Iron Man: Armor Wars Prologue

Bob Layton co-plotted and provided pencils and inks for the 10 issues inside this trade paperback. With that bit of information, I want to go on a slightly off topic tangent. I think it's creepy that as soon as I started reading this book 5 days ago, I began getting inundated with suggestions to make Bob Layton a friend on Facebook. I also got a multitude of posts from others praising his artwork. I started receiving ads from eBay suggesting artwork by Layton as well as other Iron Man back issues. 

Here's the thing, I hadn't put anything on my social media about my reading 'Armor Wars Prologue.' I hadn't taken any pictures, texted, nor sent an email to anybody about this book. I hadn't even mentioned reading it out loud to my wife. I bought this book years ago, and forgot all about it. So how did the Internet know that I was finally reading this book? I'm telling you, this 'coincidence' sure is spooky.

Okay - now about the book...

Tony Stark has pulled himself out of the ashes. Newly sober, Stark is again making a name for himself. Obadiah Stane may have taken Stark Industries away from Tony; but thanks to a lengthy court battle, the billionaire playboy regained his wealth and has started up a new company: Stark Enterprises. Only it's not a smooth transition for Tony.

His new orbiting space station has been rendered unusable by AIM. A beloved member of his inner circle has betrayed him. Rhodey's new helicopter was in reality a malfunctioning transformer that nearly destroyed his company. Now there's a literal ghost in the Stark machine that could cause Stark Enterprises to declare bankruptcy should Tony's new clean energy turbine go bust! Thrown in a handful of B-list villains, the evil industrialist Justin Hammer and the massive headache of California rush hour traffic, it's no wonder that Iron Man will declare war on anyone who steals his technology and there's been a long list of foes who've taken something from Tony Stark and his armored bodyguard.

You know you're getting old when disaster upon disaster faces a beloved protagonist and all you can think of is 'How much did that cost?' For decades, it has seemed that Tony Stark has had a near unlimited bank account. It's actually a little satisfying to actually find the businessman running low on funds. No, I don't secretly want Tony Stark to go broke. But I can't tell you how many issues of The Avengers and Iron Man that I have read where it seemed like Tony had carte blanche to repair any and all damage brought about by his destructive adventures as Iron Man. I just found it a little more relatable having Tony Stark sweating bullets because all of his economic stability rests on a really tricky financial gamble.

I just shelled out a fortune for a new car. Mind you it was used and it seems to be a great car. But I've been on pins and needles, afraid that I purchased a lemon and that's how Tony has been feeling about the new energy tech company he bought with his last line of bank credit. 

I came to this book with the mindset that I was going to sell it afterwards. I also wasn't sure if I wanted to read about the Armor Wars. But after reading, I find that I would be completely open to a complete run of the first Iron Man series of stories and I want to read the follow up to this book. So much for trying to clear some room off my shelf. Writer David Michelinie and Bob Layton did too great of a job to part with this read.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Superior Iron Man, Vol. 1: Infamous

This is an example of how to not judge a book by its cover. I've been sitting on this book for probably 5 years now. It came in a Comic Book Bento Box as a gift from my bride. (Remember CBBB? They're were a graphic novel grab bag subscription service that was so fun to get in the mail each month. Now defunct. Long may it rest...) I had just finished a volume of Iron Man where Tony's brother Arno Stark was set to take on the mantle of Iron Man, when I received this book. I wasn't all that thrilled with Arno and thinking this book was chronicling his adventures, I waited to read it.

I couldn't have been more wrong in my assessment.

Superior Iron Man, Volume 1 takes place immediately after the events of AXIS. For those of you not familiar with Marvel's 2014's crossover event, AXIS was the Freaky Friday storyline where good guys became villains and villains became heroes due to the meddling of the Red Skull. When everybody went back to their normal selves, something went wrong with Tony Stark, screwing up his moral compass. 

So imagine what the billionaire playboy would have become if he never got injured from a land mine and had his life saved by Professor Yinsen. What we have at the beginning of Superior Iron Man is a hedonistic, unrepentant alcoholic Tony Stark intent on imposing his own personal Utopia upon the world. To change the world in his own image, Tony has set up base in San Francisco. He just released his latest version of Extremis as an app which turns users into Kardashian-like versions of themselves. There's a hitch to this however. Tony offered Extremis 3.0 as a trial. Now reverted back to their imperfect selves, the citizens of San Francisco must pay an exorbitant fee daily to feed their addiction to perfection.

