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Underground > Comic Books >

Warren Ellis writes Iron Man!

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15:44 / 30.12.04

Yeah... it seemed like Tony Stark is old friends with Robert Anton Wilson. ALso Ellis must have had some major DMTesque trip himself to be going on and on about it in everything he writes. Not that that's a bad thing and I personally enjoyed the comparisons offered between LSD & DMT & Shrooms... as written by someone who's experienced them... with out the psychobabble.

Reading upthread about his Cellphone was kind of funny when in issue 2 there's several pages devoted to introducing his new ubercellphone.

16:43 / 30.12.04

I wonder if Marvel editorial had to really bite their teeth on this one, with a superhero talking about DMT and acid and such? I wonder how long it takes before a Wal-Mart midwestern mother complains about it?

18:50 / 30.12.04

this issue was class. I was on the fence after 1 but 2 sold me big time for the whole run.

pretty much everything that came out of sal kennedey's mouth was lifted from a terrence mckenna speech, and i mean that in a good way. tony stark and mckenna riffing about drugs and tech just makes my day. someone taking the piss out of stark for not doing more is long overdue.

the action sequence was top too. the bit where extremis-man chucks the gun so hard you can see the shockwaves as it breaks the sound barrier was fucking awesome.

ellis is bringing his game for this one, and by that i mean he's writing what he likes talking about, and that's a lot better than the laboured examinations of the comics form he tries to pull off...

13:53 / 31.12.04

the action sequence was top too. the bit where extremis-man chucks the gun so hard you can see the shockwaves as it breaks the sound barrier was fucking awesome.

it was handled really well. Ellis deftly avoided the trap of slow pacing caused by alternating the talky bits he does so well with action by just overlapping the two, to nice effect. and, jesus, the Extremis guy just goes fucking sickhouse, no?

i agree totally: Ellis is bringing his A-game for this.

20:03 / 02.01.05

Ellis did talk about shamanism in TRANSMETROPOLITAN, yes -- a couple of isolated mentions, not as a major theme. It grated on me here mainly because he *just did it* in the most recent issue of PLANETARY. It'd make sense if IRON MAN had some kind of unspeakably vast readership who aren't aware of PLANETARY, but with current readership figures, you have to figure that about a third or a half of the current IRON MAN book's audience are probably Ellis fans who've followed him over from his other books. So it's sort of a waste of our time, though I do agree that it's not a completely random thing to introduce the character to.

I'm enjoying this quite a bit, but I may duck out in favor of the trade, for the same reason that I've done that with ULTIMATES -- I have no problem with the story involving this number of pages, since it allows interesting details and bits to surface, but I'd rather not stagger it out over this kind of time and expense. I get the feeling I'll pick up the trade in six to eight months and really enjoy blowing through it quickly. And while I don't think this is Ellis' A-game per se, I think he's at least at a B+ level. He really does know his shit when it comes to structure, I think, even if he allows his greatest-hits motifs to steer him through his plotting too often.

20:16 / 02.01.05

Also, I haven't seen anybody mention this yet, but Adi Granov is definitely drawing Tony Stark as Tom Cruise. Take a look at the Stark panels on story pages 11 and 13 of issue #2, and tell me that's not America's favorite gay actor (did I say that out loud?) with a goatee slapped on him...

rabideyemovement

22:22 / 02.01.05

That is definitely Tom Cruise.
And Extremis' fight scenes are fuckin BRUTAL! I'm loving this series! As long as long as Ellis doesn't have Tony Stark smoke DMT and have hyperspace elves take him to the higher dimensional Iron Man totem entity which secretly inspired him to build the suit. Cuz that would suck.

22:29 / 02.01.05

no way dude!

that would fuckin rock!

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

04:54 / 03.01.05

*just did it* in the most recent issue of PLANETARY

Which was written around a year and a half ago if memory serves.

09:27 / 04.01.05

Ellis may be bringing his A-game, but anybody say they really like the art? Okay, it has it's moments - the scenes involving the Extremis Man are good - but most of it is fucking horrible, IMO.

A comic about a technologically powered superhero, with art DONE ON A COMPUTER!. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!

12:57 / 04.01.05

I think the art's pretty decent overall. I'm not having any major problems with it.

It ain't SHATTER or DIGITAL JUSTICE, I'll tell you that!

15:24 / 04.01.05

True.

My complaint can't be reduced to prejudice, however. I just think it looks really nasty.
Unfortunately I don't have the issue in front of me so I can't get into the specifics.

Oh yeah, and I can't help getting annoyed with the oh so obvious (and silly) science hero drawn using REAL SCIENCE thing.

05:05 / 05.01.05

you know, from looking at granov's site, he's not really doing the art "on a computer" per se - he seems to be working primarily with pencils and then doing the colours in photoshop.

http://www.sofos.com/adi/

m.

06:36 / 05.01.05

I'll go have a look.
I think the colours are nasty.

09:52 / 05.01.05

you know, from looking at granov's site, he's not really doing the art "on a computer" per se

Even if he isn't, Marvel are selling it that way, which is pretty silly in, and of, itself.

10:07 / 05.01.05

there's several pages devoted to introducing his new ubercellphone

fucking hell gang, run, run like bloody shitting fuck from this comic.

the consensus on the blogs seems to be second verse, same as the first for this one. if there's some violence in there i might pick it up if there's a copy in next time i pop to the local, but hopefully i'll forget to.

