequences and superhero and supervillain portrayals were stellar. Overall, this book was an enjoyable read, and I actually got so into it that once I started it, I actually couldn’t put it down and read the book straight through in about three hours.

            Okay, next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Essentially what I mean by this, for you people who have never read one of my reviews before, is this, if you know absolutely nothing about Iron Man or Marvel Comics, can you pick up this book, read it, and understand everything you’ve read by the conclusion of the book. I will say that this is a hard no. This collection is marketed as Vol. 5, and right now, as of my compiling this post, the only available volumes are 3 through 5, and if you haven’t read the previous two volumes, you’re missing so much of the story as this is a continuation out of the previous two volumes. Granted Vol. 4 was not a “To Be Continued…” kind of ending, this volume picks up after the events of it and continues threads begun in the past two collections. And if you’re not a regular reader of Marvel from 2010-2011, you don’t know “Fear Itself,” and that is a bit of a problem. Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections will often occur around events, but they won’t usually actually have the main limited series of the event collected in its entirety in that volume (with an upcoming volume of “Annihilation” being the only current exception on the horizon). In this volume, only “Invincible Iron Man” comics were collected, and “Fear Itself” was not included, so if you don’t know about “Fear Itself,” the editors did include a couple of “Previously in Fear Itself…” blurbs, but they honestly don’t complete the story, and if you want to know how the story ends, you’re going to have to get your hands on “Fear Itself” somewhere else. This book is not self-contained, and I would not recommend this as a starting point if you have never read a Marvel Comic book before.

            Okay, I’ve really been going on for quite a while now, I think it’s time we moved on to what is, essentially, the reason we’re all here; to find out just how good I thought this book was. Now, for those who don’t know how I work, it’s really quite simple. I give the book a numeric score on a scale of one to ten. One means that this book is a pile of trash, and every copy should be pulled off the shelves, burned, and Marvel should never reprint it. Ten means that this book is a mountain of gold and every copy should be bought off the shelves, read multiple times, and Marvel should reprint it on a regular basis. My score is based on a few factors. The two main ones are of course how I feel about the story and the art contained in the book itself. There are a few mitigating factors that fall outside of those as well that are sometimes outside the control of the editors, but include accuracy of the title, effectiveness of explaining the story within the book itself, my understanding of the storylines occurring at the same time outside of this volume, and the ability to meet my expectations of what the book will be based on the title the editors slap on the book. So for our factors on this, I mostly enjoyed the story, the art was hit and miss, the title was a misnomer, the book wasn’t self-contained, I don’t know “Fear Itself,” and this wasn’t quite what I was expecting based on the title, we are looking at point deductions, but it’s not a total hate party on this book. So, if I have to give this book a score in all fairness, and since this is a book review, I obviously do, I’d take all of these listed factors, chuck them into my metaphorical blender, push the blend button and mix them until they’re a pile of liquid goo, then take my metaphorical cup, pour the goo out into it, look at it, and it is… a six. This book falls on the side of slightly above average in my own personal opinion. It was a positive experience, one I will not mind going through again should another volume come out, since when a new volume comes out, I read all the connecting volumes to it, so if Vol. 2 or Vol. 6 come out, I will reread this book, and I do look forward to that.