I really loved this book. I devoured it in about an hour. Add Daredevil, She-Hulk, Pepper Potts and an all-new villain to the mix and I was hooked. Amoral Tony Stark. It's a brilliant experiment that left me reeling because I don't have volume 2!

I'm going to rate this book with a perfect score. However there was a continuity error that just stuck in my crawl. Towards the beginning of the book, Stark hosts this big event for Extremis 3.0 on Castro Street. However an issue later, Matt Murdock, fully into his internal dialogue says that the event happened on Canton Street. Just so you know, I researched and there isn't a Canton Street in the City by the Bay.

Castro Street in San Francisco is a historic area known for Harvey Milk and the fight for gay rights. Could writer Tom Taylor have received some flak from fans for setting that scene at such an iconic locale, that Marvel had to retcon things? If so, why didn't they change the name of the scene for this trade? I can see where having Tony Stark offer the people of San Francisco a way to change themselves into what they've always dreamed of being set on Castro Street as being perceived insensitive to the struggle of the LGBT+ community. I'm just flummoxed over the nit and I want to know more about the mistake.

The artwork by Yildiray Cinar and Laura Braga was amazing. One of the best sets of Iron Man armor ever!

Be on the lookout for the Full House Easter egg tribute! So clever!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Avengers Halloween Special #1

Though it was released on Halloween day, at least Marvel got in the spirit of the season and produced this special. Marvel, earlier in October, did produce an all-ages Halloween special, which I reviewed as a Family Comic Friday selection. However, in the recent past, the House of Ideas has been quite the Scrooge when it came to doing holiday one-shots of any type. 

The Avengers Halloween Special has 5 short stories, some of which are quite eerie. Case in point- the first tale starring Daredevil. It has Matt Murdock undergoing an eye transplant. But when the bandages come off, he is terrified by visions of the dead!

Next up we see a world where Doctor Doom might be the good guy! It has tones of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I would love to see this explored further in an issue of What If... 

Then Tony Stark goes to the Antarctic to recover a project that his father was working on during World War II. If this sounds a lot like a certain John Carpenter film starring Kurt Russell, give yourself a pat on the back!

The fourth story takes place in France during the 1800s. In Jay Baruchel's writing debut at Marvel, he puts forth an epic in which asks what if the Punisher became the Phantom of the Opera?

Lastly, we go to upstate New York for a ghost story that involves a pair of trick-or-treaters, the destroyed remains of a school for gifted youth and a still functioning Danger Room.

The Daredevil and Doctor Doom stories were the best! I was truly creeped out in the first tale. It was quite horrific with an ending that rivals some of the twists of an EC Comic. The Doctor Doom story as I said earlier is so good and brilliant that it merits a return story in the pages of What If...

The X-Men and Punisher accounts were very good. They had gothic tones but weren't scary. Plus, they had good art. But they just weren't as perfect as the previous adventures I've mentioned. Besides, I thought doing direct tributes to works of literature was DC's Elseworlds kinda of thing to do... (Maybe someone needs to inform Jay Baruchel.)

Then we have the Thing/Iron Man fusion. It should have been good but it was flawed. For one thing, we've got Deadpool and Colossus added to the mix. I only thought these two characters were friends in the Deadpool films. Yet, they're buddy-buddy here. Then there's several deaths that just do not seem plausible based on the method of how they die. I really wish I could expound more, but that would be giving up some massive spoilers. One thing I will say is that if you like the ending of Carpenter's The Thing, you'll love the ending of this thriller.

This special is hyped as the Avengers Halloween Special. But really, they're not even a part of this one-shot. You've got individual characters who have at one time or another been Avengers. (Has Doctor Doom or The Punisher ever even members of the World's Mightiest Heroes?) What was wrong with calling this a Marvel Halloween Special? That being said, does that mean December's X-Men Holiday Special is not going to have the X-Men in it? 

This Halloween release had some great scares as well as so-so moments. I would have liked this to have dropped the week before Halloween so I would have had a chance to read this before All Hallow's Eve. But better late than never I guess. OR you can wait until next Halloween season to give this comic a read.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stories.