10:26 / 05.01.05

This comic really isn't for you, although there is some rather well orchestrated and horrific violence two thirds of the way in.

God you'd a hated last week's Ultimate FF. 3 double page spreads - that's 6 pages. Six fucking pages where nothing (at all) happened. Naughty, naughty, lazy Mr Ellis.

14:02 / 05.01.05

Ellis' Iron Man is a masterpiece compared to his mostly-lackluster Ult. FF.

14:11 / 05.01.05

Slightly off-topic but I really enjoyed Ultimate FF last week I just wish it had more in it - it took me about 2 minutes to read. Decompression's all well and good, but sometimes you just don't get enough story for your money. I bet Lee & Kirby would have told that entire issue in about a page.
I am enjoying Iron Man, but I agree with the complaints about the art - it's just not my cup of tea.

13:35 / 06.01.05

I like the art, sometimes the faces look a little stiff but overall, it's fine with me.

Was looking at this again last night and noticed that the editor is Tom Breevort, a very old-school superheroes editors...I wonder if it weirds him out to work with Ellis.

Haus of Mystery

13:51 / 06.01.05

I gave up on Ult.FF precisely because of the fact I'd have to wait six months to see them fight Doom. Half a year to see the FF fight Doom, something they've done about a billion times before. So boring, and so very, very pleased with itself. Add to that horrible Kubert art and it's a big NO! from this camper.

14:37 / 06.01.05

I just looked on some more mainstream comics message boards about IM #2 and sure enough, many people were like "Why is a mainstream superhero book talking about 'yeah, it's cool to take hallucinogenic drugs'???"

I'm really wondering when the first parent will complain about this...

Haus of Mystery

14:44 / 06.01.05

When comics are read by children again.

22:30 / 06.01.05

I like the pacing of this comic - it's thoughtful and deliberate. There have been some great questioning moments in the two issues so far - the Pilger-clone's interview and Sal Kennedy's chat have both done some nice undermining of the character of Tony Stark in a good way. Made him more human and believable.

As for the whole "bang for your buck" decompression dealie, I suppose it depends on what you consider entertainment.

m.

12:55 / 07.01.05

Ellis has got to be going somewhere with all this "Tony Stark doesn't do enough for the world" stuff...hopefully we see Ellis have Tony become more proactive in areas other than being a superhero and beating up Fin Fang Foom (the fact that Warren Ellis referenced FFF is hilarious to me).

15:32 / 07.01.05

I agree with you Matsya with regard to the pacing on Iron Man, not all that much action sure, but there is a lot happening, even if it is dialogue.
Ultimate FF however nothing really happens, just a hell of a load of splash pages that aren't in my opinion really justified.
I don't require 22 pages of fights in tights, but the story has to progress.

05:08 / 07.02.05

Well, Ellis apparently has a hard-on for the current crop of technological futurists. This is just another point in his passage from actual abstract futurism (Lazarus Churchyard), stories that take place in the future but have a "human feel" (Transmet), futurism that concentrates on people advocating technology (Mek), finally to stories that take place in a more technologically-realized present that write actual human beings into the story.

If that isn't John Barlow with traces of Bruce Sterling that's in the story, I'll eat the damn comic. The problem with current futurism that these individuals represent is that it's not fiction and it's not as forward-looking. Ellis has very little experience with the actual technology but lots of time has been spent listening to advocacy. This is why Stark and his new female accomplice are being lectured to; that's the angle that's getting played out from the source material.

That said, anyone seen the parody of issue 2?

08:22 / 07.02.05

Fucking hell. If that doesn't sum up what's shit about superhero comics fans, I don't know what does.

"Aw, he doesn't put his bright shiny costume on or punch a weirdo at all..."

boo fucking hoo.

m.

05:42 / 12.02.05

so I guess issue 3 has been just delayed...?

13:19 / 12.02.05

Yep...until April.

13:24 / 12.02.05

But... but... it's made on computers. WITH SCIENCE!

How can it be delayed?

20:30 / 13.02.05

"Comics made on a computer?! Moo ha ha ha haaaa!"

"My phone is better than yours, Stark!"

20:38 / 13.02.05

I'd give my eyeteeth to read about Cellphone Man.

14:54 / 14.02.05

i did buy the second issue after my 'flee! fleeee!' stuff above, and am glad i did. the action scene was scary and horrid and cool as fuck. the chat about drugs was, well it was just a big big ad for psychedelics in the middle of a marvel comic book, and that's got to be good. there is a tension between the 'hard sf' veneer he's going for here again, and the fact that the three smugs chatting in the hippy cabin live in a world where fin fang foom exists. if there weren't people like iron man to stop fff, it or things like it would have trashed the human-supporting biosphere ages ago, no? that hippy'd just be a half-digested fart brewing in a chinese-dino's belly if not for the avengers, why didn't stark shut him up with that? better/faster/more aggressive technology is a really useful thing to have around where they are, and when he repulsors extremisman flat as a pancake we're all going to know that, aren't we? writing for marvel's like the simpsons, know matter how sharp your jokes are you've got to cunningly flatten your moral point so the chuck dixon fans don't get too angry...

16:12 / 23.03.05

Previews for the long-awaited #3 start here.

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