Customer Reviews

Iron Man: The Mask in the Iron Man

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Mask in the Iron Man" is one of the more interesting stories since IM got rebooted since Heroes Return. Reason being, Quesada, rather than get caught up in trying to make Iron Man Cool with the latest improbable technology (which he does do), instead focuses on what makes Iron Man work in the first place: character. It's Stark himself, a man who suffers from the threat of heart failure and the relapse of alcoholism, that proves why this character still works after 40 years.

It's also an interesting study on why the armor exists at all in the first place. Is it more to keep threats like the Mandarin or Whiplash out? Or is it to put a barrier between friends and lovers, and himself? The awakening of the armor into sentience (which, I admit is a Rube Goldberg sequence of happenstance so improbable, I had to deduct one star, but it's still a rocking story) asks the old chestnuts "how do we define life" and "what is one life worth" in a whole new frame of reference, not from our P.O.V., but from the armor's AI.

Sean Chen's artwork is dense, but quality, and perfectly compliments Quesada's equally dense prose. Combined they show Tony Stark as the fascinating, contridictory character that he is, and "the Mask in the Iron Man" is a interesting study.

Now if they'll only collect Warren Ellis's "Extremis", I'll be a happy man...

Mask in the Iron Man, by Joe Quesada, Sean Chen and Alitha Martinez, was the first Iron Man tale in quite some time that managed to impress me. I started reading comics in 1989, and after a single issue (#246 in case you were wondering) Iron Man became my favorite Marvel character. Unfortunately I arrived just as the last truly great Iron Man run was ending. Since that point there have been a few good moments, such as John Romita's Armor Wars II and the ill-fated Heroes Reborn series, but for the most part the Iron Man series had been mediocre at best.

The Heroes Return relaunch put the series on a better footing, and with an artist (Chen) who was truly capable of handling the character. Two years into the series, Marvel head honcho Joe Quesada stepped in to handle the writing chores for the issues collected in this trade paperback. The basic premise is this: what would happen if Iron Man's armor gained sentience?

Never mind that the method it gained sentience is borderline absurd (bad Y2K software plus a lightning strike), it was still a fascinating concept. What kind of personality would the world's most technologically advanced weapon have? What would it want? What would it do? And could Tony Stark stop it if he needed to?

Apparently the armor is not unlike a surly adolescent. It wants attention and it is extremely jealous. It proceeds in pure stalker fashion to wreck Tony's life, destroy his relationship, and even kills one of his enemies. This is fascinating stuff, and for the most part Quesada handles the story quite well. Without giving too much away, the ending stretches belief, even by comic book standards. Quite frankly, there's no way the Iron Man suit is even remotely affected by Tony's "Survivor" tricks.

The artwork by Chen and Martinez is first rate. Both artists have a very similar style, and have the ability to inject energy into mundane conversation scenes as much as they do with the fight scenes. I would have much rather seen Joe Quesada provide the artwork for these issues as well (his cover art just made me want more), but I have no real complaints.

It's not perfect, but the series is by far the best Iron Man story I have read since the original Iron Man: Armor Wars saga. My only real complaint is that the Wizard send-away ½ issue, which was part of the story, wasn't included.

I have to say I really enjoyed this collection of issues from the latest Iron Man volume(!), the only part that didn't hold water being the relationship between Tony Stark and Rumiko Fujikawa.
Strange how Joe Quesada managed to actually make us feel sympathy for a deranged suit of sentient armor as it 'falls in love' with its creator, and the desparate battle that ensues is sure to quicken the pulse of loyal readers every time. The part I most enjoyed was the confrontation with Whiplash (formerly Blacklash) despite the kinky garb he was given, the ending of which I reckon would make a fantastic cliffhanger for the end of the long-awaited Iron Man movie- what a shame Tony wakes up and the revealing of his identity was... all a dream!! Maybe in an alternate reality this could have spun the comic into a completely different direction, and I feel it's a pity that it wasn't given a chance. Perhaps they should have kept that one 'in the wood' for a quiet moment in the title, as opposed to stunting this awesome opportunity in the middle of another big story.
As with all graphic novels I love reading comics without the advertisements, and the pace of this story arc is excellent. Give yourself a treat if only for another copy of the fantastic Sean Chen cover from issue #29.

(Honestly I'd give this a 3.5 out of 5-but I want to bring up that silly 1 star rating :)
This story arc was written by Joe Quesada, right before he took over as Marvel's Editor in Chief. It's a fun, well written concept. Tony Stark's current model armor gains sentience, and while it isn't really malevolent, it basically ends up wrecking his life. The art has a high tech, fairly realistic look to it that works perfectly for Iron Man. Regarding the other posters comment about Quesada "learning to write from Kevin Smith movies"-that's ironic for two reasons. First, of course, Smith is an extremely talented writer (and he has the awards to prove it). Second, Joe Quesada was the artist for Kevin Smith's run on Daredevil-a book that's also available from Amazon, and definitely worth getting.

Why this was made into a TPB, especially so soon after the original comics' publication, is beyond me. Quesada takes a good idea -- Iron Man's armor coming to life -- and does a decent job of it. (Although not as good as Mike Saenz did with the all-computer-generated-art graphic novel CRASH.) The living armor's origins are pretty apocryphal (the "Y2K bug?" Come ON!), but it gets pretty spooky when the armor gets nasty -- in particular when it "deposits" Tony Stark on a desert island so that he can ponder whether he should join w/the armor or not!

The events of this TPB are being expounded upon in Iron Man's title even now, so many of its aspects may be rendered moot.

This is a fantastic story! I don't see why people hate it so much. It basicly goes from a plot idea of "What if Tony's Iron Man suit became sentient - that it became self aware. Also has touching ending.

Joe Quesada isn't the worst IM writer ever but he is far from the best (With Dave and Bob I doubt anyone ever can be) The Sentient Armor was a silly idea to begin with so and their wasn't much that Joe Quesada could do to pull it out of the fire. And to the reviewer that was dissing Kevin Smith...I think you don't know what comedy is....

I used to think Iron Man was a stupid idea with a stupid costume. I was at the library looking for a comic to check out when I saw this. I looked at it, curious to see what was behind the cool looking cover. I liked the artwork(bad artwork turns a good comic story to garbage) and I thought the Idea of a hero stripped of his super powers(or armor), and forced to face them was pretty cool.

I think there where a few things I found frustrating, like Tony's relationship with Ru feels like it's falling apart( I find that frustrating), and the battles could have been more exiting(more heavily speed lined, different angles, more dramatic reactions, etc.). There were 3 to 6 fights of so.

Tony's armor is, to him, a menace. He tries to teach it to be a hero, because he can't kill it. It's to powerful. The armor get's the wrong idea and kills someone. the situation is very touchy, one wrong move and your dead. Thats the exitement.

The thing I think that sort of kripples the comics spice is all the words. He's telling the story to you, then there's all the talking. He(Tony) tells the story even in fights, which intimidates readers. It could have been made better (nearly everything in life could be better) but that doesn't mean it's bad. You might be the type who likes to read lots of diologue.