Invincible Iron Man 500.1 is the first of Marvels .1 series that they are using to promote readers picking up new series. These issues are places where a reader could easily pick up the gist of what has been going on with the main character of the series since their inception and get a feel of where the story is at, at this point and time.
In this issue we find Tony Stark at an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting. He uses this as a forum to tell his life story, tell about how he became Iron man, tell about his encounters as Iron Man, and tell about how everything in his life has meshed together in order to become what it is today.
Iron Man writer Matt Fraction writes the issue, and he is able to use this AA forum to tell the (hopefully new) reader the story of Iron Man and the troubles he has faced in the last 500 issues. It is impressive that he could fit a little bit of everything from the last 500 issues into a 48-page story. Fraction’s writing was not the only impressive part of this issue. Salvador Larroca does a great job at illustrating the story of Iron man, and utilizing the pages that he had to work with in the best possible way; on some pages he even utilized twelve different frames without losing any detail in his artwork, a skill only someone the caliber of Larroca could accomplish.
There was one major downfall to the issue. The issue is so catered towards new readers, that it will leave the older readers at a loss, and even bored with the content. Iron Man fans know the story of Iron Man, and all of the events in his past like the back of their hand. If you are a seasoned Iron man reader, you may find yourself saying the entire time, “I’ve read this so many times before, why am I reading it again?” Due to this, I would definitely recommend this issue for primarily new readers of the Iron Man franchise.
I feel as though Marvel could have done a better job making this so veteran readers would enjoy the issue more. Such as possibly giving an intro the next story arc at the end of the issue. Instead Marvel has a two page spread of a small amount of art from upcoming issues, depicting action scenes and no sense of what the story is going to be exactly.
Overall I would say the issue was okay. Marvel definitely accomplished their tasks of making an issue that will draw in more readers, but in turn they bored the older readers. The writing and art is great, so it is not a total loss, but I was just expecting more.
5 out of 10 (older readers)
8 out of 10 (newer readers)
No comments:
Post a Comment