Blogathon 14: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #6

[Concluding my issue by issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

And, so: the inevitable. Iron Man vs. Spymaster! Iron Man vs. the Living Laser! And, of course, acceptance of the inevitable.

The fight between Iron Man and Spymaster is a genuinely entertaining fight as Iron Man gets more and more furstrated with this useless exercise. When Spymaster mentions their 'mutual hatred' fueling them, Iron Man responds with "YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HATRED FEELS LIKE? THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE" and punches him so hard that his mask shatters. It's a dumb action movie bit, but it works. He also keeps it up after that, talking about how he and Spymaster are nothing, how Tony Stark would stop, but he's going to keep beating the shit out of Spymaster until it's done. It's suprisingly harsh -- but effective. The best part is Greta Abbott watching on a video feed and noticing that her husband sucks at this.

The conflict is never truly resolved and the Living Laser arrives, more powerful than ever and in complete harmony with the idea that he's the real bad guy here. That fight is a bit more typical with Iron Man eventually absorbing all of the Living Laser's energy. He puts him back in containment, the Spymaster escapes (prison or escape, the two inevitabilities of villains), and the comic ends with Tony Stark accepting that this is his life.

He may want to move on, but he can't. Whether it's the world demanding that he remain what he's always been or something inside of him, he's Tony Stark the Iron Man, a superhero. You can't move past what defines you. This comic seems like a big response to the changes that Ellis was making in the main title. Casey tries to continue that style forward, to keep pushing those ideas, but they don't work. They're not part of the genre, the conventions. Iron Man is a superhero and superheroes fight supervillains. That's just the way it is. That's what defines them.

That's the inevitable.

In 30 minutes, I'll discuss "The Eternal Return" aka The Authority: Revolution!

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 13: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #5

[Continuing my issue by issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

I made an error earlier: it's this issue where Sinclair Abbott says "A HANDSHAKE TODAY, A MUNITIONS DEAL TOMORROW..." not back in issue three when I said it happened. Apologies.

This is the issue where things turn a little. Sinclair Abbott reveals himself as an antagonist a bit too much to Tony Stark, pissing him off a bit. Especially after Maggie Dillon dies in the aftermath of the explosion where the Living Laser escaped. As she dies, Tony removes his mask at her request and there's a nice touching moment. She tried to take those first steps into superherodom as the Iron Therapist or whatever the fuck you'd call what she did and she paid the price. Her enthusiasm was her downfall and Tony gave her the means. He didn't watch over her enough. He spends a bit of the issue walking through a funk in business meetings, Avengers meetings, dates... if being Iron Man wasn't before Dillon died, it's become absolutely horrible now. His confrontation with Abbott is a big signifier of this: he just walks away, not wanting to play the game. Until Dillon's death, he might have played it.

It's a conversation with Leonard Samson, Dillon's teacher, that turns things around. Tony basically lays out the hell he lives in as an example of the inevitable future. Because of the Extremis, he's radically different than a regular human. He says

I USE CELL PHONES AND BLACKBERRIES AND LAPTOPS BECAUSE TONY STARK WOULD USE THOSE THINGS...

...MY CONCESSIONS TO THE CONCEPT OF "NORMAL."

BUT I DON'T NEED THEM.

SO THESE ARE THINGS THAT ONLY I KNOW...

...BUT ASK ANYONE AND THEY'LL TELL YOU THEY'VE GOT IRON MAN PEGGED...

...BODYGUARD. SUPER HERO. AVENGER. BUT THE WORST OF IT...

...ONE SIDE OF A "VS." MARQUEE THAT I'VE COME TO SEE AS A RIDICULOUS PARADIGM OF PRO WRESTLING CLICHES AND WASTED ENERGIES.

THERE ARE INDIVIDUALS OUT THERE WHO ARE SO INTENT ON VIOLENT ENGAGEMENT WITH ME THAT THEY WILL GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO ENGINEER ONE...

