rocket1312

I've been considering picking up the Iron Man by Michelinie/Layton/Romita omnibus for awhile given that this particular era of Marvel (late 70's/early 80's) is a favorite, but even though I have a fondness for Iron Man going back to the very beginning of my comic fandom, his solo series doesn't have much of a reputation for memorable runs/stories. I decided rather than plunking down the $60 for the book, I would read through the issues on Marvel Digital. I'm glad I did. While these are some good, solid super-hero comics with really great Romita Jr./Layton art, it's not the kind of thing I would bother re-reading.

That said, this is a pretty momentous run for the character and I did enjoy it. This run features the introductions of James Rhodes, Bethany Cabe and Justin Hammer to name a few. It also features the landmark "Demon in a Bottle" storyline which introduced Tony Stark's alcoholism. However, as interesting as lot of this is, the whole thing feels like one giant missed opportunity. Justin Hammer's plot to frame Iron Man for murder has its legs cut out from underneath it almost before it even starts. I'm not exaggerating. Hammer takes control of Iron Man's armor and has him kill some diplomat in front of hundreds of people only for the police (in like the very next panel) to say something along the lines of "Don't worry about it Iron Man, we know you couldn't have done this on your own accord. You worry about catching the real bad guy." Iron Man then just goes on his way. Tony's battle with alcoholism, which is playing out in the background while all of this is going on, is resolved within a matter of pages. It's all really frustrating. I realize that Michelinie and Layton's hands were probably tied to a certain extent regarding some of the darker, more personal stories. If Iron Man's more typical superhero antics were more compelling, it may have mitigated some of the disappointment. Unfortunately his gallery of rogues is pretty terrible and the protracted fight scenes in each issue are more often than not pretty dull stuff. That said, I would be remiss not to mention Doomquest, the two issue arc where Iron Man and Dr. Doom go back in time. It's just a real good slice of old school comic book fun.

When I started out, I was hoping that this run would be on par with some of the other heavy hitters from this era of Marvel (Byrne FF, Claremont X-Men, Miller DD, Simonson Thor), but it's just not the case. The disappointing thing is that the potential was there for it to be just as good as those others. It is, however, absolutely worth a read if you're at all interested in Iron Man. Even if it's not one of the all-time great runs, it's probably the best his original series ever got.

Greg MacGuffin

I've been working my way through various Iron Man trades over the last year or so. I read the Demon in a Bottle trade a few months back and actually liked it quite a bit. I do have a soft spot for 70s/80s Marvel books. I agree that it does not reach the heights of other books that you mentioned, but I still think it's good silly fun. At the time, I think there was an emphasis on shorter, more contained arcs. Nowadays, these stories would be year-long, multiple title epics.

I recently finished the Armor Wars Prologue book, which features the first appearance of Tony's jheri-curl mullet/hybrid. I'm currently about mid-way through the actual Armor Wars trade, which I think is a blast, and probably the highlight of 1980s era Iron Man.

PhantomStranger

I always thought of Iron Man's solo comic as a solid B or C title. There was never anything in it which was going to catch the world on fire but Iron Man usually delivered a solid superhero adventure.

Preterite

Yeah, those issues have to be read in the context of their era. The alcoholism plot was pretty darn ground-breaking, and the entire run was among the best-written and most adult books on the spinner racks of the time.

As far as the murder inquiry goes, this was still a time when being an Avenger or Justice Leaguer still carried enormous weight with the general populace. (Hard to believe, isn't it?) And it wasn't like some mutie blasted the ambassador with his laser eyes; Iron Man's powers came from tech that could believably have malfunctioned. Plus, having a billionaire industrialist vouch for you definitely doesn't hurt.

davidh777

Yeah, I imagine monster battles would lose something on the printed page. Not saying they can't be done, of course, but they'd translate less well than other movie elements.

Inhumans99

It Came! - Titan Comics

Charlie_Saylor

The Property - by Rutu Modan, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen. This tells the story of an utterly believable world in which a woman and her grandmother travel to Warsaw to reclaim property stolen from the family during World War II. Each small detail makes the relationships feel real - and the art reflects an unusual approach - story goes that Modan hired models to act out her scenes.

Trevor

That sounds cool, thanks for sharing Charlie.

PhantomStranger

I don't understand, how does Magneto fit in? I kid, it sounds like good reading.

PhantomStranger

I read the hardcover available for Astro City: Victory. It collects issues #7-10 of whatever volume and the Visitor's Guide To Astro City. It's a story with Winged Victory as the focus, Busiek's riff on a Wonder Woman-like superheroine.

I am a pretty big fan of Astro City as a cleaner, more logically contructed superhero universe with loads of characters. This particular trade was pretty average since the basic plot was so predictable. Some unknown villain has carefully laid out a plan to tarnish Winged Victory's name with the law and public. It also felt like Busiek had originally planned for a longer arc and realized after a couple of issues there wasn't much to it, so the ending was anticlimactic.

