Invincible Iron Man From the Beginning

[HeroxMatt2.0]

Invincible Iron Man #2: Five Nightmares, Part Two: Murder, Inc.

General Thoughts: Visually, this is a really impressive book. Probably my favourite of the story arc! We get some great faces that are really expressive. M.O.D.O.G is also a treat to see and the opening action sequence is very well done. Panel layout and structure is also well used her (of note, the scene where Iron Man looks over the planet), which is a layout that Larroca comes to use more often in later issues.

One line that caught my eye, however, was Tony saying to Rhodey, “We’re piloting neutron bombs with facemasks”. I kind of disagree with this, as Iron Man (at least many times in the past) has been mentioned as being a tool used for saving lives, not for bombing things. Contrary to the times Fraction says it, the repulsor rays actually do have protective functions that can help with things like cleanup and building preservation.
Also, as a Filipino-Australian, I can’t help but think the introduced Triumph Division got the short straw in this issue.



Introduced, and within a matter of pages, they’ve been blown up. Bummer, huh? And there aren’t really many of those Buddhist monks that I’ve seen Manila, the ones Fraction used.

Also, “the job is its own reward” speech is a great way to start the issue.

NIGHTMARES.

It seems the nightmare theme has continued into this issue –as it should. It works as an over-arching connection between the actions of Ezekiel Stane and the responses from Iron Man. Because of this, the issue gives one of my favourite lines of dialogue in the whole story arc. It starts by Tony narrating: “Why is it so hard for us to imagine the impossible?” Well, because...



And then ends with: “That somehow ... somewhere ... in the world, the nightmare is becoming real.”

I find it to be a very – not profound, but probably only a few small steps away – that gives us a nice insight into superheroes in general. How often do we hear Spider-Man say something to the effect of “If I weren’t joking, I’d be crying”, or just the very sense of superheroes never giving up? It’s because to them, to heroes, there’s no such thing as impossible. To them, everything is achievable and to accept the impossible would be to give up. And giving up isn’t something Tony does all that often, if ever.

But no matter how much you might try to ignore it, the nightmare still happens. The impossible is still happening all around you. And this seems to be the case for Iron Man. His fifth nightmare in particular (that the person making his Iron Man cheap, easy to use and disposable is not him) becomes even more evident in this issue. The very transition between the aforementioned quote is to a scene of Ezekiel, watching his terror unleashed on the world.
Fraction has said of Zeke:

“Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist, he has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn’t want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. He’s the open source to Stark’s closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He’s a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile. That absolutely flies in the face of Tony’s received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He’s a much smarter, more mobile, and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.”

(“Much smarter” is debatable.)

But this is what seems to be the nightmare that Tony keeps talking about. The fact that, though he admits he’s a futurist in this issue, he is still fighting and thinking in a 20th century frame of mind. That Zeke’s tactics, his very being, is that of someone who is thinking in the 21st century framework. The two themes, nightmares and technology, are coming together ever closer. Tony’s repulsor technology is becoming a tool of destruction in the form of suicide bombings, something Tony had never thought would’ve happened.



TECHNOLOGY.

Zeke Stane really comes into his own this issue. He has a fantastic scene where we are in on his temporary bases, and he’s getting geared up for some surgery work. The patient? Religious fanatics who are being fitted with exploding, repulsor arcs. We also have Sparky as a means to explore more of Stane’s mindset: he’s making (as shown above) repulsor tech cheap, and easy to use. Stane makes for a very entertaining villain, at least for me, as he’s more of a “digital age” villain as opposed to some of Tony’s more Cold War-origin villain. He’s someone who can match Tony’s intellect, and is now beginning to match his tech, as well.
And he does it all with a smile on his face (and his surgery mask).

It’s a gruesome thing, the scenes we get, adding to the visceral impression we’re getting of Stane. He works in a bloodied, dirty base while Tony is on his way to a wonderful, rich gala to celebrate intellect and sponsors and beautiful women. They are almost the same being, one wonders how Stane would have turned out if not for his father’s abuse (as we later see) and without an ingrained desire to better Tony Stark.
But when these two meet, what could have been an interesting conversation between two geniuses who are almost on the same page, disaster strikes. Tony’s nightmare has come to hit him in the face. Only problem is – it seems it’s hit Pepper over the head.

NEXT: Pepper Potts at the End of the World AND how There is Creation in Destruction!

[Nitz the Bloody]

It's funny that you should invoke the car stuff, because that's one thread that's been untouched for a while amidst all the FI stuff and then the current gambit with Mandarin and co. Hopefully there will be a good conclusion to that plot thread that doesn't fall flat.

