This review only covers the Five Nightmares arc, not the current Dark Reign one, largely because I haven’t started it yet. That’ll come soon.
Invincible Iron Man was one of the early comics that I read, but I stopped reading it after Avengers Disassembled, since I felt that Warren Ellis’ run was too slow for my tastes. Then, I heard that they would be relaunching the title. Concurrently with Iron Man: Director of Shield. Except, it would be written by Matt Fraction and would focus on Iron Man and Tony Stark more as individual characters, like the old comics did. So I snatched this book up. And for good reason. Matt Fraction’s work on this book rivals that of Ed Brubaker’s on Captain America, and it is consistently one of the first books I take a look at every time I pick up my comics.
The Five Nightmares arc first seemed like a gimmick, however, when the villain was mentioned to be Ezekiel Stane, the previously unmentioned son of Obadiah Stane, the Iron Monger. It seemed a bit suspicious, since the Iron Man movie was coming out around then… and the Iron Monger was the main villain. Still, I read on. And I can safely say that Ezekiel Stane was either completely original or the most inspired gimmick ever. He is uniquely similar to and dissimilar to his father in all the right ways, and his powers are pretty awesome. The contrast between Tony and Ezekiel was also brilliant. The arc perfectly set up the post-Dark Reign status quo for Tony while telling an original story with a couple of new characters and a new twist for long-time supporting cast member Pepper Potts. Salvador Larroca sports his best art as well, with superb landscapes and excellent close-ups of the Iron Man armor. His faces could use some work, especially Ezekiel’s. But he’s still pretty good at what he does.
The epilogue, featuring Spider-Man as the guest star, was spectacular (yes, I used that term on purpose). Matt Fraction is way better than any of the people currently writing Amazing Spider-Man, except perhaps Dan Slott. He should be on that title right now. And yet I love him so much writing Iron Man. He has an instinctive grasp on Tony Stark as a character in a way that few writers can ever achieve. I trust his writing skills completely, no matter what stupid crossover is thrown his way. Tony Stark has not been written so well in years, and I hope that we’ll be able to read more of Fraction’s work on this title for years to come.
Plot: 9.0 Art: 8.6 Dialogue: 9.4 Overall: 9.1