            Okay, again, I’ve been blathering on for quite a while now, let’s get on with this. Next up on the docket is the recommendation paragraph. This paragraph is dedicated to answering three questions: do I, myself, Tim Cubbin, actually personally recommend this book? Who do I think is the best audience for this book? And do I think you should read this book now that you’ve read my review? The first question has the answer of yes. I do actually give this book my own personal recommendation. To answer question number two is a little trickier. Yes, if you are an Iron Man fan and a Marvel fan and a fan of Matt Fraction or Salvador Larroca, this book is probably a book you might be interested in, but I don’t know if you should read it unless you understand some outside knowledge. If you’ve read the earlier issues of Fraction’s run on “Invincible Iron Man,” then you are the perfect audience for this book. If you’re interested in reading the tie-in stories of “Fear Itself” then this is absolutely the right book for you. I think those two groups are the “ideal” audience, but for fans of the character, the universe, or the creators, this book is a good read for you. As for question number three, if you’ve read my review and now want to read this book, I would tell you that you would probably do best to read all of Matt Fraction’s run of “Invincible Iron Man” before reading this (conveniently collected in the Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections “Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted” and “Iron Man: Stark Disassembled,” if you want to read them most efficiently), but I wouldn’t tell you not to read this book ever, even if you’ve never read Iron Man or any other Marvel Comic books before, despite them having tie-ins to other Marvel characters and storylines. Fraction did a brilliant job crafting these stories and I feel they are well worth the read to anyone who wants to be a reader of the Marvel Universe or Iron Man.

            Okay, we’re at the point where I’m close to signing off. I do have a few things I need to say first. I’ll start with the fact that this blog has over 160 posts on it, over six dozen of them are reviews just like this one. I post on a very frequent basis, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection after they are released as early as I can and if possible I write a review as early as I can after reading it, so you can usually expect at least one post a month. I can tell you there is another Modern Era Epic Collection coming out in five days from the composition of this post, so you can expect to see a review of that likely sometime within the next three weeks. For those of you who enjoyed this post and have more time to kill right now, keep browsing on timcubbin.blogspot.com for more reviews and content, and if you don’t have the time right now, feel free to come back another time. While the majority of this site is book reviews, there is other content on this site as well, including short stories, poetry, articles, essays, and editorials. I’ve been doing this blog for almost five years at this point, and I will keep doing this until I am no longer able to do it, so you can expect that to be for quite some time. Feel free to keep checking back regularly, there’s often going to be something new, and there’s already plenty to see as it is. If you want to, leave a comment, retweet, like, share, do whatever you can on this site, spread the word about me. Feel free to reach out to me and tell me what you think of this post or of my site in general if there’s anything you like, dislike, want to see in the future, or want changed, I’d love to hear from you, and if you read this book, I’d love to hear your opinion. I will state that I admit that everything on this blog is my own personal opinion as I interpret it and you have your own personal opinions and views on everything I post, and I welcome you to feel differently from me and say that I am totally off base with my assessment, whether I have information wrong, or if you feel like I’ve somehow misinterpreted what’s in the stories, or if you just disagree with anything I’ve said, like if you didn’t like the story or the art, or if you did like other things that I specifically said I disliked, or if you think “The New Iron Age” was a great title, or if you think this book was completely awful and a six was way too good of a score, or maybe a six wasn’t a score that was high enough, or you can just let me know if you agree with me about anything, I welcome to hear anything from all my readers and will take it all with complete acceptance and respect as you are entitled to your opinions on anything, I just ask you to respect that I have a right to have an opinion, too, so do not get hostile or openly attack me, just politely state you disagree with me and explain why you feel the way I do or respectfully explain what I have interpreted wrong as I would like to fully understand this story as it is. And that is all I have to say to you at the moment, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"The Ultimates: Super-Human"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “The Ultimates: Super-Human” as presented in Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection format.

            In 1945, the Nazis had created a super-weapon that was aimed at Washington, D.C. that would potentially bring an end to World War II. The United States Army sent in a platoon to try to disable the weapon, led by a super-soldier named Steve Rogers, codenamed Captain America. Along with his teenage friend James “Bucky” Barnes, and the rest of the platoon, they charged on Germany. Not all of the platoon survived the assault, and they were unable to stop the weapon from being launched. Captain America jumped on the missile and detonated a grenade that knocked the missile off course and prevented it from hitting its target, and Captain America disappeared into the waters of the North Atlantic, leaving behind his fiancé Gail Richards.

