I've never really collected "Iron Man." I always liked him, but between the various and sundry Avengers, Batman, Spidey, and X-Men books, I just never really had room in my budget for him. But, Marvel NOW! has thinned out the herd a bit, so I figured that I might as well give him a shot (even though I hate that it even remotely validates DC and Marvel's "let's have a number-one issue every year!" approach of late). I was particularly attracted to the book because of Kieron Gillen, who had a great run on "Uncanny X-Men" before it got hijacked by "X-Men: Schism" and "Avengers vs. X-Men." I'm less thrilled about Greg Land, but I don't hate him as much as other people do, so it was still a net positive.
I'm glad to say that this issue did everything I expect an "Iron Man" comic to do. Tony is charming and serious all at the same time and his mission in this issue goes to the core of why Iron Man exists. (I still can't help but hear the voices of Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow when I read Tony and Pepper's thought bubbles, but I don't think that it's a bad thing.) The plot is accessible to new readers and I happily went to Wikipedia to get some more details to flesh out certain parts, like why Stark Enterprises is now Stark Resilient and why Piper is CEO. (See, Marvel, we can do that without you having to reboot the series every few months. Of course, your rebooting worked on me, so I guess I'll just be quiet now.) The action sequences lend themselves to playing heavy metal in the background but the conversations have warmth and depth to them. Overall, I am very pleased and excited to get the chance to jump on board the "Iron Man" train after all these years.
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