Invincible Iron man #2 Review

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #2
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Salvador Larroca

I'm sorry, I just can't take that cover seriously. I laugh everytime I see it.

This issue was roughly the same as the first one. It seems Marvel has tasked Fraction with writing a movie Iron Man for the Marvel Universe, despite flying in the face of everything that's been established since Extremis was introduced. That doesn't make it a bad series, but it does come off as a slap in the face to anyone that's been following along since Ellis relaunched the book and introduced Extremis.

Speaking of Extremis, do the editors or Fraction have any idea what it is? I only ask because they spend a rather lengthy amount of time mimmicking the Iron Man movie with heat seeking missiles chasing Tony around because of his "rocket boots" and having him lament the fact he's still using them. Ever since he's gotten the Extremis powers, the armour hasn't even required the rocket boots or gauntlets to fly. All of the pieces fly on their own, as you can see when he suits up. The red armour pieces fly and attach themselves to the gold part, which is a techno organic sheath that hides in the hollows of his bones and comes out on command. The so-called rocket boots are entirely for show. Best case scenario is they may add some extra speed or help stablize his flight, but he does not need them to fly and it just felt like they wanted to have a movie-like scene of him cutting the jets and blasting the missiles instead of actually knowing the character's current abilities.

Another oddity is his relationship with Pepper. They haven't been an item in years, but they have her returning to form with the jealous act as Tony parties with a bunch of random girls, which is another problem for me. Yes, Tony is the billionaire playboy, but he's currently the head of an international peace keeping organiztion called SHIELD. You may have heard of it. I don't begrudge him partying with the ladies, but he hasn't really been shown to act like this in a long time, especially since his newfound responsibilites and guilt from the fallout of Civil War. I have no problem if they wanted to return him to this role, but it's a drastic switch that seems forced in to tie into the recent movie. Smart business plan and probably a reason the book is doing so well and well received, but not exactly great for longtime readers.

And, no, this isn't an, "oh, it's not Director of SHIELD", bitchfest on my part. It's just the point of view of someone that's been reading Iron Man for a long period of time and not thrilled with the drastic changes and near Brand New Day-like change in character. This issue isn't bad, though, and my complaints are entirely based on the shift in character personalities, relationships and ignoring of recent events to line up with better with a movie.

Picking up on the threads from the debut issue, Invincible Iron Man #2 delivers fun action, in the form of a raid on AGM, the AIM offshoot specializing in genocide, which is lead by none other than MODOG, a genocide version of MODOK. I'm not sure if it's MODOK renaming himself or actually a new version. They never really specify and I'm not up to date on my MODOK history to know if this is him or not. It's a fun battle with some great inner monologue from Tony and the afformentioned movie-like heat seeking missile scene. Good, mindless action that sets the pace for the issue and ends with Tony tossing MODOG into space (uh, did he kill him/it? That confused me a bit).

From there, we get to see Stane's mass production of the Iron Man tech and outfitting of terrorists with the new suicide bomber tech from last issue. The first target of this issue was a group of Phillipine heroes, along with the large crowd of people, who were being honoured for their help with the aftermath of a tsunami that hit the region. There's some really cool looking and named throwaway heroes depicted here and I would honestly have liked to have seen more of these guys before Fraction unceremoniously offed them all with some suicide bombing monks.
The aftermath of the devestating bombing has Iron Man at a funeral for the fallen and who shows up, but the God of Thunder, Thor. He ignores Tony for the entire duration of the funeral, but Tony manages to corner him at the end for a brief chat not unlike the one from JMS's Thor confrontation. There's no fighting between them this time, but there's no love loss either. Thor even goes so far as to "tap" Tony's armour with his hammer, actually chipping it with the light touch, which is overselling Thor's power if you ask me, but humourous nonetheless.

However, I'm still confused why Thor hates Tony so much but has yet to even talk to Reed Richards or Hank Pym, the two guys that, you know, cloned him into a cyborg turned killing machine and were the ones that were controlling Clor in Civil War. Tony barely had anything to do with it and is still getting all the flak and blame from it. Hopefully this non-fight talk is the start of healing the rift between the two heroes.

The issue ends with Stane introducing himself to Tony Stark at a party. Tony, for all his intelligence and cunning memory, doesn't remember Stane and, even after Stane jogs his memory a bit, doesn't seem to connect his presence with any danger until a group of suicide bombers bust through the doors to the party and we end the issue with the upper parts of the building exploding.

Now, Tony has a healing factor that rivals Wolverine, so he should be fine and I imagine Stane has something similar with his newfound powers. I doubt Tony will even be hospitalized after this and I'm surprised there was no SHIELD personel at the party to provide security for a bunch of suicide bombers entering the building and trying to assassinate the director, but it's good action and I imagine that's what this book is going for, opting to leave the more continuity based trappings to the Director of SHIELD title.

Verdict - Check It. With several continuity blunders that several scenes are built on, I'm not inclined to give it a Must Read, but, if you're a new Iron Man reader, I'd imagine this issue would be more than adequate for your tastes and probably a Must Read issue with ease. I suspect Extremis will be on the way out and we'll see a return to classic Tony post-Secret Invasion to play more into this title's strengths.

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