fatmancomics
01-30-2008, 11:45 PM
As always, it is assumed that you have read the title being discussed so there will be SPOILERS. Don't read on if you don't want to read SPOILERS. You have been warned.
When I first saw the cover for issue 1 of this series I literally guffawed. I'm not kidding; the fanboys perusing the shelves next to me glanced over and everything. I thought, "Seriously, who does this Eric Canete guy think he is? Doesn't he realize that this lack of originality will cost him sales?" Well, it cost him a sale that day.
Weeks passed and issues 2, 3 and 4 came out with covers that just kept turning me off. I opened the books and the art inside was good. It had a "cartoony" look (which I generally don't like in my "serious" comics) but there was so much expression and gesture in the panels that there were times I thought I was looking at a panel drawn by Kirby. The last panel on issue one, where the Mandarin and Tony are facing off was tremendously Kirby-esque. But it was a retelling of what has become an obscure character to fair weather fanboys like myself so I kept skipping it. Then Christmas season came.
I happen to have a pull list in a ridiculously small LCS that has for a dungeon master one of the biggest geeks I've ever met in my life. This guy actually told me the lineage between the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet and on the holidays he plays all those stop motion animation movies that us old fogies grew up with. Comics are the man's life and he attracts new customers through clever little tricks like his yearly holiday sale. Do you remember the "Candy Man" sequence in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? That's what it's like in this guy's store during his holiday sale. He has toys and comics that aren't available in any of the bigger stores because he has such a small, yet steady, clientele that they just don't sell out during the rest of the year. Now here comes the sneaky part. During his holiday sale he changes his dollar bins to fifty cent bins and throws in a few number ones to current titles in order to get you hooked. If you don't like them, hey, you only spent fifty cents right? But the man has a knack for knowing what you'll like. He's gotten me twice and Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin was the second time.
There it was. That nasty cover with Tony doing his best Cliff Secord impersonation. But I had been curious all this time and it was only fifty cents right? So I put it on top of my fifty cent Stormwatch number one and took it home. I didn't even read it first. I read all the good stuff, the full price stuff, first. I didn't get to Iron Man until a few days later. It was Saturday and I hadn't made any plans to see anyone and there was nothing on tv. So I got to reading it.
Thirty minutes later I was reading it again. This time slower, taking the time out to appreciate each panel. My favorite panel in issue one was Tony sitting on a chair in his gigantic master bedroom recharging his battery with a cord that looked like it was made back in the 60s while some random tart slept in his bed, exhausted from the prior night's activities. That panel said so much about this Iron Man that so many other stories and artists have failed to do. His chest plate was huge; also implying that it was made in the 60s. Of course, this story is supposed to take place in the past but Mr. Canete had already established in the pages prior that the setting was contemporary. But Tony still had the old chest plate from when his suit was powered by transistors. To me, that was a classic moment because THIS Iron Man was still limited by his injury and the suit had evolved but the original tech attached to Tony had not. This was not a "new" Tony that had been reborn in another body and had the ability to control machines with his thoughts. This was the Tony from the Marvel Hour. This was the Tony I knew. And yet he was still arrogant, inconsiderate and easily frustrated when outsmarted. I needed more and I went immediately to my LCS to get the rest of the issues. Number 3 was missing from the shelves but, luckily for me, there were plenty in one of the boxes that held up the wall opposite the counter. I devoured them when I got home and have read them over three times since.
I've gone on and on about the art but the story, in the end, is what kept me interested past issue one. Kudos to Joe Casey for doing such a good job of bringing a classic character back to his roots without making him cheesy. That goes double for the Mandarin because, in this story, the Mandarin is a true bastard who's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to meet his goals.
So, in conclusion, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't buy this limited series. As for me; I'm going to keep reading it over and over again until issue 5 comes out in a couple of weeks.
Joe Casey (W)
Eric Canete (P/I)
Dave Stewart (C)
Published by Marvel
Price: $2.99
When I first saw the cover for issue 1 of this series I literally guffawed. I'm not kidding; the fanboys perusing the shelves next to me glanced over and everything. I thought, "Seriously, who does this Eric Canete guy think he is? Doesn't he realize that this lack of originality will cost him sales?" Well, it cost him a sale that day.
Weeks passed and issues 2, 3 and 4 came out with covers that just kept turning me off. I opened the books and the art inside was good. It had a "cartoony" look (which I generally don't like in my "serious" comics) but there was so much expression and gesture in the panels that there were times I thought I was looking at a panel drawn by Kirby. The last panel on issue one, where the Mandarin and Tony are facing off was tremendously Kirby-esque. But it was a retelling of what has become an obscure character to fair weather fanboys like myself so I kept skipping it. Then Christmas season came.
I happen to have a pull list in a ridiculously small LCS that has for a dungeon master one of the biggest geeks I've ever met in my life. This guy actually told me the lineage between the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet and on the holidays he plays all those stop motion animation movies that us old fogies grew up with. Comics are the man's life and he attracts new customers through clever little tricks like his yearly holiday sale. Do you remember the "Candy Man" sequence in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? That's what it's like in this guy's store during his holiday sale. He has toys and comics that aren't available in any of the bigger stores because he has such a small, yet steady, clientele that they just don't sell out during the rest of the year. Now here comes the sneaky part. During his holiday sale he changes his dollar bins to fifty cent bins and throws in a few number ones to current titles in order to get you hooked. If you don't like them, hey, you only spent fifty cents right? But the man has a knack for knowing what you'll like. He's gotten me twice and Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin was the second time.
There it was. That nasty cover with Tony doing his best Cliff Secord impersonation. But I had been curious all this time and it was only fifty cents right? So I put it on top of my fifty cent Stormwatch number one and took it home. I didn't even read it first. I read all the good stuff, the full price stuff, first. I didn't get to Iron Man until a few days later. It was Saturday and I hadn't made any plans to see anyone and there was nothing on tv. So I got to reading it.
Thirty minutes later I was reading it again. This time slower, taking the time out to appreciate each panel. My favorite panel in issue one was Tony sitting on a chair in his gigantic master bedroom recharging his battery with a cord that looked like it was made back in the 60s while some random tart slept in his bed, exhausted from the prior night's activities. That panel said so much about this Iron Man that so many other stories and artists have failed to do. His chest plate was huge; also implying that it was made in the 60s. Of course, this story is supposed to take place in the past but Mr. Canete had already established in the pages prior that the setting was contemporary. But Tony still had the old chest plate from when his suit was powered by transistors. To me, that was a classic moment because THIS Iron Man was still limited by his injury and the suit had evolved but the original tech attached to Tony had not. This was not a "new" Tony that had been reborn in another body and had the ability to control machines with his thoughts. This was the Tony from the Marvel Hour. This was the Tony I knew. And yet he was still arrogant, inconsiderate and easily frustrated when outsmarted. I needed more and I went immediately to my LCS to get the rest of the issues. Number 3 was missing from the shelves but, luckily for me, there were plenty in one of the boxes that held up the wall opposite the counter. I devoured them when I got home and have read them over three times since.
I've gone on and on about the art but the story, in the end, is what kept me interested past issue one. Kudos to Joe Casey for doing such a good job of bringing a classic character back to his roots without making him cheesy. That goes double for the Mandarin because, in this story, the Mandarin is a true bastard who's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to meet his goals.
So, in conclusion, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't buy this limited series. As for me; I'm going to keep reading it over and over again until issue 5 comes out in a couple of weeks.
Joe Casey (W)
Eric Canete (P/I)
Dave Stewart (C)
Published by Marvel
Price: $2.99