By Matt Fraction (Writer), Salvador Larroca (Artist), and Frank D’Armata (Colorist)
Some Thoughts Before The Review: Invincible Iron Man is easily one of the best Marvel monthlies. Matt Fraction writes one hell of a Tony Stark and his handling of Stark’s inner circle (which includes Mariah Hill and Pepper Potts) has been absolutely brilliant.
The Story: Tony Stark hits up a technology fair in order to find parts that can be used to downgrade the Iron Man into a form that he can more easily build. He also finds out that having a target on your back brings all sorts of people out of the woodwork. Mariah Hill fights to resist The Controller and finds a way out of Futurepharm. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn interrogates Pepper Potts about the whereabouts of Tony Stark.
What’s Good: The noose around Stark and his friends tightens as Matt Fraction continues to make great use of the Dark Reign scenario that is dominating the Marvel universe. In other words, it’s business as usual in Invincible Iron Man. The writing is absolutely fantastic and I really couldn’t be much more pleased with how “America’s Most Wanted” is progressing. Don’t let the fact that the entire issue is dedicated to setting up bigger and better things for the next month stop you from checking it out.
What’s Not So Good: Salvador Larroca continues to be an extremely bad fit for this arc because of the trouble he has in doing the artwork for human beings. While his artwork for technology looks absolutely fantastic, the people in Iron Man look either something close to awful or, at best, terribly inconsistent. I wouldn’t mind Larroca’s work as much if there was more Iron Man stuff going on, but Fraction’s story is more about the person within it and the people surrounding it as opposed to the suit itself.
Conclusion: Great writing and disappointing artwork is pretty much par for the course when talking about Invincible Iron Man. In that respect, I.I.M. #13 hits par. But it’s not like that’s a bad thing when talking about a series that’s so damn strong.
Grade: B
-Kyle Posluszny
Filed under: Marvel Comics, Reviews Tagged: | comic reviews, Dark Reign, Frank D'Armata, Futurepharm, Invincible Iron Man, Invincible Iron Man #13 Review, Kyle Posluszny, Madame Masque, Mariah Hill, Marvel comic Reviews, Marvel Comics, Matt Fraction, Norman Osborn, Pepper Potts, Salvador Larroca, Starktech, The Controller, The Good, Tony Stark, WCBR, Weekly Comic Book Review, weeklycomicbookreview.com
Just stumbled upon this wonderful article.This is extremely exciting.I’ve bookmarked it and will come back routinely.Hope to see more such articles.file_links\xrumer_resource\km_sig.txt,1,L]
Thanks for getting back to me.
I really like what Pepper and Mariah are doing in Iron Man. As for Tony, I think Fraction’s humanizing him more as far as getting him back into favor with the Marvel audience after Civil War and all that stuff.
I personally don’t feel that Fraction is burning time…he’s in charge of telling the story of Tony while Dark Reign is going on and I think he’s doing a great job with it. Especially considering that close friends and things would be major targets for Osborn…Fraction could have easily make it a tony on the run story, but thats only the tip of all that’s going on.
While I definitely take issue with the way Fraction is handling one of the books he’s heading (uncanny X-Men), Invincible Iron Man is not that book.
Thanks again for the comment and keep reading. Remember, comments are always welcome.
-Kyle Posluszny
Really what’s to love? not to get into a flame here but there is no humanity to point to in Fraction’s hack work except that he isn’t in Charge of SHIELD anymore and busting other heroes all of which isn’t Fraction’s doing.
Maria Hill And Pepper get all the character work while Fraction burns off issues and time waiting for Tony to be reset.
[...] I just really in fact don’t understand where the praise is coming from on this title like over at fellow blogger: http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2009/05/09/invincible-iron-man-13-dark-reign-review/ [...]
I’m loving Fraction’s take on Tony Stark. Sure there are some “smarty-pants” moments, but as a whole I think Fraction has made Stark much more likeable than he has ever been. He’s humanized Iron Man in a way that just works for me.
As for Larroca’s artwork, my biggest issue has to do with how bloated and ugly everyone looks. His Iron Man and technology stuff looks fantastic though, so visually the book is very hit or miss for me.
Thanks for the comment and keep reading!
- Kyle Posluszny
Can’t agree at all with this direction of this title – I am still waiting for my subscription issue to come in so I haven’t reviewed this issue #13 myself but Fraction not Larroca is the wrong foot put on this whole series. Fraction just thinks “smarty-pants” defines the whole of the character. In short I have come to really dislike every cheap stunt he has put into the series whereas Larroca has gotten his groove back and dumped much of that photo ref facial rendering that was so gwad awful that he brought to the book and has returned to his strongest style.