            In 2002, newly posted Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. General Nicholas Fury reignited the Super-Soldier Program with the hopes of preventing super-powered threats from becoming a problem for the United States of America. He met with Doctor Robert Bruce Banner, who had attempted to recreate the serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America and had instead turned Bruce into a creature called the Hulk. Bruce had been leading the Super-Soldier Research Facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but when hired by S.H.I.E.L.D., the condition behind his substantial paycheck was he was demoted to number two, behind his prior assistant Henry “Hank” Pym. Hank was married to Janet “Jan” Pym, a mutant with the ability to shrink in size and gifted with wings, who also had some unfortunate bug-like qualities. Jan called herself the Wasp. Hank, using Jan’s DNA, had created a serum that allowed him to grow in size to almost sixty feet in height, the maximum height the human body can support. Hank took on the codename Giant Man. S.H.I.E.L.D. also hired tech genius businessman billionaire Anthony “Tony” Stark, who had an advanced technological suit of armor and assumed the identity Iron Man. Bruce’s ex Betty Ross was hired as the Director of Communications for the Super-Soldier Program. As they were preparing to move forward with the project, Captain America’s body was found frozen in the Arctic Ocean. Miraculously, Steve Rogers had survived frozen in ice for fifty-seven years and was able to be revived. At first, Steve was unaccepting of his new surroundings, and it took some convincing to acclimate him to now living in the 21^st Century. Nick Fury brought Steve to the house of Bucky Barnes, now an old man and now married to Steve’s ex-fiancé, Gail. While Steve and Bucky had a tearful reunion, Gail refused to come see Steve. Steve also found out most of his family had passed away in the fifty-seven years he had been in suspended animation. The Ultimates were announced at the Triskelion in the Upper Bay of Manhattan, their new headquarters. While Giant Man, Wasp, Iron Man and Captain America were introduced as the faces of the Ultimates, Fury was also attempting to recruit a man claiming to be Thor, Norse God of thunder, a protestor and former mental patient who was gaining notoriety in Norway and gaining a group of followers. Thor, however, refused to join Fury’s little gang. Held back from the launch were Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, who were awaiting rewritten histories to cover up past indiscretions, and in the background were Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, children of the mutant terrorist Magneto and former members of his Brotherhood of Mutants, who were unable to be shown as public faces due to their genetic statuses. Time went by after the launch of the Ultimates, but the team had no threats to face. While Betty began to move on from Bruce with Freddie Prinze, Jr., Bruce made the drastic decision to inject himself with Captain America’s blood and the Hulk serum. This created an even more powerful version of the Hulk, who went on a destructive rampage through Manhattan, fixated on finding Betty and winning her back for Bruce and removing Freddie Prinze, Jr. from the picture. Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, and the Wasp were dispatched to stop the Hulk, and Thor joined in to aid in the fight. The team was able to calm the Hulk and revert him back to Bruce Banner, and Bruce was put in a holding unit, while his identity as the Hulk was withheld from the public and the Ultimates were hailed as the heroes who saved Manhattan. As the Ultimates were invited to Tony’s penthouse for a black-tie dinner, Hank and Jan got into an argument that turned horribly violent. While Thor refused to accept a S.H.I.E.L.D. paycheck as a member of the Ultimates, he agreed to come to the aid if ever the need arose. Jan was taken to the hospital, and Hank was wanted for spousal abuse charges. Jan was quickly transferred back to the Triskelion, but her assault went public. Steve went out on a hunt for Hank. Clint, Natasha, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were introduced to Tony and Thor, who were all briefed on the presence on Earth of an alien race called the Chitauri since 1777, who were able to assume human form and had been in part responsible for the rise of the Nazis during World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. had believed them to have been completely annihilated after World War II, but several Chitauri had then been discovered to be hiding on Earth. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Psi-Division recovered the location of a Chitauri base near Micronesia. Before Fury could order against it, Steve found Hank in a bar in Chicago and had a S.H.I.E.L.D. team bring him to Hank’s location. Steve put the beat down on Hank, and Hank was apprehended. While in his holding unit, Bruce and Betty began to reconnect. Steve visited Jan in the Triskelion infirmary, but Steve’s actions against Hank and butting into Hank and Jan’s personal business only served to upset Jan. While Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and Fury flew with a S.H.I.E.L.D. Unit to Micronesia to assault the Chitauri base, Jan discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. had already been infiltrated by the Chitauri, and their leader Kleiser was already on the Triskelion. Jan was caught by Kleiser and brought to the Chitauri base in the Arizona desert, while the Chitauri base in Micronesia was just a decoy base and was detonated, killing most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Unit, but Thor had managed to teleport several of the Unit to safety, including Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow and Nick Fury, and they arrived at the Arizona base. The Chitauri began their full-scale assault of Earth, with the intention of destroying the Earth. Captain America fought Kleiser, Iron Man and Thor flew in to stop the weapon, Black Widow came to rescue Jan, and Hulk was unleashed to destroy the invading ships and the Ultimates battled to save the Earth from the threat of Chitauri destruction.

