By: Matt Fraction (writer), Salvador Larroca (art), Frank D’Armata (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Alejandro Arbona (Associate Editor)
The Story: “Team Iron Man” has to fend off an attack by Detroit Steel and his squadron of iPhone-controlled killer drones.
What’s good: Finally…action! This story has been brewing for a long time, so it was nice to get the beginning of the pay off battle between Detroit Steel and his drones of death. There is lots of good action in this battle as both War Machine and Pepper Potts (in her Rescue armor) both get into the action as well. Maria Hill even picks up the phone to offer some Avengers-style help, which was nice to see since Maria isn’t getting much use over in the Avengers books right now.
But the real-superstar moment of this issue was the ending and what Pepper has to do in order to escape the Drones of Death. What she does puts her very much at risk and shows her ultimate trust in Tony to fix the situation and save her before time runs out. However, while she is out, we get a very touching vision of Pepper having a conversation with her dead husband Happy where they discuss Pepper’s possibly budding romance with Tony. Fraction is writing some very good stuff here. This is really a relationship comic under all the armor.
Larroca executes very nicely on the art and this issue plays to his strengths. He illustrates the armor very nicely and he also does a pretty good job with the close-ups on faces. And the waist-up images that can be his bug-a-boo don’t make many appearances in this issue. D’Armata also deserves a lot of credit for the metallic look of these armor suits. I often wonder why all colorists can’t get this same look.
What’s Not So Good: Well, this was issue EIGHT of this story arc. And we’re still not done. I would say that someone in editorial needs to stop approving these gargantuan mega-arcs that Fraction is trending towards for this title, but that might be missing some of the point. What Fraction is really doing is writing an original graphic novel that happens to be released in a serial format. And, I can respect that and that formula worked very well for his 12-issue World’s Most Wanted story. But, the problem is that this current story arc is nowhere near as epic feeling as WMW. It might end up with some enticing revelations about Tony’s relationship with Pepper, but there is nothing that makes you squeal with glee when you see that Invincible Iron Man is coming out again this week. And, at $3.99 it is not offering quite enough bang-for-the buck because you’re only getting 10% of a big story. This is becoming a ho-hum, bottom of the pile title.
My biggest disappointment was that I thought that THIS was going to be the final issue of this story arc, so when I got to the end and realized I was going to have to buy a few more issues, I was really disappointed. It is time to wrap this one up.
Conclusion: Good, but these 8-12 issue story arcs are a real drag because you aren’t getting a satisfying hunk of story for your $3.99. 6-issues tops!
Grade: C
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion