Written by Nick Spencer
Illustrated by Kano
FEAR ITSELF TIE-IN! China is about to become scorched earth! The monstrous agents of FEAR ITSELF rip across the continent, as War Machine and the Immortal Iron Fist finally live up to their mysterious destiny! And will Marvel’s newest hero unite Rhodey and the Immortal Weapons…or tear them apart?!Don’t you love wrong solicitations?
Firstly: What a confusing title/numbering combination. Secondly: I read the first two or three issues of Nick Spencer’s Iron Man 2.0, but that’s it. They weren’t bad, by any means, but I just lost interest and forgot about them. Still, I love Morning Glories and Infinite Vacation, so when Marvel gives me the chance to jump back onto a book by the same writer, I take it. Was taking that chance a good idea or not? That, my dear readers, you’ll have to see after the cut.
When Marvel announced their Point One initiative, I was 100% behind it – providing each issue was done “right.” What qualifies as right, you ask? Simple:
The issue tells a good story (of course).
The issue doesn’t take a big info dump on the reader in order to get them “caught up.”
That’s it, really. Unfortunately, it seems like Spencer failed on both counts with this issue. Let’s start with the second bullet point (which has a big effect on the first). So much of this issue is dedicated to letting us know just what has been happening in title so far. That’s not so bad – hell, that’s the point of one of these Point Ones – but the way writer Nick Spencer tries to get that information across just doesn’t work. I can see what he’s going for; in reality, military groups will often go through briefings and retread material that they know forward and backwards just as a matter of protocol. Just because something seems “real,” though, doesn’t make it a good read. I don’t need explosions and punches, but four pages of people just standing around and summarizing? That doesn’t do it for me.
There is also, of course, the secondary story going on in the background of the issue regarding the fictional “President Nabavi.” Here we have the same sort of thing going on as with the exposition problem: I see what Spencer meant to do, but it just didn’t work out well. The question of “are the villains our superheroes face as bad as the bad-guys of real life?” is certainly a good one to ponder on, but Spencer spent too much time setting it up that – when combined with the pages lost to the prior-mentioned expository dialogue – there was no space left for actually tying it into the story at hand. Honestly, I get the feeling that Spencer reached that last page and realized “…shit, I still have to tie that subplot up.” The end result is it just comes out of left field, and ruins something that truly could have made for a great issue. It’s a good idea at its heart, but what you’re trying to say is no more important than how you say it.
I know that I said that I don’t need explosions and punches, but the best part of this comic is the fight scene. I know, I know, but it really is. The four pages on which it occurs are expertly paced, and artist Kano really makes each blow resonate. Still, the battle is hollow – and not for the reasons that Spencer wants it to be. Even with all the information we are given, it’s an incredibly standard “hero swoops in, beats up the baddie ,and goes on his way” sort of thing. Granted, that was probably part of Spencer’s underlying point – a way to make his underlying message more powerful – but since that message doesn’t really take off, it just seems like Spencer fumbled. Which… well, he kind of did.
This issue doesn’t really affect my opinion doesn’t particularly hurt my opinion of Spencer as a writer – and certainly not of Kano as an artist, though maybe he isn’t as good with subtler things such as the page where the woman is rearranging the furniture – but it certainly doesn’t make me want to get the issues of Iron Man 2.0 that I missed. Between this and his Secret Avengers issues, I think Spencer is too concerned with telling superhero stories that “matter” and is letting that get in the way of actually telling a good story. He can spin a hell of a great tale, but this is not a good example of his work.
Final Verdict: 4.0 – Browse and form your own opinion.