I think the Octavius debacle is a bad example to bring up. By emphasizing on how uninspired and inferior Otto is through all those flashbacks, and then actually having Tony go on his knees to that man in the end, there is again some unintended focus on how ultimately incompetent Tony was in that situation. This may have been ultimately a twisted large scale sadomasochist scheme for Octavius, but the fact that Tony couldn't figure out any other way whatsoever and had to ultimate enable this pathetic man doesn't work well for the narrative. Yeah, Otto had all the bases covered and this might have been the only option, but IMO then such a story shouldn't have been told in the first place. It's like telling a story where Superman has to ultimately concede all the demands of a terrorist in a hostage situation, upon which the terrorist gets away scott free and Supes doesn't have any way to catch him, not now, not later. Such a completely untenable situation is not out of the realm of possibility, but depicting it in excruciating detail in a comic would be a bad choice, IMO. There is cynical, and there's utterly defeatist. There's nothing to take away from such a story. Yeah, Tony prevented X amount of people dying by flagellating himself to Octopus, but what's to say that he/some other hero won't have to face a very similar situation with much higher stakes with no way out as in here? Tony accomplished utterly nothing, except maybe living to fight another day. He's utterly outmatched by a foe who is constantly shown to be his inferior, and that sort of leaves a bitter, tangy aftertaste by the story's conclusion.

I liked the first couple of issues of the FI tie-ins, esp. the Paris ones. But ultimately it doesn't end in a moral victory, rather in a humiliation, with Odin basically taking pity on a petulant Tony and restoring those people via some good ole Asgardian deus ex machina. He is completely out of his element, and it only takes that humongous verbal and physical thrashing to understand that in that epilogue. It's a bad end to his character progression in the FI tie-ins- from utter despair to apathy (which is why he got drunk with all those dwarves) to burgeoning determination to...petulance? Where is the moral victory in that?

The Titanomechs...well, at the moment they are little more than plot devices. You can't infuse gravitas into a plot device. And they aren't very unique plot devices either, even in the context of this particular book. Technology running out of control has come into play several times in Iron-man's history...from the top of my head, there's Armor Wars, then the bit with the Sentient Armor at Y2K, the Argonauts which went rogue and Tony had to personally stop a couple of them, then Mandarin's previous scheme to turn Extremis into an airborne virus. The Oppenheimer/Nobel trope, i.e. creators lamenting over their creations being used for unintended, often catastrophic purposes, has seen its fair share of usage in this series. That being said, common tropes aren't inherently bad, the trick is to put a unique spin on them, and flesh this particular variation out so it doesn't encroach into cliche territory. We haven't seen such application of the trope yet in what we have seen of Fraction's run so far, so I am not really taking this stuff seriously until they are sufficiently established as a unique and major threat.

Titanomechs or no Titanomechs, Mandarin remains a punk. Now I can deal with Ezekiel Stane with being a short-sighted, narrow-minded punk, but with Mandarin it seems like a peacock being forced to don a crow's clothes. I know, a lot of evil folks are supposed to be petty, but with such a large cast of villains as in this book you would think that we would get at least one credible megalomaniac among the rest.

I get what you're saying about the Doctor Octopus issue, and I definitely see flaws in the story, but I like it because it's such an unusual way to resolve a superhero battle. In most cases, superiority is determined by physical or intellectual force; the hero wins because they could out-fight and/or out-think the villain. Here, all the action is contextualized not in terms of how they fight, but how they live. Tony lost the fight but saved the people because he was willing to sacrifice his pride for actual lives. After the battle, Tony goes back to his life, where he spends every day thinking about how he can help people live better. Meanwhile, Octavius goes back to what pitiful existence he has left, driven entirely by settling his grudges against various people. It's especially clear when we see the flashbacks, and how Tony has grown so much since he was just a trust fund brat, while Octavius has just descended into his pettiness.

Similarly, Tony wasn't begging Odin for help, but calling him on his egotism; submitting to a higher power while mocking said higher power for needing weaker lifeforms to submit. And it was also a test of Tony's own conviction, having to keep a relapse from turning into an all-out binge. You'll notice that even when he's plastered and working with the similarly plastered dwarves, he's still focused on the task at hand, and trying to be the commanding leader that would get the dwarves to make the weapons. Even at his absolute lowest point, where his self-hatred is at its highest for giving into his addiction, Tony still moved forward and did the right thing.


