Rescue #1 – Review

By: Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Andrea Mutti (art), Jose Villarrubia (art) & Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Story: Pepper Potts gets to play around in her Rescue armor and has a nice, long chat with her dead husband.

What’s Good: This is a nice little story that hits on a lot of the high-notes of what makes Pepper Potts an important character in world of Iron Man.  If I had to think of two words to describe Pepper, it would be “helper” and “competent”.  That really comes across in this issue as we see her flashing back to saving a bunch of folks from a burning building in her newer Rescue armor.

Of course, Pepper also has a lot of self-doubt and kind of idolizes Tony Stark, so she is beating herself up over not being able to finish the rescue job (which Tony would have pulled off) and this doubt manifests itself by seeing her dead husband: Happy Hogan.  This whole sequence is really nicely written.

Invincible Iron Man #26 – Review

By: Matt Fraction (writer), Salvador Larroca (art), Frank D’Armata (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters)

The Story: Tony Stark continues to try to rebuild his life and business after rebooting his brain (and losing the last few years of memories) a few issues ago.

What’s Good: I really enjoy the way Fraction is playing up the fact that Tony Stark is his own worst enemy.  After frying his brain to protect the identities of all the other super-heroes from Norman Osborn, he had to reboot his brain from a memory backup that was several years old.  Thus, he doesn’t remember Civil War at all.  Over the course of the last couple of issues, you can see that although his friends are still angry with him, they are ready to forgive except only Tony won’t apologize.  He’s said repeatedly that even though he doesn’t remember Civil War, that he’s sure that he did everything for a very good reason and that if he was presented with the same choices again… He wouldn’t do anything differently.   As you can imagine, this isn’t making his friends want to spend much time around him!  It kinda bit him last issue with Thor and really nails him this issue with Maria Hill.  Ouch!

Larroca’s art is much improved in this issue.  It still isn’t my favorite artistic style and there are a few ugly panels in this issue, but the last issue was only 3 weeks ago (and was double sized to boot).  I’ll forgive an ugly panel or two to get books that come out on time.

Iron Man 2 – Movie Review

Iron Man 2 is a great movie. Let’s get that out of the way right now. If that’s all you were waiting to hear, there it is: it’s well worth the price of admission, as it provides you a very solid couple hours’ of entertainment. Robert Downey, Jr. is still a fantastic Tony Stark, the action scenes are still beautiful, and both Mickey Rourke and Don Cheadle acquit themselves extremely well in their new roles. Go thou therefore, and purchase tickets now! …Unless, that is, you want more details, in which case read on. (And THEN go thou forth and purchase tickets!)

Spoiler warnings for Iron Man 2 ahead!

…

The movie picks up shortly after the original Iron Man ends. The world knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he has parlayed that fame into a giant “Stark Expo” that brings the world’s finest minds under a single roof to work together for the good of mankind. However, all is not as rosy as the image Stark presents to his adoring public. The military is pressuring him to turn over the Iron Man technology to the Pentagon, while Tony himself is slowly dying of poison being leeched into his blood by the same mini-reactor that’s keeping shrapnel from piercing his heart. While all this is going on, Tony must also deal with a new super-villain in Ivan Vanko (aka Whiplash), a Russian physicist whose father worked with Howard Stark to develop a prototype arc-reactor technology.

Once again, Robert Downey, Jr. carries the movie on his back with his formidable acting talent and tremendous charisma. That’s not a criticism of the movie, but an acknowledgment of just how integral Downey is to its success. More than the story of superhero vs. villain, this movie is the story of Tony Stark, and the struggle taking place within him. Without Downey the effects would still be wonderful, the story would still be exciting and the suit would still look amazing, but the movie would lose its heart and soul if he wasn’t there to provide Stark with the necessary dose of humanity. Even on the rare occasions that the film lags, or one of the other actors falls below par, Downey is there to pick up the slack and makes every single frame of the movie work regardless of what’s going on or who is in it.

Not that there is a whole lot for Downey to have to make up for, the visuals are excellent across the board and the action scenes—particularly the much-touted showdown on the Monaco racetrack between Stark and Vanko— are thrilling to experience. Mickey Rourke provides an absolutely fantastic villain, and imbues Vanko/Whisplash with terrifying confidence, and shows that he is a threat any time, and anywhere. But Vanko, of course, is far more than simple brute force; he has a mind that rivals Tony’s own, and Rourke does a great job of showing off the character’s intellect as well as his physical strength.

Invincible Iron Man #25 – Review

By: Matt Fraction (writer), Salvador Larroca (art), Frank D’Armata (colors) & Joe Caramanga (letters)

The Story: Laying low by the erasure of his last several years of memories AND the complete destruction of his company and fortune, Tony Stark starts to rebuild his life and his business.

What’s Good: A lot of bang for the buck here.  Although this is a $3.99 comic, it weighs in at a hefty 38 pages.  This is also a great jumping on point for new readers.  So, if you’ve been lurking in the weeds, hearing good things about Matt Fraction’s work on Invincible Iron Man OR if you’re just excited about Iron Man 2 coming out this week, now is the time to hop on.  The story here gives enough of a recap so that you completely know what is going on, but Fraction does this in a way that doesn’t bore us to tears.  The history is simply nicely interwoven with the new material.

I’m not a huge “armor-nut” who can describe in detail the nuances of every Iron Man and what issue it first appeared in, but the new armor is pretty cool.  It is basically the Extremis armor on steroids.  I don’t want to spoil its appearance because Fraction gives it a nice build-up throughout the issue and it is pretty neat.

New Iron Man 2 Trailer

Gotta give props to Heat Vision for posting this one… Click on Whiplash below.

Iron Man 2 Poster Revealed