The art was very good, I've grown to really enjoy Brent Anderson's pencils.

Inhumans99

Serenity Leaves On The Wind

Super X

Just finished volume 3 of Demon Knights. Unfortunately, it's the last volume as DC cancelled the series. It's symptomatic of the reason I don't read many DC's anymore. I've tried to support the non-traditional, non-superhero books they've put out, but they'd rather replace them with more Batbooks than allow the higher-selling titles support more experimental critically-acclaimed ones.

There was a significant creative team change in this volume, with Paul Cornell exiting as writer and Robert Venditti taking over. While I preferred Cornell's take, Venditti does a serviceable job. The artwork takes a slight downturn, but is still better than a lot of books out there.

Anyone who enjoys the Vandal Savage character should check these trades out as the book had probably the most fun portrayal of him that DC's done.

Super X

Trying to catch up on my backlog of trades. I just finished Sword of Sorcery v.1. This was DC's new 52 attempt to do some of its fantasy characters, led by a reboot of Amethyst. This main feature is pretty solid, much different from the old 80's series. The character is treated in much less of a fairy tale fashion, with supporting characters and villains done in a more three-dimensional manner. The Aaron Lopresti art is beautiful, making it a shame that the book didn't attract a larger audience and was cancelled after issue 8. Still, this is a pretty solid and complete read, while leaving the concept open to continuation.

The back-up features from the series are included, as well, though these are more forgettable. They're resurrections of DC's Stalker and Beowulf. Beowulf is the better of the two, but underserved by it's brevity. It's basically a futuristic reinterpretation of the Beowulf story, with ties to the DC universe. Stalker, about an immortal mercenary, is nothing of note.

Inhumans99

Nailbiter

MOOOH

good book (y)

DJLinus

I used to collect comics when I was a kid in the late '80s and early '90s until it got way too expensive to keep up with all of my monthly titles. Since then I'd pick up a TPB or graphic novel every now and then, but largely kept up my interest in that world through movies and video games. I've always said that I'd jump back into comics when I got a tablet, but I still don't own one.

And then the other day when I was visiting my mom I went to the library with her. Wow. My library doesn't carry comics, but hers does. Over the next few days I went to three libraries in her county system and picked up the following:



Of these, so far I've read:

The Killing Joke
Criminal: Lawless
Criminal: Bad Night
Criminal: Coward

Crime noir is my fiction genre of choice and I absolutely loved those Criminal books.

fujishig

Yeah, the Criminal and Parker books especially are great in that genre.

Have you read 100 Bullets?

DJLinus

I haven't read 100 Bullets, but I saw that the library had some volumes of it. I wasn't sure if there was a storyline I'd miss out on by picking some random books. I did a little research with Criminal and figured I was fine since those just share a city, tangential characters, and other little details. Once I plow through this big stack I'll check 100 Bullets out.

As for Parker, that's my favorite book series (I'm about halfway through them) and have loved what I've seen online of the comic adaptation. I've come very close to treating myself with the Martini Edition collection, but never pulled the trigger. This is the first time I've seen the art in the flesh and it's beautiful.

davidh777

I liked the Parker volume I read, but Criminal remains on my to-read list. Fatale is another one I've been meaning to read.

When I think of Criminal, I think of the stink Brubaker was putting up for people to buy floppies instead of trades, and now we're talking about borrowing them from the library.

The last time I went to the library, they had a ton of stuff and I kinda went nuts. I should visit again, but I'm sure I'd need a new card, which sounds like a hassle. Before I just threw them onto my kid's card.

rocket1312

So after first starting about 6 months ago, I finally got through Civil War. All of it. Including every single tie-in. Even the stuff that barely tied-in, like the Huston/Finch Moon Knight revamp (side note: wtf is the deal with that series? Bizarre stuff.) It didn't actually take me 6 months to read all of it. I had read about half of it in a relatively short amount of time a few months back and finished the second half this week after a few months off. What I really wanted to do was continue on with Brubaker's Captain America and figured I couldn't until I had finished Civil War.

There was a lot I liked about it, but my biggest take away is that it's tough to do a story like this that brings all of the real world implications of being a super-hero to the surface. It just makes it that much harder for me as a reader to go back to the status quo when it's all over. Unless Marvel is really going to commit (or did commit seeing as how this is from 8 years ago) to wrestling with these sorts of ideas long term, eventually things will go back to normal and we'll be expected to just sweep those ideas under the rug of suspension of disbelief. This sort of deconstruction has merit, and is often interesting, but to me just works better in a less open ended sandbox (see: Watchmen).