That's what makes Fraction's Iron Man so interesting, because it has a hero focused on the big picture outside of the battles. And it isn't even in terms of giving everyone the tech to live in a utopia (a premise I find extremely stupid and boring), but about changing the mentality that approaches that tech. And the Titanomechs are the opposite of that. They're not villains per se because they're not individuals; similar to Sublime in Grant Morrison's X-Men, they're a viral idea, a force that influences others to give into their lowest points. They appear in Tony's dreams as a sign of the kind of person he thought he used to be, a reason why he didn't want to come back to life. And they influence the Mandarin with a plan that appeals to his lowest instincts, since for all his posturing, the Mandarin is nothing more than a brute obsessed with power. (And unlike other Marvel megalomaniacs like Dr. Doom and Magneto, he doesn't show any redeeming characteristics.)

[HeroxMatt2.0]

That's what makes Fraction's Iron Man so interesting, because it has a hero focused on the big picture outside of the battles.

That's a good point, apart from Stane, he's mostly been indifferent to the fisticuffs. Of course, when others have been in danger, he's been fighting back (like in Resilient, when the Detroit Steels put innocent lives at risk). But even when it came to Mandarin and his forces, Tony had a plan. If it meant losing, then so be it.

[TonyStark1012]

I get what you're saying about the Doctor Octopus issue, and I definitely see flaws in the story, but I like it because it's such an unusual way to resolve a superhero battle. In most cases, superiority is determined by physical or intellectual force; the hero wins because they could out-fight and/or out-think the villain. Here, all the action is contextualized not in terms of how they fight, but how they live. Tony lost the fight but saved the people because he was willing to sacrifice his pride for actual lives. After the battle, Tony goes back to his life, where he spends every day thinking about how he can help people live better. Meanwhile, Octavius goes back to what pitiful existence he has left, driven entirely by settling his grudges against various people. It's especially clear when we see the flashbacks, and how Tony has grown so much since he was just a trust fund brat, while Octavius has just descended into his pettiness.

Similarly, Tony wasn't begging Odin for help, but calling him on his egotism; submitting to a higher power while mocking said higher power for needing weaker lifeforms to submit. And it was also a test of Tony's own conviction, having to keep a relapse from turning into an all-out binge. You'll notice that even when he's plastered and working with the similarly plastered dwarves, he's still focused on the task at hand, and trying to be the commanding leader that would get the dwarves to make the weapons. Even at his absolute lowest point, where his self-hatred is at its highest for giving into his addiction, Tony still moved forward and did the right thing.


That's what makes Fraction's Iron Man so interesting, because it has a hero focused on the big picture outside of the battles. And it isn't even in terms of giving everyone the tech to live in a utopia (a premise I find extremely stupid and boring), but about changing the mentality that approaches that tech. And the Titanomechs are the opposite of that. They're not villains per se because they're not individuals; similar to Sublime in Grant Morrison's X-Men, they're a viral idea, a force that influences others to give into their lowest points. They appear in Tony's dreams as a sign of the kind of person he thought he used to be, a reason why he didn't want to come back to life. And they influence the Mandarin with a plan that appeals to his lowest instincts, since for all his posturing, the Mandarin is nothing more than a brute obsessed with power. (And unlike other Marvel megalomaniacs like Dr. Doom and Magneto, he doesn't show any redeeming characteristics.)

Very well said. I definitely see the same as you on Tony and Odin. i know that's what Fraction wanted to show with Doc Ock and I got that. It was just very very hard for me to see my hero bow to that piece of garbage.

[JessieMidnight]

Hey HeroMatt, this thread is great. It's been a great read already, and I'm sure it's going to continue being great.

[HeroxMatt2.0]

Hey HeroMatt, this thread is great. It's been a great read already, and I'm sure it's going to continue being great.

Thanks Jessie, I'm glad you think so. I hope you enjoy what's to come as well.

[CTpitch]

This thread is amazing great work matt

[HeroxMatt2.0]

This thread is amazing great work matt

Thanks CTpitch - what do you think of my first two issues so far?

[xheight]

That's a good point. I've always enjoyed Fraction's dialogue (although at times it sounds like stuttering) but I think that his "questioning" as you said, is all good. There are so many other writers who ask questions, but never seem to answer them. Isn't that what philosophers have been doing for the last few thousand years? But in all seriousness, I think as we get along through Five Nightmares, answers do begin to unravel, particularly towards the end. This is one of the few arcs where there are answers, and victories, that come from Tony/Iron Man. Walls are built, broken down, and then rebuilt a lot stronger by the end of the arc.

Speaking of as it continues through the arc, here's #2.

Let me know what those answers are when you get there Matt because I got was a backloaded answer to everything in this title by Fraction is altruism. ???

What is most wrong with this title is that it poses as an exploration when in fact it is a confused tract against ethical egoism

My quick take on issue two was posted back then at http://xheight.wordpress.com/2008/06...-2-murder-inc/

PS - in that panel where IM is looking down on earth, is that a comment on satellite/sdi techbeing a matter of the past?

