The year is 2008. The superhero Civil War is over, the 50-State Initiative is in effect, and Tony Stark is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve Rogers is dead, Thor has just been resurrected, the Hulk has had his little war, and Spider-Man has revealed his identity and made a deal with Mephisto to obscure it again.
We are in what some might call – with irony or bitterness – the Bendis Age of Marvel Comics, which is to say that we’re sandwiched between events (World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, and Dark Reign) that could ostensibly be said (correctly or otherwise) to have spawned directly out of Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers books, which have supplanted the X-Men and Spider-Man as Marvel’s tentpole series. The Marvel Universe is feeling more interconnected than it has in a decade or more, which is perfect because this is also the year in which Jon Favreau’s Iron Man kickstarts the most successful cinematic universe of all time.
Marvel Comics
In perfect market synergy, The Invincible Iron Man has just restarted with a new #1, helmed by bright-eyed rising star Matt Fraction and illustrated by Salvador Larroca, whose armor design gamely attempts to bring a unique take on artist Adi Granov’s recently revealed Extremis armor and – checks notes – artist Adi Granov’s fully realized on-screen version of that very same armor.
The pressure for Fraction and Larroca must have been incredible. On one hand, in the continuity of Earth-616, Tony Stark has been doing some incredibly bad things, including inventing a murderous Thor-bot, getting his best friend assassinated, and sending the Hulk to space so that he could come back and murder a city or two.
Marvel Comics
On the other hand, there’s this little movie coming out – no one has any reason to believe that it will do what it ends up doing – and that means a lot of new eyes are going to be on Tony. Somehow, he’s got to put his best foot forward.
A bold move, then, to systematically tear Tony Stark apart, reverse direction in the sophistication of his armor, and leave him completely braindead within the space of a year and a half. Somehow, it is a stroke of genius.
Marvel Comics
The 19 issues collected in Iron Man Modern Epic Collection: World’s Most Wanted manage, in their way, to prepare Tony Stark’s grand retribution, both on page and on screen. It begins with a bit of synergy: the first six issues, collectively titled The Five Nightmares, manage to mirror the events in the Iron Man film by forcing Tony to grapple with his warmongering and putting him into direct conflict with Obidiah Stane’s son. This puts readers new and old on the back foot – a realization that Tony is aware of his wrongdoing, and that he is unprepared to face the repercussions.
Then, during the aftermath of Secret Invasion, Tony’s cushy place at the top is usurped by Norman Osborn, who desperately covets the secret identities of his most hated heroes, which Stark gathered with the Superhuman Registration Act. The problem is that this information is only in Tony’s Extremis-powered hard drive of a brain.
And Tony’s gotta delete that information.
The first step to rebuilding the status quo in time to line up with the newly born Marvel Cinematic Universe is to force Tony through a redemption arc; what better way to do that than literally deleting the version of him that did all those terrible things?
Hill, Widow, and Pepper: a trifecta of civil disobedience.
Marvel Comics
In the context of the Marvel Universe, Tony’s new status as a fugitive puts him in the shoes he so recently forced Captain America and his peers to wear during the Civil War. With the help of an embittered Maria Hill and a newly powered Pepper Potts, Tony sets his brain to delete itself. As it does so, Tony loses the capability to work the sophisticated modern Iron Man armors; Fraction and Larroca seem to take great joy in peeling layers and layers of Iron Man tech away from him. Older and older classic armors have brief cameos, ticking down to the zero state of the hulking scrap metal behemoth he crafted in a cave – the very suit new fans saw him create at the beginning of the film.
Marvel Comics
World’s Most Wanted doesn’t complete the redemption arc, though it teases it: Tony’s rebirth entails the reunification of the now-splintered Avengers. His only road to salvation is in the hands of Captain America and Thor.
Marvel Comics
Two years following the events of this book – not long after the payoff they set up – both Captain America: The First Avenger and the first Thor came to theaters. Tony Stark, hands now clean of several years of near villainy, was a hero just in time for his cinematic self to meet them.
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