Iron Man: April 2008 Archives

There are some great, classic Iron Man runs—Armor Wars by David Micheline and Bob Layton immediately springs to mind, as well as Demon In A Bottle.  After the Micheline/Layton team left Iron Man—the first time, around issue #150 or so—Denny O’Neil became the full time writer.  O’Neil’s run lasted from Iron Man #160 to #208, 48 issues, and most of them pretty lame.  I didn’t think that O’Neil was well suited to writing Iron Man.  He was better at writing comics that were more based on character/mood (like Batman or the Question) rather than high tech adventure.  The preceding creative team had developed an incredible amount of new armor and gadgets for ol’ Shellhead.  There was no way that O’Neil could match them on that score, and he didn’t even try.  The one thing he did know how to do was to expand on Stark’s alcoholism.

O’Neil had Stark hit the bottle again—this time harder than ever before.  He lost his company to Obadiah Stane—a character that O’Neil created and is played in the Iron Man film by Jeff Bridges.  Stark lost everything else as well—his homes, his cars, his money, and probably even his porn collection.  He became homeless for a while, eventually hit rock bottom and joined AA.  I have a feeling this was a personal story for O’Neil to tell, but he dragged it out way too long—it took up about 2 years of Iron Man to move this plot along.  In the meantime, Jim Rhodes (Rhodey) got the keys to Stark’s private lab and took over as Iron Man.  This allowed O’Neil to show a neophyte using the armor and learning the capabilites.

But there was a problem: somehow the classic Iron Man armor was designed only for Stark’s brain patterns.   The longer Rhodey wore the armor, the more paranoid he became.  When Stark rejoined Rhodey and his crew, he had no intention of becoming the Armored Avenger once again.  He blamed his superhero alter ego for driving him to drink.  Rhodey was convinced that Stark had come back to take everything away from him—leading to this classic bitch-slap moment.  I wish the sound effect said “bitch!” instead of “blatch!”.

There is no doubt that I am going to see the Iron Man and Hulk movies--heck, I'm sure I'll even buy the DVDs. Although I think if I skipped the movie theater and waited for the DVD in a few months, I'll have saved $10.

The problem is, there's no suspense or surprise with the Marvel movies. Iron Man's trailer gives the whole plot away. The only question in my mind is whether they will kill off Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) by the end of the movie. Likewise, the Hulk movie pretty much lays everything out--I think old Greenskin will batter the Abomination and be somewhat redeemed as an anti-hero. But will the CGI Hulk look better than the previous one? In the trailer he looks pretty fake, a giant green smurf as Kenneth Johnson (CBS Hulk producer) said in a recent Fanboy Radio interview. They would have been better off getting another body builder and painting him green--that might have more heart and emotion. Iron Man can work slightly better because it some scenes it is a Stan Winston suit that Robert Downey or a stuntman is wearing.

I'm more excited about the new Will Smith movie, Hancock. This looks to be loads of fun and even somewhat more realistic. Superheroes flying drunk, smashing into freeway signs and tossing little girls up in the air? Entertainment Weekly suggests that Hancock will outperform both Marvel movies at the box office. Nuff said.