[HeroxMatt2.0]

The way I took it, it was drawing a parallel with superheroes being the "modern gods": they're above everyone else and yet, those below them, are the ones that are actually progressing. The 20th century way of thinking and that kind of moral code is restricting them more than it is helping others. Because of it, Tony realises, people are being turned into suicide bombers and killing dozens of people at a time.

[xheight]

The way I took it, it was drawing a parallel with superheroes being the "modern gods": they're above everyone else and yet, those below them, are the ones that are actually progressing. The 20th century way of thinking and that kind of moral code is restricting them more than it is helping others. Because of it, Tony realises, people are being turned into suicide bombers and killing dozens of people at a time.

I am not getting the 'because they act like gods people become bombs'?

I can see

The doctrine of asymmetric warfare views suicide attacks as a result of an imbalance of power, in which groups with little significant power resort to suicide bombing as a convenient tactic (see advantages noted above) to demoralize the targeted civilians or government leadership of their enemies. Suicide bombing may also take place as a perceived response to actions or policies of a group with greater power.

but it is not as if Super Heroes rule over people or even as if they are positioned as extentions of imperial power in the comics universe. The reverse really as Marvel posits their heroes as some what subversive. btw what is so 20th cent. as a moral code? I don't think either you or Fraction has a clear idea of what that is except an opaque 'more equality/equity for all' n'est-ce pas?

Nitz at least seems to be on board with the programatic situating of Stark as cyberpunk protagonist entailing many of its notions of a culture revolution that effects power relations. Like that subgenre though that politic is so eighties.

[warriorfist]

I get what you're saying about the Doctor Octopus issue, and I definitely see flaws in the story, but I like it because it's such an unusual way to resolve a superhero battle. In most cases, superiority is determined by physical or intellectual force; the hero wins because they could out-fight and/or out-think the villain. Here, all the action is contextualized not in terms of how they fight, but how they live. Tony lost the fight but saved the people because he was willing to sacrifice his pride for actual lives. After the battle, Tony goes back to his life, where he spends every day thinking about how he can help people live better. Meanwhile, Octavius goes back to what pitiful existence he has left, driven entirely by settling his grudges against various people. It's especially clear when we see the flashbacks, and how Tony has grown so much since he was just a trust fund brat, while Octavius has just descended into his pettiness.

Similarly, Tony wasn't begging Odin for help, but calling him on his egotism; submitting to a higher power while mocking said higher power for needing weaker lifeforms to submit. And it was also a test of Tony's own conviction, having to keep a relapse from turning into an all-out binge. You'll notice that even when he's plastered and working with the similarly plastered dwarves, he's still focused on the task at hand, and trying to be the commanding leader that would get the dwarves to make the weapons. Even at his absolute lowest point, where his self-hatred is at its highest for giving into his addiction, Tony still moved forward and did the right thing.


That's what makes Fraction's Iron Man so interesting, because it has a hero focused on the big picture outside of the battles. And it isn't even in terms of giving everyone the tech to live in a utopia (a premise I find extremely stupid and boring), but about changing the mentality that approaches that tech. And the Titanomechs are the opposite of that. They're not villains per se because they're not individuals; similar to Sublime in Grant Morrison's X-Men, they're a viral idea, a force that influences others to give into their lowest points. They appear in Tony's dreams as a sign of the kind of person he thought he used to be, a reason why he didn't want to come back to life. And they influence the Mandarin with a plan that appeals to his lowest instincts, since for all his posturing, the Mandarin is nothing more than a brute obsessed with power. (And unlike other Marvel megalomaniacs like Dr. Doom and Magneto, he doesn't show any redeeming characteristics.)

With the Octavius thing...I guess we are just focusing on different aspects of the story. Sometimes, the centerpiece isn't as appealing as the accompanying minor elements. I am of the opinion, though, that a ruined core aspect devalues the entire thing by a great degree. What you pointed out about Tony and his approach to day-to-day life, that's not exactly a variable aspect in regards to this particular situation. Super-heroes in general are like that- it's not a great revelation that saves the story, at least to me, from the unpalatable nature of it's narrative endpoint. The situation, ultimately, was a detour either way- it didn't matter if Tony won or not, Octavius was always going to be petty and Tony was always going to be his 'better' for doing what he does to save lives. His heroism is not in doubt, and neither does his desire to solve real world dilemmas merit some extraordinary notice. Even Superman, the most corporate superhero of them all, was in a mood over dealing with the famine situation in Somalia back in this month's Action and how his Justice League buddies aren't that keen on interfering with situations that don't have aliens trying to conquer the world or something similar. Tony's character arc handling his change from uncaring weapons dealer to a thinker who's all about making long-lasting solutions was handled ages ago. Dragging it up again and again for drama fodder doesn't add some new relevance to the matter to me.