            Okay, so now we have the synopsis out of the way, let’s get on to my own personal take on this graphic novel. Essentially the Ultimates are the Marvel Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, but I will say that this is a vastly different take on their story, and I will also say that I found that to be a good thing. When Stan Lee created the Avengers back in 1963, they assembled by happenstance, all joining in to fight against a common threat and then realizing that working together as a team was beneficial. In Mark Millar’s Ultimates, the team is assembled by S.H.I.E.L.D. as a combat unit to fight threats ordinary units couldn’t. This is a completely different origin story. And I feel that it actually worked. I liked the idea of the Ultimates being a military unit. I thought the Hulk story was great, I loved Millar’s choice of hooking up Betty with Freddie Prinze, Jr., I thought that joke was pretty funny. I liked how Bruce and Betty’s relationship played out after that while Bruce was in a holding unit, it was actually quite humorous. I liked how Millar made Wasp secretly a mutant, but I wish he would have taken a little more of an opportunity to play up on that more than he actually did, it was just mentioned once and it was never brought up again throughout the rest of the graphic novel. I liked the concept of having a black ops unit within the Ultimates, keeping Black Widow, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in the shadows because of their statuses keeping them from being public faces. I especially liked Quicksilver’s comments of how he and Scarlet Witch had actually been helping if you looked at the tapes and slowed them down, those gave me a good chuckle. I liked the Chitauri as the enemy that was the true test of the Ultimates as a team. I liked that Thor wouldn’t join S.H.I.E.L.D. on principal but would aid anyway because it was the right thing to do, and his characterization as a former mental patient now messiah activist was, in my opinion, rather brilliant, rather than just outright saying that this was truly the God of thunder. What I didn’t like was the spousal abuse story. I felt like Millar went a little too far with that one and that it was rather unnecessary with how graphically it was illustrated. I felt that it negatively portrayed mental illness, and I honestly did not approve of that storyline. I did enjoy Brian Hitch’s work as the artist, I thought he did an amazing job illustrating this graphic novel, I really like his artistic style. I loved how I read that Millar had told Hitch to make Nick Fury look like Samuel L. Jackson and that when Disney finally made the movies, they actually did contract Jackson to play Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I actually totally geeked out the first time I saw the post-credits scene in “Iron Man” when they introduced Jackson as Fury, having read this comic series after it was originally published back in 2002-2004 prior to the release of the “Iron Man” film and there was actually a scene in this graphic novel where the group discuss who would play them in films and Jackson was named as Fury. In general, I rather enjoyed this graphic novel.

            Next up on our agenda of things to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. For those of you who know what I mean, please bear with me while I explain this to my new readers who have never read one of my reviews before and don’t know what I mean by using the word “accessibility.” So, what I mean by that is, if you know nothing about the Ultimates or Marvel Comics at all, can you pick up this book, read it, and understand what you’re reading? This is the first volume of the series from a universe that was relatively new at the time and had very little background history. It has no direct ties to any other series published by Marvel. There are no crossovers or events occurring during this graphic novel. It has a self-contained origin story. So, yes, this book is extremely accessible. If you’re new to Marvel and are looking for a good place to start, this is an exceptionally enjoyable book to pick up and begin your Marvel journey.

