The man without fear makes some pretty amateur moves.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom Taylor
Art: Yidiray Cinar
What They Say:
How much would you pay for perfection, beauty…immortality? TONY STARK is going to find out. The AXIS EFFECT has changed IRON MAN Now HE’S going to change the WORLD…at a terrible cost.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Superior Iron Man certainly had its moments as we got to see a different kind of Tony as he played to being a real capitalist with no thought of others, or at least that’s how it’s presented. With the book taking a second hand view of things rather than giving us a lot of internal dialogue, we got to see how Tony created his new app that transformed the lives of those in San Francisco and made them the best versions of themselves and then take it away, making it an unreachable goal for many. That’s not the Tony that we mostly know, but it’s the darker side of him that’s in control and there is always something interesting to do with characters when they go down that path. The trick is to do it well, which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
We’d seen a bit of Matt Murdock as Daredevil in the first issue as he was trying to figure out what Tony is up to and he’s getting a good taste of it here as people are desperate for money in order to get the app and get back what they lost for even a little while. That obviously doesn’t sit well with Matt and his confrontation with Tony is done in pretty much the worst way possible by going at him in the midst of a party on Stark Island, which is a glittering stylistic jewel of a building sitting atop Alcatraz. It’s a weird view in general and something that stands out in a bad way, even for Tony. We see even more of just how bad Tony has gotten as he makes his point of control with Matt even clearer by tossing him over the edge and into the water, which is not easy for Matt to handle considering his power set.
As time goes on, we see how Tony is marketing and manipulating people with the app while at the same time glorifying himself in a way that gets a whole lot of adulation. Offering free tastes of the app in a new way that also protects him from others is smart in that villainous kind of way and he plays it well, especially as he makes a big show out of an older man confronting him over what he’s done, tying us to what Matt saw at the beginning of the book. It’s a decent PR show that he basically does and it reinforces him as the good guy while doing disturbing things. The back and forth that Matt and Tony do throughout the book has its moments, such as when Matt kidnaps him all too easily and makes a show of it, which Tony returns in kind in a bigger way, but it just has a weird feeling about it. This is a significant event here that’s going on and while Tony isn’t who he used to be, you’d almost imagine that he’d be smarter about doing it. He’s begging to be caught here with his methods and you have to wonder what the trick of it is.
In Summary:
I enjoyed the first issue of Superior Iron Man, but something here just isn’t clicking as well for me. Tony is an overt showman to be sure, but if he’s moved to a darker version of himself, you have to expect he has a lot of things planned to handle any situation. And we do see that here. But it’s still all too showy even for him when you get down to it. I like the idea of what the app is presenting and am curious about the trick of it all that we’re supposed to learn soon. But something like this would have a huge impact far beyond what we’re seeing here, even in the space of a couple of days that the first issue supposedly took place over. There’s fun moments to be had, but I’m not sure that Daredevil is the right counterbalance to it – or if it even really needed a counterbalanced and instead should just play out to its logical conclusion.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 26th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
