Invincible Iron Man (Volume 1)
The Five Nightmares
Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca
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The first collection of Invincible Iron Man collects issues 1-7, which is the entire "The Five Nightmares" storyarc, and a single issue featuring a team-up between Mr. Stark and Spider-Man (from Peter's perspective). I've never been a huge Iron Man fan. He's always seemed a little boring to me and there aren't any real classic stories featuring him (Demon In a Bottle is perhaps the closest he's got, and that hardly seems like required reading). Sure, he does some cool things occasionally in the Avengers books and whatnot, but reading a solo series of the character? Not really exciting for me. But then this series came along and the buzz has been building around it. That, and Matt Fraction's been turning out a lot of good stuff lately, so I thought I'd take a looksy at this book when it was collected.
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I wasn't exactly blown away. I like some of the elements of the book. I like Tony Stark as he's portrayed here, and his relationship with Pepper. I didn't so much like Tony confessing his nightmares to the reader - it seemed a little silly, although I did like the nightmare that came true in this storyline, that of a villain using Stark's technology against him, for terrorism. There were some really good ideas in there, particularly the climax of the story, but there were a few problems. The villain was boring and one-dimensional. The art was too photo-referenced. The Spider-Man story was not very good. There were some moments where I really admired the art, or was caught up in the story, but those moments were sparse. In the end, I have to say that I'm still waiting for that "must-read" Iron Man story, because this wasn't it.
Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca
.
The first collection of Invincible Iron Man collects issues 1-7, which is the entire "The Five Nightmares" storyarc, and a single issue featuring a team-up between Mr. Stark and Spider-Man (from Peter's perspective). I've never been a huge Iron Man fan. He's always seemed a little boring to me and there aren't any real classic stories featuring him (Demon In a Bottle is perhaps the closest he's got, and that hardly seems like required reading). Sure, he does some cool things occasionally in the Avengers books and whatnot, but reading a solo series of the character? Not really exciting for me. But then this series came along and the buzz has been building around it. That, and Matt Fraction's been turning out a lot of good stuff lately, so I thought I'd take a looksy at this book when it was collected..
I wasn't exactly blown away. I like some of the elements of the book. I like Tony Stark as he's portrayed here, and his relationship with Pepper. I didn't so much like Tony confessing his nightmares to the reader - it seemed a little silly, although I did like the nightmare that came true in this storyline, that of a villain using Stark's technology against him, for terrorism. There were some really good ideas in there, particularly the climax of the story, but there were a few problems. The villain was boring and one-dimensional. The art was too photo-referenced. The Spider-Man story was not very good. There were some moments where I really admired the art, or was caught up in the story, but those moments were sparse. In the end, I have to say that I'm still waiting for that "must-read" Iron Man story, because this wasn't it.
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