Random Happenstance

Until Iron Man (volume 3) #31, written by Joe Quesada and Frank Tieri, art by Alitha Martinez and Rob Hunter. A brief aside: this issue is from 2000, and the city pictured is in Malaysia. It's cut off a little in the picture, but I totally thought WTC for a second. It's not, OK?

This was just prior to Quesada becoming editor-in-chief at Marvel, and I believe he was in the process of handing over the writing duties to Tieri. There's some really good touches to their writing, and some not so good. In the previous storyline, a lightning strike had given Tony's current armor's computer system sentience. The armor first worked with Tony, then rampaged about a bit; killing B-list villain and newfound leather fetishist Whiplash, and I believe kicking the tar out of the New Warriors. Wow, Quesada hated them then, too! (Most of them were recently killed in Marvel's current crossover, Civil War.) In the end, the armor sacrifices itself to save Tony, but leaves him with an artifical heart.

Currently kind of freaked out, Tony doesn't want to use armor as sophisticated as the one that went bad, so his computer assistant Jocasta (from old Avengers comics) suggests using the classic armor. Setting aside his issues with that particular suit mentioned above, wouldn't this be like, if you or I had a problem or our clothes were wrecked, putting on an old outfit from twenty years ago?

Even allowing for Marvel-time, the classic armor would have to be at least five years old. So, the next time you have a problem with your computer, take a page from Tony's book, and use an old one! Sure, the boot-jets and repulsor rays are still high-end, but the operating system is probably Windows 95 or something--in real time, the red and gold predates the common home computer. Also, in the dramatic reveal of the old suit, at least two other, newer suits are in the background. This is like pushing aside three good pairs of pants in your closet, so you can get the polyester bell-bottoms in the back.

I also didn't care for the group introduced in this issue, the Sons of Yinsen. Professor Yinsen helped Tony build the original armor, then gave his life to buy Tony time to charge and use it. Except, in this retcon, Yinsen wasn't killed, and formed this cult of kung-fu monks with old-style armor to fight oppression and bust up sweatshops and whatnot. Seeing as they had never been heard of before, it doesn't seem like they were doing a great job of it, and you would think someone would notice a bunch of armored guys with an army of drones...

There is some interesting dialog in this, though. Some of the descriptions of Tony's old armor, such as noting the lack of guidance systems or the vibration of the repulsor rays, is pretty good. But the continuity is still, at best, pretty loose. More on that, next time!