Thus I don't see Tony moving on to do better things and Otto going on to do his usual stuff as a moral victory. This was always going to happen. It's like saying 'well, at least the Sun is going to rise in the East tomorrow, so it's not a total loss'. It reeks of rationalisation, to me.

I am not as miffed with the Fear Itself arc as I obviously am with the Octopus debacle, and the major problem I had with it specifically relates to the ending. I get what you are saying about persevering through a difficult time in his life and focusing on the important thing, his will to live and his desire to end that particular conflict. It's something inherent in a lot of key individuals like Spider-man, for instance, this driving force that leads them on the path to do the right thing all the time. No gripe with that, at all; just that the story ended specifically on the note that Tony is powerless and insignificant against the machinations of the Asgardians. There is great arc of him coping with his initial shock to the devastation and rising to the circumstance with how he essentially delivered the day for the Avengers, but it regresses back to that initial theme of powerlessness with how Odin handles the climax. Tony doesn't ask for his help, but what he does is throw a tantrum at the guy. I find the subsequent conclusion, with Odin restoring Paris and Tony going "Lucky you, lucky us' to be recursive in a thematic sense. The story seemed to be headed in a direction that suggested that Man, by accepting his insignificance in the face of cosmic-scale happenings, strives to protect and work towards those things that matter to him the most, and ultimately can thus live a full, productive life. Instead it goes back to a backwards viewpoint that we are truly screwed in some situations unless a higher power actively takes pity on us and just reverses the malady like it's nothing. Which isn't necessarily wrong, but it clashes with the forward momentum of the previous direction.

And that bit about Odin needing people to worship him to sustain power...that's not the case in mainstream MU, not even in Fraction's "I-make-it-up-as-I-go-along' continuity. Because this same Odin apparently razed the Earth, people and all, to remove his brother from power so he doesn't need humans that much. The Asgardians survived as obsolete religious entities pretty well for the last couple of centuries, I think.

About the Titanomechs- I find the concept of idea warfare interesting as well, but honestly this is mostly speculation between fans at the moment. If this is indeed the direction Fraction is going for, a little more heft to the threat in the near future would be much appreciated. Now that the perspective is slowly moving towards the conflict between Tony and Mandarin's alliance, hopefully it will be brought up with more deserving frequency.

As for Mandarin being a villain without no redeeming characteristics...honestly, I wouldn't know for sure. The most exposure I have had to him is in the 90's IM cartoon, and my memory is hazy from that, and the one thing I do remember is his previous appearance in the Knauff's run. He actually believed he was helping humanity in there and had a very paternal, fatherly demeanor when he wasn't being so badass. Maybe similar portrayals with redeeming features are very much the exception rather than the rule with him. If that's true, it's a bit disappointing, since Tony really doesn't have a foe who's on equal footing with him. There is a lot of mileage to be had from future stories when your Reed Richards-type character has a Doctor Doom, IMO.

[warriorfist]

“Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist, he has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn’t want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. He’s the open source to Stark’s closed source oppressiveness. He has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He’s a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile. That absolutely flies in the face of Tony’s received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He’s a much smarter, more mobile, and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.”

I think I liked this aspect about Stane the most, specifically with Stane being the Linux to Stark's Windows. It really gave an evolve or die dichotomy to the central conflict, whether Tony was going to come out of this game of technological one-upmanship ahead or be made obsolete by a low-cost competitor. It's got this aura of reverse innovation to it that appeals to the economics enthusiast in me.

[HeroxMatt2.0]

Yeah, it makes for an obvious, but strong analogy, right warriorfist?

I am not getting the 'because they act like gods people become bombs'?

Oops my phrasing was wrong: it isn't because they're acting like gods that people become bombs, it's because villains are developing and their mindset is changing. Instead of villains using sticky goo or gas to terrorise people like back in the day of comics, now they're becoming more violent. The heroes, however, aren't developing with them to fight back this new kind of villainy. And I guess what I think is a 20th C code is that the heroes are like you said, so concerned with the equality of everyone, that they don't want to kill or that they don't want to have to resort to tactics that aren't valorous. That's what this comic seems to be saying, although many others in Marvel have shown that they are developing: heroes have been doing what they have to for years, like Wolverine and the Punisher.

And I don't disagree with the last point.

[HeroxMatt2.0]

Here's the next installment for #3.