Comic Book Resources has confirmed that the Charles and Daneil Knauf are off Iron Man: Director of SHIELD after announcing Christos Gage will be writing a three part Secret Invasion tie-in featuring War Machine.
It seems that the Knaufs wrote their last issue a little over a month ago with Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #28, featuring the conclusion to their Mandarin storyline.
After the current four issue Stuart Moore penned, With Iron Hands, storyline, Gage will take over until issue #36, when a new creative team will be announced.
Frankly, this saddens me, and I can add Iron Man: Director of SHIELD to the growing pile of reasons why we can't have nice things as the title has been on fire ever since Civil War ended and has been consistently one of the best titles I read every month. The Mandarin storyline has simply been amazing and Iron Man: DoS #25 is already an early front runner for my Best Single Issue of the Year award.
I wonder how long Marvel has known about the Knauf departure or is this the result of the incredible success of the recently launched Invincible Iron Man, leaving little room for the mid-sales level Director of SHIELD in the Marvel line-up?
All I know is that this makes me a sad comic fan right now and Iron Man: Director of SHIELD just moved onto my pull list chopping block.
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5 comments:
Not surprising. The book is being outsold by the Ultimate Iron Man mini, the Knauf's have the Eternals title coming up and Fraction's Iron Man book will probably be a better seller than this title. I am sure the title will probably be canceled soon unless Marvel pulls an Incredible Hulk/Hercules and gives the title to Fury.
The Knaufs had one issue of a new arc (with Madame Masque) solicited, which then got pulled and replaced with Moore's fill-in arc, said at the time to give them some time; it looks to me like the Knaufs' schedules, between The Eternals and Hollywood, caught up; Marvel's added another fill-in arc to give whoever the new team is some advance time.
Odds are this goes to Nick Fury as soon as Secret Invasion finishes, or somewhere around that time. Frowns. Another one bites the dust...
However, I AM looking forward to Eternals, so.
This blog was the reason why I gave this series another chance after the "World War Hulk" tie-ins. I did find the darker art of the Knauf's tenure to harken nicely back to Gene Colan's work. Certainly, it was an improvement over the brighter, cleaner & uninspired art we've had for the last few years. (Patrick Zircher, et. al.)
I do wish I could've found a copy of #25, but with the price of gas these days, I have trouble rationalizing even a monthly trip to the comics shop. I only just picked up the new Iron Man #1 at Borders this weekend (and that's with the "premium" $1 sucker tax that Marvel charges to customers at Border's.)
Thanks to the Knaufs, Marvel finally got off the pot about the Mandarin and figured out an angle for him. The Mandarin's always been the worst enemy Shell-Head ever had, but you'd never know it if you read Iron Man over the last 15 years. In the nineties, John Byrne linked Mandarin's origin to (off all beings) Fin Fang Foom & blew his hands off. A later writer gave him lizard hands & killed him off.
Since 9/11, Marvel has shown off a newer, younger Mandarin waiting in the wings, but they never got to the part where the bad guy does bad things. He last appeared in the "Avengers Disassembled" part of Iron Man, doing nothing but sitting on a throne. Jeez! The Scarlet Witch did more evil than that, and she's one of the GOOD guys!!!
I'll credit the Knaufs for throwing out all that "Young Mandarin" junk and casting the Iron Man's worst nemesis as part-Osama Bin Laden, and part-Tony Stark.
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