...INCLUDING THE MURDER OF THOSE CLOSE TO ME. AND EVERYTHING I'VE COME TO BELIEVE ABOUT MYSELF AND ABOUT MY SO-CALLED EVOLUTION... THEY COMPLETELY DISREGARD.

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. THEY'RE FIGHTING AGAINST AN INEVITABLE FUTURE, BUT THEY JUST DON'T REALIZE THAT I'M ALREADY THERE...

...I AM THE FUTURE.

This speech is absolutely loaded. Partly, it's a recognition of the conventions of superhero comics. Warren Ellis, with the Extremis, turned Tony Stark into the Engineer: a man that's part machine, beyond what he was. He doesn't need to act like a human anymore, but he does to maintain normalcy. That alone is frustrating. Imagine being able to make phone calls or send e-mails with your mind and being forced to do it manually. It would be like working to make your heart beat because everyone else has to. But, he's outgrown the traditional superhero role. That was part of Ellis's relaunch of the character. He's more focused on bringing about the future; one that he sees in himself. Traditional superhero/supervillain dynamics is the past. And Tony can't understand why other people don't move past them as well. Worse, he knows he's past them. He thinks he knows who he is and no one else seems to see it. But, does he? He spends the entire series denying he's Iron Man. That's his truth: he's more Iron Man than Tony Stark. But, if he revealed that, Tony Stark would take the hit. His current arrangement is an exercise in nostalgia almost. For all his talk of he's the future, he's stuck in the past, unable to let go of Tony Stark's normal life. He's just a hypocrite. He's just as backwards thinking as Sinclair Abbott.

There's even a nice dig at Bendis's New Avengers thrown in: "AN AVENGERS I DON'T ALWAYS RECOGNIZE. MAYBE THAT WAS THE POINT. CHANGE FOR CHANGE'S SAKE." In some ways, that could be a dig at Ellis's change to Iron Man. Why radically alter the character, why 'evolve' him when it won't last, it can't last? Not only can it not last, it can't even be used! You can't radically change these characters! And, if you do, be prepared for backlash.

The issue ends with Tony embracing another pointless superhero/supervillain fight and attacking the Spymaster in his home. Only he got fried because the Spymaster prepared for him...

In 30 minutes, we finish this.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 12: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #4

[Continuing my issue by issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

This is the most traditional superhero comic book of the series. Iron Man vs. the Ghost. It's a big dumb superhero fight that Iron Man has no patience for. The continued baiting of Iron Man to admit he's Tony Stark is interesting. The Ghost seems to get a kick out of it, mocking Iron Man with the truth. If he's such a big hero, why's he gotta lie? Why, Tony, why? Anyway, the Ghost loses and gets his ass beaten, eventually abandoned by the Spymaster. Another inevitability: if two villains team up in any way, one will abandon the other or betray him outright.

Dr. Dillon finally making contact with Arthur Parks is the more interesting part of the issue. He first appears as a little kid version of the Living Laser, afraid to come out of the closet, hiding in himself. Later, we see that the world he's built for himself looks like Iron Man's head. He's obsessed with Iron Man, much like the Spymaster. Dillon does her best to get him to let that go, to leave villainy behind, and become a regular, good person. But, it doesn't work (the inevitable!) and the machine pretty much blows up, allowing the Living Laser to escape. In fact, he shrugs off every attempt of hers to help him, summing it up by saying he's a career criminal.

It's a little surprising how much this comic hammers home its ideas: no one changes, a return to the status quo is inevitable, bad guys are bad guys, superheroes are superheroes, and new characters sometimes die.

The white light version of Dillon along with the Living Laser look great. The way Irving draws the Ghost after he's been beaten up a bit is wonderful. He just looks like a skeevy dirty sad man. I don't any other comic has had this much pink in it.

