Iron Man: Big Iron
Eric S Brown
Tony Stark isn’t who he used to be.
That seems to be the theme of the trade paperback Iron Man: Big Iron which collects the first five issues of the 2017 reboot series. A frustrated Tony Stark has had enough of tech and, parties, and is sick of being famous. He struggles with his current life, posting on social media as Iron Man, receiving negative responses until it bothers him so much that he deletes his social media accounts, sells off his shares of his own company, and goes back to basics with his armor.
Setting out to relearn what makes him who he is, Stark ends up facing many of his old B tier villains such as The Blizard and the Controller. However the main villain is a newly reborn Korvac, a god like enitity intent upon reshaping the entire universe.
Big Iron is a strange read because teams Iron Man with Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat, who has always been a low tech, supernatural character. The romantic relationship that forms between them is expected but falls flat and the entire storyline fails to truly move the reader in regards to what Tony is dealing with. Iron Man seems more like a whiny rich guy than a hero throughout most of the book.
While Big Iron is an ambitious attempt to return Iron Man to the character he was in the old days of Marvel Comics, it doesn’t manage to do so in a fun, or even moving, way. The book has a few good moments moments such as when Stark assembles a team of loser heroes that actually includes wannabes like Leap Frog and Scarlet Spider, or the Absorbing Man, who beats Stark, but even so, Big Iron is far from a must read for anyone but diehard Iron Man fans.
