IRON MAN vol. 3 #59 (404)
(Nov. 2002) "In Shining Iron, part 1."
Cover art: Mike Grell.
Script: Mike Grell.
Art: Mike Grell.
An archeologist finds something interesting at a dig in Wales -- Iron Man's helmet!! It's dated some 1000 years old, too. So, she contacts Tony Stark to fill him in on the news. "Do you know what this means?" Tony asks Pepper. "The time machine works!" You got it -- Stark has invented a time machine!! So, naturally, he has to go back 1000 years to see what the archeologist's find is all about! He encounters the woman Aislinn, whom he has seemingly rescued, but she later turns the tables on Stark, holding him captive and demanding the secrets of his IM armor. It looks like 'ol Tone is about to be tortured at issue's end, but then we're shocked even further -- the archeologist opens the IM helmet she found...and discovers a bare skull inside it!
Even though the "time travel back (and forth) to Medieval England (Wales)" schtick was done before during the classic Michelinie/Layton runs, Grell looks like he's off on the right track to change the scope of the tale, and he even has Pepper neatly pay homage to IM's past journey to Camelot in one panel. But Mike still needs to do research into IM's armor. For instance, how does the archeologist know what alloy the IM armor is made of? And how can she "find" the release that opens the helmet? People couldn't do that to IM's helmet way back in the ToS days, for heaven's sake! Still, the time machine idea definitely wins points, so I (Hube) give this ish 3 1/2 repulsors!
Fan Reaction: While I appreciate your excitement with the change of direction, I’m afraid I cannot share that excitement.
1) Tony is one who prides himself in inventing something new, NOT duplicating effort. Doom, the FF, and many implementations of magic have achieved time travel before, not to mention the Fourth (?) Reich in the War Machine story. Time Travel is nothing new, so I don’t know why Stark would be excited about doing it himself. Nevermind that the actual trip into the past itself is completely under-presented. We see IM surrounded by fire, calling out commands to deflect the effects of the wormhole, then he’s there. That’s it? He says ‘Whoa – what a trip’, but we didn’t get an inkling that it was all that interesting. A waste of a two-page spread, if you ask me. (and you have asked all of us :-) that’s why we write!)
2) A quick trip to the past makes it even less likely that Stark will have to confront his most recent decision – revealing his identity – not to mention the fact that we have seen NO ramifications from it in the first place. Something that should be the largest impact on the book is relegated to a mere blurb per issue, if that. This is, I’m surprised to find myself saying, the biggest failure Mike Grell has made. He introduces a huge change in status in the book, then completely ignores it. Usually I’d find myself complaining that a new writer wasn’t staying true – or following up on – storylines introduced by a previous writer. Grell isn’t even staying true to himself.
3) The story moves WAAAAAY too quickly once he is in the past. He gets to the past, gets a horse, jumps into a fray (without ANY consideration of not having any idea what’s going on – no, that would be PLOT DEVELOPMENT), gets knocked out, is betrayed – ugh. I could barely keep up.
I could go on, but I should stop. My recommendation would’ve been around 2 pulsors. -- TJ
Fan Reaction 2: Hube, I agree with TJ above.Grell spins a fragile fairytale, things happen too predictably, too fast and it fails to engage the reader. However, there is lightness of humour here and I think that at least is something,Grell asks us to chill and (enjoy?) a simplistic fantasy. Still hate the armor though, something about it reminds me of the Brandy robot thing way back in ROM -- yeeucch! Strangely, Grell's art improves slightly when he inks himself but if Chen won't come back perhaps Paul Ryan could or the great Bob Layton. (I sure wish Jack Kirby was still around -- I'd love his dynamics injected into this mag.) So two 'pulsors and counting. -- michaelian@lineone.net
Fan Reaction 3: As far as IM#59 goes.......UGH!!! If I recall correctly, you mentioned the idea being lifted from Star Trek - yup, it sure was, and rather than borrowing a creative and interesting idea, Grell picked a lousy one :P A lot of technical problems in this ish, too! IRON MAN sitting on a horse - yeah, right - before or AFTER breaking its back? The armor being removed in medieval times? sure...... What about the climactic skull - gee, that's hard to figure out - maybe Tony sets up the bad guy in the armor, and THAT'S who dies in it. As a climax it doesn't really grab me. Then my personal favorite technical problem - Tony's heart needs to be recharged every 24 hours. The time machine lets him be in the past for 40 hours. Pepper says that it leaves Tony a thin margin... Let's do a little math, ok? 40-24 = 16. Hmm...so Tony's a good 16 hours short for a recharge on his ARTIFICAL HEART. Could be a problem, no? Keep in mind Grell established these rules not altogether long ago. Oh and the armor losing polarity....hmmm...I seem to recall Tony couldn't move at times with un-powered armor. Even had Tony been able to move, he sure wouldn't be able to sword fight!! He'd be slow at best. And sorry, but Tony referencing Xena is WAY TOO dated. Besides, dontcha see Tony as more of a Star Wars kinda guy? I sure do!
Oh, and I haven't even covered the characters yet!! Happy the drunk - yeah, I see this train coming. Great. It was so entertaining when we had to put up with Warbird in virtually every issue of Busiek's run. Don't get me wrong - I loved Kurt's run, but Warbird became an annoyance to me at the end because every encounter with her seemed to play out the same way. Tony talking to Happy about it can't go much better, can it? And I really don't care for how Pepper is written these days. She's WAY too bitchy.....yeah, she lost a baby.....yeah, I'm a man and don't know what that's like......y'know what though - Pepper was never the kind to be overtly hostile to Tony. And her line about Tony being so busy because he revealed his secret ID.....hmmm....we haven't really seen Tony being busy, have we? If we have then it's not nearly what I'd view as busy.
Overall I really hated this issue. The character isn't who he's supposed to be, and the stories aren't compelling. Originality is important - but telling a story people WANT to read is more important I think. I wonder why Marvel chose this story over a third helping of Iron Man VS. Dr. Doom..........oh well....... --
Fan Reaction 4: I agree with you in that this issue is the best that Mr. Grell has completed to date. I am going from your rating scale and 3 1/2 is the highest that you have given Mr. Grell. I must say I appreciate the sense of adventure that is provided in the story. The art reminds me of Gene Colan's version from the 60's, and as a result it made me very nostalgic. There were comments that the story moved too quickly. In this day of long drawn out stories with nothing really happening from issue to issue, it is nice to see a light fast paced adventure. Isn't this really what comics is all about? Maybe things have changed or I have missed the point. -- Bob
