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Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1: The Five Nightmares (2008)

by Matt Fraction(Favorite Author)

4.07 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Marvel

series

The Invincible Iron Man

review 1: Tony Stark has a few nightmares that keep him up at night. One of those is that someone will improve the Iron Man technology and that someone won't be him. The son of an old foe comes onto the scene and he has upgraded the technology in terrifying ways and cannot be bought over or stopped. Or so it seems. Considering how terrible the tech is on its own, and Pepper's own feelings on it when she has to deal with a lot of it herself, you can't help but fear right along with Tony. The Epilogue story with Spiderman though shows another aspect of Tony. Man did I want to punch Spiderman a lot of that story though. Very helpful but also very annoying.
review 2: The Invincible Iron Man series by Matt Fraction is a good place to begin with Iron Man comics for fans of the... more Robert Downey Jr. movies, though it does have some events that may be confusing to the uninitiated. I am no expert on comics, though I have some experience reading Marvel comics and watching Linkara's reviews on Atop The Fourth Wall."The Five Nightmares" in the title refers mostly to Tony Stark's fear that his enemies will find out how to build Iron Men of their own, or even surpass Tony Stark. The reason why Stark Industries does not manufacture Iron Man suits for the masses is precisely because bad guys might get them. His fears are confirmed when Ezekiel Stane, son of long-time villain Obadiah Stane (the Jeff Bridges character in the movie), acquires old pieces of Stark Industries technology and starts a business that profiteers from terrorism. A series of unusually powerful suicide bombings strike a Tanzanian village, a ceremony to honor Filipino superheroes, and a Stark Industries party in Taiwan. Iron Man attends the funeral for the victims of the attack in the Philippines and has a brief argument with Thor (it's kind of funny to have a Christian funeral when a Norse god in full regalia is one of the mourners, by the way). Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow in the movies) is injured in the Taiwan attack, and Tony Stark sees Zeke Stane walking away smiling.The Chinese government drives Tony Stark away in remote-controlled mechs, because it secretly desires Stark Industries secrets that might be in the building's remains. Stark discovers that they tried to place a tracking bug on his Iron Man suit, and gets the idea to use a similar idea after playing a game of chess with Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. Stark decides to sell off some of his obsolete equipment with hidden tracking bugs to the black market, and Zeke Stane takes the bait. Stark finds out that Stane is planning to attack every Stark Industries factory at once with his army suicide bombers. Remote controlled Iron Man suits and SHIELD soldiers (the agency that Tony Stark directs that's connected to the Avengers) are able to stop most of the attacks, but Stark is forced to use EMPs to disable the electronics. This trick allows Stane to use up most of his energy fighting the robots rather than the actual Stark (it seems like Stark has learned a few tricks from Dr. Doom) Stark and Stane take off the suits and have to fight using only their own martial arts skills.Stark is rebuilding his business in the next issue, and fighting a few more enemies in New York City, including the Spider-Man villain Tinkerer. Spider-Man comes to assist, but Stark does not want his help because Spider-Man is an unregistered superhero and therefore a fugitive. This is where non-comics readers may wonder why Iron Man is acting like more of a jerk than usual. Marvel Comics once had a massive event called the Marvel Civil War between superheroes who supported government registration (led by Iron Man) and those who wanted to keep using secret identities (such as Spider-Man and Captain America). It's best to look up summaries on websites about comics rather than buying the actual stories, because I've heard that they have inconsistent writing and terrible characterization.Don't expect as much dry humor as the Iron Man movies, because the stories are mostly serious apart from Spider-Man's quips. It's still a good action story that has significant characterization for Tony Stark. less

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