Comic Review #40: Iron Man #327 - 328

 

I was going over my list of comic books that I have reviewed for this wonderful blog of mine and realized that I have not once talked about Iron Man, so I decided to finally confront my greatest Iron Man related fear! Teen Tony! Yes. It's finally time to talk about the time where Iron Man was replaced by his time displaced Teen self. In like 1995. Like not even a year away from Onslaught. I wonder if they knew the second before any of these comics came out that they were going to let Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee ruin him even more.

Yeah it's time to talk about the backstory to this little comic book. You see there was a Avengers story called The Crossing, which is considered to be the worst Avengers story ever and I can't wait to read it. Actually I can but yeah. In this story it turns out that Kang had been mind controlling Tony Stark for 30 years. I'm not one to get angry over every continuity error because really it's kinda impossible not to have them but something about saying 3 decades of Iron Man stories were all a lie and Kang's doing. Not a good look already. Then they realized that Iron Man would be dead at the end of this story because he ends up killing several Avengers, so some guy decided uhhhh let's bring his Teen self into the present. Yeah! Not realizing that people like to read Iron Man to see a dude own his own company and bang the shit out of like 3,000 women along with all the cool super heroics. 

I'm not the only person who felt this way. Len Kaminski who had been writing Iron Man and Force works for like years thought it was a terrible idea and quit. Yeah, by the 1990s it wasn't as easy as it was before to get a job at Marvel and he quit instead of becoming known as the Guy Who Made Iron Man Suck. It's a shame because his Iron Man stories were always pretty solid, not THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME, but still a worthwhile read. It's just not a concept that works, man.

The people who worked on these comics were: Terry Kavanugh, this guy along with Scott Lobdell is a name I do not like seeing. Every time I see this name I know I am not going to be enjoying this story. He's not only written some of the worst Spider-Man comics ever, he's also responsible for the Teen Tony shit. Not a fan. I'm probably going to bitch about his stories again and again for your enjoyment. Dan Abnett was co-writer and I'm just going to assume he had very little to actually do with this story because he's actually talented.  Dave Hoover is the artist and I like his style. It's cartoony and just enough over the top that makes for a fun read. This part of the comic I enjoyed. 

The story opens up with Teen Tony at the old Tony's will reading. Yeah, that's kinda weird and awkward. Anyway you get to see all kinds of old timey supporting players from old Iron Man comics which is always a nice thing to see. Then we go to a cryogenics factory. You know where Walt Disney is. It turns out that something has destroyed all the tubes and the boss who was at the main tube just GOT ALL THE ICE POWER and became a supervillain. Yeah, this is the laziest and dumbest Supervillain backstory ever. How does being frozen give you superpowers? Lame.

Anyway  Teen Tony then goes to Meredith McCall a lady he knew before he was pulled to the future. He finds her in a snow filled house which is actually a cool visual. If you guessed that the villainous FROSTBITE was married to her you'd be correct. What a shock!!!! He freezes Teen Tony into a popsicle and issue 327 ends. 328 opens up with him freezing the entirety of the neighborhood and apparently was nice enough to bring Meredith McCall out to enjoy the view, I guess? It then goes to Teen Tony fixing up a new set of armor to fight FROSTBITE. He somehow fights cold with cold and that wins the day. I'm tired of talking about this comic.

FINAL VERDICT: The goofballs on Twitter and YouTube who talk about the Iron Heart stuff being the worst Ironman related comics are wrong. These are. These were clearly placeholders until Onslaught came by and destroyed everyone and everything. I'm sure they were gearing up for that story which I still haven't read in full and am not rushing to do so. Yeah, I can see that Iron Man was on the cancel then reboot block with Captain America (which was actually a shame and I should get into why) Thor and the Fantastic Four if this is what was being put out. Bad stuff. I'll probably talk about some 1990s Thor next. Why not? It'll be fun.