Friday, March 13, 2009

The Invincible Iron Man #11

This has been a very good series so far, for several reasons.

The main one being that Marvel was smart enough to put an excellent writer and artist on the comic. Matt Fraction has turned in some outstanding scripts, with lots of action, plot twists galore and solid characterization.

Salvador Larroca has been very strong on the art, with powerful, iconic images, some good personal moments and clear storytelling. His only weakness is that the disguised Tony doesn't look like Tony because he isn't drawn like Tony - in other words, Larroca is cheating a bit. But that's a small gripe.

The other reason The Invincible Iron Man is a great comic is because the creative team has wisely jettisoned most of the baggage recent years have laid on the character, and recast the characters to make them match the recent hit film (which had a better grip on the characters than the comic has featured in years).

On the down side, we're still dealing with the whole Darn Reign mess, which has Tony on the run from Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R. agents (this week's guess: it stands for He's Awfully Mad and Making Evil Remarks).

That's fine as a temporary storyline, but it's hard to buy Tony being able to keep his zillion-dollar suit of armor running while he's trying to avoid all the Dark Reign flunkies.

But despite that minor quibble, this continues to be one of Marvel's best comics. Recommended!

Grade: B+

No comments: