Iron Man #32 Cover

Ah, Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, the less interesting older brother of Invincible Iron Man. Soon, you will be replaced by a much more interesting, lesser known, War Machine. Such is the way of the world. You had a good run, with your minor ups and downs. And after reading the last arc of your story, I think we can all say: good riddance.

Last week’s Iron Man #32 marked the end of the “With Iron Hands” arc and the last issue that will be specifically about Tony Stark and Iron Man. Starting next month, we will start to see the transition of the series to War Machine with the Secret Invasion tie-in, and after that, the book will officially be a War Machine title. I read the last issue (and the rest of the arc) and it is clear why Marvel decided to move in this direction. Iron Man just isn’t interesting enough to carry 2 titles. This, mixed with the absolute inane boringness of S.H.I.E.L.D makes for a particularly bland read.

Check out my full review of this issue after the break.

I started to check out the Iron Man book after reading Civil War because I felt they really made the character grow in that story. And even after Civil War, Tony’s struggle with who he is made the book a pretty good read. But lately, he has really gone back to a pretty flat character. That being said, Invincible Iron Man is a really amazing book. I think that Iron Man is a much more interesting character when he is just going out and hunting down bad guys. All the stuff with S.H.I.E.L.D. really kills the character for me.

Issue 32 does have some good moments that bring some of the Magic from Matt Fraction’s book. There’s a lot of really good action in here. And what I find most special about Iron Man is his ability to think very quickly and solve problems in a jam. We see a lot of that here. But then comes the bad stuff. Stuart Moore brings together a story about a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent going rouge and fusing together with a machine that is designed to deploy all weapons. After defeating this guy, Iron Man moves to take down a man from his past, Nasim Rahimov, who plans to deploy a bunch of nuclear weapons. Bringing back this guy from Tony’s past sparks a bunch of emotion and memories in Tony. He relives his childhood with this man and then, gets really crazy, and starts thinking about all the people he has hurt by being Iron Man. I am really kind of sick of Tony bitching about this. His guilt is so played out and melodramatic.

Iron Man #32 Page 5

Unfortunately, I can’t even say that Carlo Pagulayan’s and Steve Kurth’s pencils bring some salvation to this book. They don’t. Most of the fight sequences are hard to see what is going on due to sketchy and somewhat unfinished looking art. Not to mention, there is 2 whole pages which are really nothing more than Iron Man being blown away by a fireball. Too much. And the character models are mostly uninspired and unemotional.

Overall, skip this book this month and the whole previous arc. Wait for next month, when Christos Gage (Avengers: The Initiative) and Sean Chen (Nova) take over the book. War Machine should make it much more interesting, and this creative team will really knock your socks off.