Iron Man #28 Review

Written by Daniel and Charles Knauf
Art by Roberto de la Torre

Summary: Here we are in the glorious Iron age. Iron Man has just been phenomenal and single handedly has challenged Captain America for the top spot at Marvel. Can Tony pull the upset and come out on top, will the Mandarin be successful, and will this review ever start? Let's find out. Jack Kooning is about to parachute and attempt his assassination mission. At the exact same time Tony is getting crucified at the UN for basically nuking the Mandarin's old headquarters. I'm not going to lie here, in one of the greatest Tony Stark moments in all of history, he gives a very passionate speech the UN. He has this amazing line about how the courts should not prove Captain America right and punish Tony. In China meanwhile Kooning has failed and is killed by the Mandarin. The UN decides to punish Tony but Maria Hill and Dum Dum come up with the greatest plan in all of SHIELD history. They invade the UN and due to international law no one can do anything about it. Dum Dum takes Tony into a secret underground escape tunnel and tells Tony to finish the fight. Tony suits up and Mr. Stark is off to China. He tracks down Maya and gets the 411 on what is going down. Immediately after learning of what is going he goes off to chase the Mandarin down. They brawl in an amazing action sequence that results in Tony pulling out the rings from the Mandarin's spine and blasting him into another area code. Tony puts jell and o together and figures out a way to stop the virus by using cold weather to kill it. He cuts off part of his ankle and manages to tap into his Extremis powers and stop the virus from wiping out all of mankind. The Mandarin refusing to lose punches some chemical container and freezes himself. Tony passes out and when he comes to Dum Dum is there telling him that he has been reinstated as director of SHEILD, he is on Time magazine, and he has given everyone the proverbial finger. What a man!

Comments: This was the greatest issue that came out that week. Iron Man has single handily become king of the hill of Marvel. Bucky is now playing second fiddle to Tony and his adventures. Tony showed here that he is all heart, everything that has happened in Marvel is meant so superheroes can be superheroes, that is all Tony wants. The dialog is always guarn-damn-teed to be great. The great things they do with the supporting cast is fantastic as well. That plan to take down the UN was just amazing, who thinks of something like that? I'm not going to point out everything good thing about this issue because there are too many and it wouldn't do enough justice to the talented people on this comic. Here is how I will put it, great art, great story, great characters, and this was one of the best story arc endings I have read in a long time.

OWN IT

Iron Man #27 Review

Haunted
Writers: Daniel and Charles Knauf
Art: Carlo Pagulayan

Summary:
We start with Stark layed out in Nebraska (again). He is hallucinating imaginary people. We see that the U.S government is moving in on the SHIELD Helicarrier and Stark. They brought jets and tanks to stop them. Tony goes to see Maya, and tells her to give up the details on the airborne extremis so that they can make a vaccine. She refuses without getting hard evidence that Mandarin has unlocked it. Tony holds a meeting with Maria and Timothy and tells them to investigate the business interests of the Mandarin. We go to court, where Osbourne grills the shrink about Tony not being psychologically cleared to command. The shrink says he never said that and tells Osbourne that he is the crazy one. We go to the skrull from the last issue. Tony wants to figure out how the skrull went undetected by technology and mutant powers. Maria calls and tells him there is another skrull, prompting Tony to leave. Back at the court, the shrink wants to subpoena Jack Kooning. Osbourne asks him what happened to Kooning, since the he and Tony were the last to see him. Tony gets his ass blindfolded and taken into a rainforest (I am guessing it is a military base). Tony shows Maya video of one of Mandarin's guys saying that he did mass produce extremis, and then Maya agrees to give it up. Correction: the guy hauled off to the rainforest was Jack Kooning, not Tony. We see that Timothy is just wailing on a Chinaman about his country harboring Mandarin's factories. He dishes out some threats. We see Jack in the rainforest, meeting up with an old pal. He tells him that he is going to face the music, but first he is going to tie up some loose ends (we see a gun). He wants to kill the Mandarin. We see that Maya has finally given up the goods to Tony. We see that the motherfucking Mandarin tricked Maya into believing he was Tony, and that is how he got the full details to the extremis. We see that he uploaded the files to his buddy, who is going to load them up in missiles. Motherfucker.

Comments:
That was a great issue. Everything was good about this issue. I was slow to catch on with this title, but I am sure glad that I have. We get twists and turns throughout this book. Everything was just well plotted and executed. The Knaufs have really turned this title into a first-tier Marvel comic. I know that most people don't read it, but now I am looking forward to it as I would look forward to Cap. The twist with the Mandarin at the end was just insane. I got a heads up like 5 seconds before i actually read it, but nonetheless it was crazy. He is just totally fucking Maya over. Just a thorough rape. She fought hard, even insisting that she wanted evidence before she would give it up, and Mandarin gave it to her. Then she just got duped. If that was me i would go kill myself. The whole thing was great. The character work was pretty solid, and i you get a good feel about the characters. But this was a plot driven issue with twists and turns, and I had a blast reading it. We get a good look at the court proceedings, which was filled with good back and forth dialog between the shrink and Osbourne. There wasn't much action in this issue, but the story was real good. The thing with the missiles are pretty crazy. Mandarin is rising up the ranks as a top villain. He isn't there yet, but he is getting a major push by the Knaufs. He can fight, and he is very smart and crafty. Someone like that makes a perfect foil for Tony. Overall a good issue. The Kooning stuff didn't really do anything for me though.

Verdict:
OWN IT

Iron Man Director of S.H.E.I.L.D. #26 Review

Written by: Daniel and Charles Knauf
Drawn by: Roberto De La Torre
Cover by: Gerald Parel

Synopsis: Last time we left our protagonist he was about to throwdown with arch nemesis the Mandarin who had this wacky plan to unleash an Extremis bio-weapon which would kill every person who was less than quality. Tony called the proverbial shenanigans and busted in to lay down the law. That's the backstory to what has been going on lately in Iron Man. We are at the SHIELD carrier where Commander Maria Hill is debating with her crew to follow Tony's orders. Dugan who is playing the role of the wise old man is rallying for Hill to just follow Tony's orders. They go back and forth for a bit about Tony's sanity until he brings up the book and how you got to break the law sometimes. Tony and the Mandarin are still fighting. We go back to SHIElD where they are going over the plan which is basically nuke the place and have a black hole take care of the radiation. The Mandarin and Stark are going all DBZ on each other when the nuke is launched. The Mandarin books it and leaves Stark to deal with some of his lackeys. Stark beats them starts to cheese it, the nuke has gone off and hes getting sucked in.

Comments: This was a great issue. For one thing the art was excellent, the fight scenes looked awesome with all the beams going off on each other. The dialog was solid as well. The cliffhanger was weak though, I mean come on, who actually thinks Tony will get sucked into the blackhole, anyone? Yeah, it was a weak cliffhanger. Another petty complaint was the way the opening scene played out. The whole playing things by the book was a bit lame. Isn't the whole point of SHIELD to deal with some issues the book doesn't cover? I just didn't buy into that opening scene. Other than that it was an awesome issue with fantastic art which is why it earns a

GET IT