Some other quick notes:


- When reading all of the tie-ins, there's a lot of redundancy. Especially considering that in the grand scheme of things, despite it's scope, not a lot happens in Civil War. It's mostly just a lot of posturing by the two sides. Oh, and Black Goliath dies. That's about it.

- Civil War: Frontline was by far my favorite of the tie-ins. I also liked how writers with multiple books tied their stories together a little more tightly. JMS did this with Amazing Spider-Man and FF. Marc Guggenheim did it with Wolverine and Blade. Despite some of the redundancy, I was impressed at just how tight most of the continuity was between the various tie-ins.

- Speaking of Wolverine, at one point in his tie-in issues he is blown up and all that is left is his skeleton, Days of Future Past style. In that particular story, this killed him dead. As we all know, Wolverine is not immortal. He may have enhanced healing, but most of the things that would kill you and me should still kill him. Having every ounce of flesh and blood burned off of your skeleton is one of those things. Here he regenerates his entire body in about 2 pages. I've been complaining that Wolverine's healing has become too powerful for awhile now, but I've never seen anything like this. This almost made me want to stop reading all comics forever. Ugh. So bad. Many years ago, Wolverine used to be a good character.

- I kept having to remind myself that this was published before the Iron Man movie. Civil War was by far the most important he had ever been in the greater context of the Marvel Universe up until that point. Sure he was a cornerstone of the Avengers, but he never really mattered that much in the way that Spider-Man, or the Hulk, or Captain America, or the X-Men, or the Fantastic Four mattered.

fujishig

The problem I had with Civil War is the problem with most far reaching stories in a place as vast as the Marvel Universe; superhero conflicts had endangered the lives of millions for many, many years, why all of a sudden did the Stamford incident with the New Warriors change all that? Because it was televised? The actions of some of the pro-registration side were pretty sickening too... the thor clone, having the Thunderbolts hunt down heroes, Reed alienating his family, pretty much everything that Iron Man did, etc.

Tony's redemption was a bit of a cop out, but it was still well written and really one of the only ways to do it.

I know people hate on Bendis, but having him at the helm for a long time really helped the Marvel Universe have some direction. For better or worse, his New Avengers was an integral part of nearly every crossover. Civil War was actually a great opportunity to explore some relationships, the why's and how's of having costumed vigilantes be above the law, and some other things. Some writers integrated it really well (I mean, for an event-mandated change, Brubaker rolled with the punches), others didn't, which is why I didn't read every single crossover, but it made a lot of sense that it would impact any title taking place in the US. It's actually kind of a shame that they made it obvious which side was supposed to be "the good guys".

I'd say Tony's elevation kinda happened when Bendis introduced his Illuminati in New Avengers. Somewhere along the way he got like Reed Richards-level brainpower, though, which is hard to reconcile if you remember him from the 80's and early 90's.

rocket1312

That's sort of my point. When reading mainstream super-hero comics, we have all pretty much learned not to think about that kind of stuff because thinking about it would just ruin the fantasy.

The story had this really weird dynamic where the pro-registration side was clearly positioned as the bad guys, but the writers had to go above and beyond to make them the bad guys by having them do all sorts of f'd up stuff because thinking about the issue for more than two seconds would reveal that they were probably right.

davidh777

Tell that to the critics of Man of Steel.

rocket1312

Man, if you thought Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic came off like a-holes in Civil War, then have I got something for you. You could maybe, sort of, kind of make an argument for what they did in sending Hulk off into space, but the twist at the end is completely without justification. Although to be honest, I wasn't sure if that development was intentional or not. I assume it will be addressed in World War Hulk.

As for the story itself, overall it was good fun. This is actually the most Hulk I've ever read, so I have no clue how it fits within the canon of Hulk stories, but I enjoyed it. It was perhaps dragged out a little too long, but that's par for the course with 21st century comics. Marvel especially. My only real complaint is that at various times I found myself getting a little lost story-wise. It wasn't a matter of the plot being too convoluted or anything. It was more like the storytelling wasn't always clear. Whether it was bad layouts or last minute dialog changes after the art was done, I couldn't say. I didn't dig too deep into the issue, but the feeling was definitely there at times.

I have to say that at the end of this thing I couldn't wait to dive into World War Hulk. Never have I wanted so badly to see Hulk smash. Still, I'll probably hold off a bit as I think I need to get caught up on Annihilation and The Initiative before going any further.

rocket1312

So I wrote a whole big thing about how much I enjoyed The Death of Captain America (issues #25-42), but my browser crashed and I lost it. Here's the short version. I love how accessible it is to new readers and at the same time honoring past continuity. I love that despite it's 'grim & gritty' look and feel that it doesn't shy away from goofy comic book stuff like Red Skull's rubber skull mask or anything about Arnim Zola. I love that Brubaker defied all odds and made bringing Bucky back a good thing and that I hope that if the MCU goes in this direction that it lives up to source material. I can't wait to see where Brubaker goes next.