After reading yesterday's enthusiastic review of Ryan North's new Iron Man one-shot, you might be wondering: can RG offer any more updates or commentary on the main Iron Man title?

Uh, yeah. Obviously, a few more issues of Cantwell's Iron Man have in fact been released since my last engagement with that book (see here). But I've just had zero motivation - until now - to write anything more involved than an occasional offhand tweet. Why? Well, based on all my other reviews and YouTube videos (all of which you can find here), you can probably guess: I love the art, but I don't like the story. I just don't like it.

Is it the worst Iron Man story that's ever been written? Eh, I'm not sure. But I think it's definitely competing in a tight horse race to the bottom with The Crossing, Superior Iron Man, and Gillen's dumbass adoption retcon (that no one asked for). Oh, and Iron Man 2020 too. (Shit, there have been a lot of bad Iron Man stories -- which is deeply depressing.) So this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to use this post to present my definitive list of gripes in re: the current run and let that be my final word on Cantwell.

Until, that is, something drastically changes.

In the interest of fairness, I do have to give Cantwell credit on a few things. For one, he generally gets Tony's response to catastrophic injury exactly right. Yes, Tony is cavalier when it comes to his own health and safety. Yes, Tony will ignore all warnings regarding the same if he's in the middle of an important mission. Panels like this (from issue #13) are panels that actually work:

Tony's treating his own brain hemorrhage as an afterthought here and that's -- pretty quintessential.

Secondly, as I've remarked in prior posts (particularly my first post on this run), Cantwell's original mid-life crisis angle wasn't a bad premise. Tony's been through a lot of trauma in recent years; for heaven's sake, one of his best friends basically murdered him! It's very, very natural that he would wish to reassess his life and make some radical changes.

But that -- actually brings me to my first gripe: this entire story is a bait and switch. Marvel originally sold it as Tony going "back to basics" -- but Cantwell doesn't allow Tony's new, more pared-down life to stick. Just as soon as he can, he launches Tony back into space to battle an aspiring god and, as of the last issue, gifts him with the power cosmic:

Now maybe this is just me, but I wanted to see barefoot, grease-covered Tony using his primitive-AF armor to, I don't know, defend a struggling neighborhood from a gang of street-level villains (which he absolutely would do; see also his halfway houses, his philanthropic foundations, his orphan snuggling, etc.) -- while also assisting stranded motorists, rescuing treed cats, and - of course - working on his capital-I Issues. Granted, this sort of story doesn't have quite the same flash as a fight over Galactus' left-over toys, but that doesn't mean it can't be profound and compelling in the hands of a genuinely talented writer. I hate to keep belaboring the point, but the very best issue of Iron Man has no universal stakes; all it features is a life-threatening blizzard and a homeless alcoholic (i.e., Tony) struggling to find a reason to continue living.

Gripe #2: Cantwell definitely has Tom King syndrome. Tony has always had his issues with self-worth, depression, and substance abuse; he's not a hap-hap-happy guy. But in Cantwell's run, we're not just seeing the occasional morose moment; instead, Cantwell seems determined to render Tony completely dependent upon a "strong woman" who will always set him straight:

Patsy Walker, essentially, has become Tony's "mommy wife," to use a term Our Boi Zack has coined.

It's not healthy, in my view, for Tony to be paired up with a woman who sees him as her next project. I get chiding Tony for his flaws every once in a while (indeed, every truly loving relationship sometimes requires that sort of gentle correction), but Patsy never seems to have anything to say that's not an implicit criticism of everything Tony does. And yet Tony clings to her like a loyal puppy dog -- which honestly inspires nausea and vicarious embarrassment rather than admiration. 

Gripe #3: Tony's not allowed to be a genius. Not once have we seen Tony use his fertile brain to intelligently tackle a conflict in which he's potentially over-matched. Instead, he consistently tries to punch his way through his problems -- and consistently gets his ass beat for his trouble. True: Tony, canonically, is not always the wisest decision maker. Sometimes, he does let his heart rule his head. But more frequently, Tony relies on strategy and sheer cleverness to get himself out of difficult jams. That Cantwell has entirely ignored this facet of Tony's character seems, to me, to be yet another calculated decision to diminish him as a hero. (One illustration of this problem: Tony has fought Ultimo before and won. His naivete and apparent helplessness a few issues ago, therefore, flatly contradicts his established history.) 

Gripe #4: Cantwell can't tell the difference between "ego" and pride and, on the whole, has zero clue what really motivates Tony. Or: Like other modern writers, Cantwell opts to write a very surface-level movie Tony (which is not accurate to the true movie Tony, just FYI, but that's a whole other post of its own) instead of a 616 Tony whose apparent pride is the fruit of an emotionally abusive upbringing (in the comics, Howard berates Tony for showing any sensitivity or weakness, declaring that Stark men must be "made of iron"), a whole heaping load of survivor's guilt, and an all-consuming terror that he will be responsible for some great evil if he doesn't have perfect control over events. 

Tony's infamous bouts of monomania (like the Armor Wars or Civil War) are driven primarily by a desire to protect -- not by a desire to elevate his own reputation or position. Bear in mind: in the Civil War era, he has to be blackmailed into taking the position as Director of SHIELD and spends a good chunk of his time in that role near tears and/or on the edge of literal madness. So -- yeah. He doesn't take the government's side in Civil War because he wants power. Similarly, the Armor Wars almost destroy his friendships, his status as an Avenger, and public confidence in his company. There's no profit there (aside from the assurance that his tech will now be kept out of villainous hands); only nightmares.

In Cantwell's comic, meanwhile, Tony spends an inordinate amount of time seeking external validation. Especially in the early issues, he whines that no one respects him -- and he doesn't contradict Patsy when she supposes that he's seeking a statue in Central Park for his good deeds. But this is not Tony; this is some virtue-signaling tech billionaire who's stolen his name. This is Bill Gates in a Tony skinsuit.

And finally, Gripe #5: Tony has been checking his privilege since 19-freakin'-63. But Cantwell demonstrates no awareness of Tony's storied record of kindness and humanitarian giving, does not seem to know that Tony was once homeless, and seems equally uninformed when it comes to Tony's long-standing psychiatric troubles and his repeated flirtations with suicidal ideation. On the contrary, his storytelling seems based on the assumption that Tony's some entitled "rich white man" who's lived an entirely blessed life free of struggle or any contact with the "the other half" and is fixated on teaching Tony "lessons" on hardship and charity that Tony has already learned. Chris: in addition to reading my first post critiquing your comic, I also invite you to read (among other essential issues) Iron Man, Volume 1, #176, in which Tony shares a soaked cardboard box with a fellow wino on a rainy night. Believe me: Tony knows intimately what it's like to have nothing but the ragged clothes on his back.  

If I think of more complaints, I'll edit this post to add them in. But the above points basically cover the major reasons why Cantwell's Iron Man isn't working for me -- and why I probably won't be talking about it much from this point forward.