Invincible Iron Man #1 and Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #29

So I finally got around to reading Invincible Iron Man #1 and big surprise, it didn't exactly thrill me. I came away from it thinking that Matt Fraction watches way too much bad sci-fi, and doesn't know the first thing about science. You don't have to know a lot about science to write science fiction, but you need to sound like you do. Fraction doesn't. The sci-fi elements in IIM feel fake. Gimmicky. Thoroughly 90's, from the sockless, teenage bio-villain who mouths off to the Establishment, to Pepper's holo-interface.

The absolute nadir for me was the new villain, who Fraction introduced in his now-canceled The Order. Ezekiel Stane is into body-mods, terrorism and sounding like a douche. Observe as he scores cool points with the audience by telling off and then murdering the board of a Big Tobacco company: ( four thumnbnails )

I've come to the conclusion that Stane is essentially Amadeus Cho's eviler half-step-brother-cousin, separated at birth. I've also come to the conclusion that he's really boring. Charmless sociopaths usually are.

Fraction's approach to Tony is very 80's, but aged up and a little pathetic. He's on the verge of a truly sad mid-life crisis, presaged by his inability to stop bragging about his accomplishments and the anvilicious juxtaposition of his dinosaur-ness, with Stane's far cooler, youthier, more effective and cooler ways. Did I say cooler? Because Ezekiel Stane is so cool. His dialog is just so pop-culturally savvy! I feel like I'm reading Iron Man: the Golden Years. Next issue: Tony Stark chases some damn kids of his lawn!

Shockingly, Iron Man: Director of SHIELD was far more to my liking. Roberto De La Torre continues to do a fantastic job with this book. His art is a little more muddy, a little more organic than you would expect on an Iron Man book, but it's immensely effective from a story-telling perspective. He's very much a visual storyteller, using colour, texture, pattern and shifts in perspective to great effect, and he's developed a bag of lite motifs that are spectacular emotional cues.

Carlo Pagulayan penciled the B story and imho his cleaner work suffers in comparison to De La Torre's. Pagulayan's pages lack the psychological punch that De La Torre's have in spades.

This is the first issue after the outstanding Mandarin arc and it's penned by pinch-hitter Stuart Moore. He's done a fantastic job of keeping the characterization and overall feel of the book consistent with the Knaufs' work. I have two complaints though: a) he takes his sweet-ass time in building to an actual plot (though I give him credit for jumping straight into the action); b) he name-drops a beloved Iron Man supporting character who hasn't been seen since The Crossing shat all over the book. Not only is it fan-baiting (naughty!), but it's so random that it's rendered ineffective. I know a lot of fans who are only familiar with the last few years of continuity that will be scratching their heads over that one.

Anywho, not the greatest issue, but solid. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this arc.

Power, Audre Lorde

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being
ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

The policeman who shot down a 10-year-old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and
there are tapes to prove that. At his trial
this policeman and in his own defense
"I didn’t notice the size or nothing else
only the color." and
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37-year-old white man with 13 years of police forcing
has been set free
by 11 white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one black oman who said
"They convinced me" meaning
they had dragged her 4’10" black woman’s frame
over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction within me.

But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85-year-old white woman
who is somebody’s mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in ¾ time
"Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are."