            Okay, now we’re going to get to the point that you’ve all been waiting for: my numeric score. So, my scoring system is extremely basic. I score on a scale of one to ten. One is the lowest score and means this book is complete trash and is not even worth reading. Ten is the highest score and means this book is perfection. On principal, I generally don’t give out tens very often because perfection is extremely hard to publish, but there have been occasions where I felt that this score is appropriate. As far as this book goes, I do not feel like a ten is an appropriate score for this book. I found some faults with the story, especially the spousal abuse storyline that highly detracted from my enjoyment of the story. And while I generally enjoyed Hitch’s art, there were moments where I felt like his artwork had a few mishaps. Unfortunately, there was also some content that doesn’t hold up over twenty years later, especially the inclusion of President Bush. But overall, I found this book to be high-quality and extremely enjoyable, so when I give it a score, I am compelled to score it at… an eight. It was entertaining to read, and the art was, for the most part, nice to look at. I feel like it deserves a particularly good score, but it’s not quite near perfection, so a minor deduction is required, but it shouldn’t be impacted harshly for the few problems I had with this book.

            Next up, we’re going to discuss if I give this book my personal Tim Cubbin recommendation, and then, regardless of that fact or not, whom do I think should be reading this book. If you’re guessing that I give this book my own personal recommendation, you would be absolutely correct. This book does, in fact, get my seal of approval. Moving on to whom do I recommend this book to, the answer is to anyone who likes the Avengers and wants to see a different take on what the team could be like. So, if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and have an interest in the Avengers, I highly recommend you read this book, this is a totally interesting twist on their origin and worth the read. If you’re already a Marvel Comics fan and have never read this, I recommend this book to you, this is a whole new reimagining of what the Avengers could be, and I think you will enjoy this. If you’re just reading this review and have gained any vested interest in reading this graphic novel based solely on what you’re consuming right now, I’d recommend you get out there and pick up this book, if you enjoyed my review, you will definitely enjoy actually reading the entire story as there is obviously so much more than what I can describe on this blog and I think you should make the effort to get the complete story and enjoy this work for yourself.

            Well, I think we’ve gotten to the point where I’ve said pretty much all there is to say at the moment. There is a little more to add in conclusion, however, so don’t quite give up on me yet. First off, if you liked this post, there are over four dozen other reviews like this one to read, so keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for more of my work. I am a huge collector of Marvel Epic Collections, I buy every Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after they are released and if possible, I try to put up a review right after I finish reading them. So, obviously, I am going to be working with a lot of potential content. I currently have a Modern Era Epic Collection in my possession I am preparing to read, so you can expect to see a review of that one coming up some time in the next couple of weeks after this post, I have to finish reading it first, then find a day where I can actually sit down and write a review of it, but I will promise you it is coming soon. I have 160 other posts on this blog and there is no end in sight, so keep checking it out for more content if you’re interested. If you go really far back on my blog, I’ve actually written short stories, poetry, articles, essays, and editorials, but right now my main focus is on writing reviews. If you think these seem highly professional, it’s because I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, so writing this kind of thing is what I should professionally be doing, but due to circumstances, it’s not something I’ve actually been able to secure, so I currently work in a grocery store and work for free on a blog in my spare time. But it’s in my nature and I don’t mind doing it, it is the job I honestly should be doing but just can’t actually manage to get hired for due to the situation in my life that I don’t want to talk about and you honestly don’t care about. But enough about that. Keep checking back regularly for more, as there will definitely be plenty of upcoming content on the way, I’ll be doing this blog until I am physically unable to do it anymore, so that’s probably going to be a long time. I’ve already been doing this for five years at this point. And at this point, I’m just rambling on unnecessarily and boring you with useless details about my personal life that you really don’t want to know, so I’m going to let you go now and move on with your life while I move on with mine. But I will be back soon, and I hope you come back with me. And so, 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!

"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!