In 30 minutes, Joe Casey explains why no one could follow Warren Ellis's new ideas for Iron Man.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 11: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #3

[Continuing my issue-by-issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

As part of the ongoing war against Tony Stark and Iron Man, Greta Abbott offers to sleep with him while at a charity function. That's putting the 'ass' into 'classic villainy!' (Oh god, why would I write such a thing?) Given Tony's reputation as a womaniser, why not indulge another of his vices? The Abbotts are mocking him with his past: his alcoholism, his womanising, his military contracts (when Stark says hello to a general, Abbott makes a crack about how that's another military contract sealed at a party), and on to get at Iron Man, to provoke him, to draw him out of the facade of denying he's Iron Man still. It's inevitable.

Meanwhile, the Spymaster is beginning to encounter his own version of the inevtaible: the Ghost failing to steal the Living Laser and thinking he killed Iron Man. Abbott immediately sees that it was a robot and not actually Iron Man. He's beginning, though, to notice the negative about being the bad guy: you lose. The help lets you down and you lose. The Ghost has failed before and he will fail again. In positioning yourself in the role opposite the hero, you're also guaranteeing yourself a life of failure.

The relationship between Tony and Dr. Dillon takes more of a spotlight here. Her role as superhero poser is made more clear when, for her attempts at communication with the Living Laser, she's given a suit that looks a lot like the Iron Man armour. She resists at first but later defies orders and heads back in too soon.

The two also have dinner together and there's a lot of dancing around the subject of Iron Man on Tony's part. She asks him a few times if he misses it and he never gives a straight answer. He talks about familiar patterns, old habits, and other related topics, but never answers the question. While he'll lie straight up about his continued role as Iron Man, he seems unable to do so here. What would be so hard about simply saying he does, but it's for the best that those days are behind him? Part of it is that he doesn't seem to like being Iron Man anymore. He's struggling to break free of the role, but, as we'll learn, because of the Extremis, he can't. It's part of his physical make-up. When Abbott brings up parts of his past that he's not fond of and compares them to being a superhero, all he's doing it making that something Tony doesn't want to do even more. He does it because he has to, because other people won't let him not do it. He can quit drinking, he can quit being a pig, he can even quit being an arms manufacturer, but he can't quit being Iron Man.

In 30 minutes, the poser dies. Ooops. Spoiler.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 10: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #2

[Continuing my issue-by-issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

Goddamn, Frazer Irving owns this comic. Dr. Maggie Dillon makes her first contact with the Living Laser via a weird technological energy telepathy connection machine and it just gives Irving a chance to draw these expansive, strange, surreal landscapes in pink neon glow. Dr. Dillon also has an odd look that pays off wonderfully when she wakes up in the hospital after it all goes wrong. Plus, there's the Ghost vs. Iron Man. Action! Excitement! Corporate espionage!

The Ghost is recruited by the new Spymaster to steal the Living Laser from Stark. What I love is how the Spymaster doesn't pay the Ghost anything. Instead, he pontificates on the brotherhood of villainy, the role of villains, what a hypocrite Stark is, and, yet, he also represents everything the Ghost hates. What's the difference between Tony Stark and Sinclair Abbott? Every time we see Abbott, he's hosting some charity fundraiser, spending his massive wealth, and schmoozing. The Ghost is an anti-capitalist anarchist that wants to tear the system down and he's manipulated by another rich prick. Abbott doesn't fall directly into the Spymaster tradition as he himself admits in a way, telling us of the previous Spymasters. But, he does fit into the tradition of Iron Man villains as fellow businessmen, reflections of Tony Stark. In some ways, pre-'enlightened' Stark.

Dr. Dillon's attempt to communicate with the Living Laser begins her obsession with it. It nearly kills her and she won't back down. She specialises in superhuman psychology and seems bitten by the same bug as many superheroes: her first contact with something big and wondrous leaves her wanting more. She goes from reluctant to take the job, unsure of the point, and if she can even accomplish what Stark wants to a raging fury at the idea that she won't be allowed to continue. She's a poser and she'll pay the price.

