Random Happenstance

Not to make excuses or anything, but it's really, really nice out this week. I've been out biking with the Oldest and filling up the kiddie pool and working on my tan lines. I was going to say posting could be a bit spotty for a while, but then, I've been putting more effort into the homemade comics than I have the regular posts lately. Today though, let's take a look at what sounds like a bad idea to me, from last week's new Iron Manual. I was a little let down that it was a bit more a Handbook-style book than like the old version, which was a lot more a 'how-to-build-your-own-armor.' ("Step one: Be a billionaire.")

I'm not at all certain I would want my office decorated by my ex-girlfriend's parents. My late ex-girlfriend's parents. And I don't think they liked Tony that much when Rumiko was alive, for that matter, but then, a lot of the time, I don't think Rumiko liked Tony all the time either.

Rumiko had a pretty good run, as far as supporting character/girlfriends go in Iron Man. Especially when you consider that her name was the result of a throwaway line in the Marvel 2099: to sound more futuristic, Stark Enterprises was then a conglomerate, Stark-Fujikawa.

She was probably at her best in her earliest appearances under Busiek, but I remember most Tony revealing his secret identity to the world, when he had never told her. Jerk. Tony's and Rumiko's relationship had all the usual super-hero relationship problems, problems that start to seem a little silly when you have your own relationship problems and realize it's surprisingly easy to wreck things with your significant other even if you don't have a secret identity or live a life of danger and excitement. Maybe not as much fun, though.

I don't know if it's been mentioned in the actual books, but I did like the explanation that Iron Man's armor flies via "full-body nano-fan arrays" and the boot-jets are more for quick bursts of speed, or perhaps just show. Michael Hoskin is credited as head writer, but that touch and the diagrams look like the work of Eliot R. Brown. It's a fun book if you're at all an Iron Man fan, and maybe especially if you haven't been reading closely for a bit. Check it out.