Customer Reviews

Iron Man: The Inevitable

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Iron Man has always been my favorite Marvel character, but it had been a while since I read a really impressive Iron Man story. Then Warren Ellis and Adi Granov delivered their amazing Iron Man Vol. 1: Extremis story arc, which totally reignited my interest in the character. Coming hot on the heels of Extremis is Joe Casey and Frazer Irving's Iron Man: the Inevitable. How does it measure up? Read on.

With Inevitable, Casey brings back some of the better characters from Iron Man's rogues gallery, specifically Spymaster, the Living Laser, and the Ghost, who I always thought had the potential to be a truly great villain. These three villains, directly and indirectly, team up to tear down everything Tony Stark has built up. What they encounter is an angrier Iron Man who has lost his appetite for duking it out with every nut job in a fancy costume. I found Inevitable to be a very interesting tale. It's a great look at what drives a man like Tony Stark and what fuels the average super-villain's need for conflict. I was a bit frustrated that the major effect of the Extremis story wasn't explored in greater detail, but I guess that will come later.

Poor Frazer Irving had the unenviable task of following up Adi Granov's brilliant painted Iron Man artwork, but I think he did quite well. It's completely unlike anything you'd expect to see in an Iron Man book, instead looking like a Matt Wagner/Teddy Kristiansen Grendel series. Still, the very stylized artwork is a treat, and is far more enjoyable than what you'd typically see in a superhero book.

Overall, Casey and Irving deliver a solid Iron Man story that should please most Iron Man fans. Both creators have an obvious appreciation for Iron Man history, which is a big plus in my book. Some of Irving's "flashback" panels took me right back to those classic Bob Layton issues.
Inevitable may not be at the same caliber as Extremis, but it is definitely a worthy addition to the Iron Man saga.

This is the second Joe Casey scripted Marvel comic I've read in as many months featuring a non-corporeal villain. And both were published nearly simultaneously in 2006.

In First Family, the Fantastic Four's nemesis was the evil German scientist Dr Franz Stahl, bombarded by cosmic radiation and able to inhabit the subconscious mind of other human beings. Here in Inevitable it's the Living Laser, a villain made of light and now encased at Star Laboratories, where Tony Stark hopes to rehabilitate his former foe with the help of a professional psychoanalyst, who thanks to some spiffy technology is able to inhabit her subject's photonic mind.

In the end the scheme goes kaput and the Living Laser escapes, but before we can get to the action we have to sit through four issues of setting-up-the-big-idea, scene after scene of goading and temptation as a host of villains, costumed and otherwise, tempt Tony Stark with offers of violence and booze to draw him into routine patterns of alcoholic and super-heroholic behavior. Stark thinks that since he's publicly revealed his identity as the man in the iron suit, he's past all that now. But that's not to be. That Stark is able to refuse drink belies inevitability, at least where chemical dependency is concerned. Being a superhero, as Doc Sampson reminds us, is something else. And so it's left to the butler, on the final page, to deliver the one-line-summation-of-theme: "To evolve is a process . . . not a destination."

As with First Family, the best part of Inevitable is the artwork, in this case painted by Frazer Irving in a minimalist style with swathes of solid colors. The style is particularly suited to action sequences, where a stroke or two help convey movement. The lack of detail, though, makes this style less suited to more static images, which this book is full of, a veritable collection of talking heads. If you're looking for an "action-packed" adventure, this is most certainly not it. If you're looking for something introspective, it might do in a pinch, if you can stomach a lecture on the meaning of life and sacrifice from Doc Sampson.