The issue ends with the Ghost raiding the Stark facility and fighting against a robotic Iron Man, defeating it. The message is clear: only Tony Stark is the real thing, the only thing that can measure up.

In 30 minutes, Tony Stark gets an offer most men wouldn't refuse.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 09: Joe Casey Comics: Iron Man: The Inevitable #1

[Beginning my issue-by-issue analysis of Iron Man: The Inevitable.]

Iron Man: The Inevitable was a mini-series published in early 2006 that was meant to fill the gap in Marvel's schedule by the delayed Warren Ellis/Adi Granov relaunch of Iron Man that still hadn't finished its opening arc. I don't know if this was meant to be the second arc or was commissioned as a mini-series, but it basically became the Iron Man comic published by Marvel at the time until Ellis and Granov finished their arc and the book went off into obscurity until Matt Fraction took it over. (Ha ha ha... it's funny, because it's true.)

The Inevitable fits nicely into Joe Casey's ouevre, exploring many ideas that he explored elsewhere: the hero/villain dynamic, superheroes and the business world, obsession, the struggle to maintain one's humanity, and the inevitable impossibility to change really. Tony Stark is useful character to explore most of these ideas. His place in the Marvel universe at this point was similar to where Daredevil is now: he's return to Stark Industries, everyone knew he was Iron Man, and he's now claiming that someone else is wearing the armour when it's really him. He's a man forced to lie to the world even when they explicitly state the truth. They'll say to him that he's Iron Man (or say to Iron Man that he's Tony Stark) and he'll deny it strongly. It almost becomes a gag by the end.

This issue sets up the plot of the series. There's Sinclair Abbott, the new Spymaster. He's another businessman and has set himself in opposition to Stark because he wants to play the villain. I don't think he was the first Casey villain that reveled in his role, but he was among the first. Casey has a strong fondness for bad guys that don't see themselves as good guys. They love being bad and they see their role as opposition to the hero as essential. If they see themselves as good in any way, it's that their existance makes the hero possible. Here, he immediately begins needling Tony at a charity function, goading him to drink:

WATER? THIS IS A PARTY, STARK.

SINCE I DON'T SEE A SPONSOR OR A BODYGUARD HANGING AROUND, I GUESS I'D ASSUMED WE'D SEE THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK...

...YOU DON'T SEEM LIKE THE TYPE WHO'D ABSTAIN FROM ANYTHING THAT'S SP OBVIOUSLY PART OF YOUR MAKEUP.

This is meant to draw out Tony's life as Iron Man. Abbott knows that Tony is still wearing the armour and is beginning the back-and-forth interaction between hero and villain that he wants. He sees it all as a game. An inevitability. How can one deny their true nature? And he's right. Tony is still wearing the armour. Even if he wasn't, you know he would be by the end of the series. No matter what talk there is about giving up the life or moving on, superheroes always return to being superheroes. Abbott knows this essential truth and so does Casey. At the end of the issue, Abbott meets with the Ghost...

The other major focus of the series is Tony purchasing a fragment of the Living Laser that didn't get sent into space and hiring a psychiatrist that specialises in superhumans to interface with the containment apparatus and, hopefully, draw Arthur Parks out and reform him. Tony wants to bring Parks back from his inert state and also 'cure' his villainy. This is about Tony's efforts to move forward, to break free from old patterns. The irony being that he's still stuck in old patterns. His oldest pattern: dressing up as Iron Man and pretending he's his own bodyguard. Nothing changes, everything is inevitable.

Joined with Casey on this series is Frazer Irving. His art is perfect for this sort of book. Odd, sinister-looking people. lots of neon glows, and lots of fantastic facial expressions. I love the way that Greta Abbott looks. All made up with weird hair, too much make-up, and look like she's fake and trying too hard. One thing I notice about Irving's art is how rounded his heads are. It makes the Iron Man, Spymaster, and Ghost armour stand out with their angles and hard edges.

In 30 minutes, issue two.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative! (Details in this post.) After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]