With Labor Day fast approaching, it’s only fitting to look back at our first love this summer. We speak, of course, of the "Iron Man" movie. What did we learn from it? That a-hole industrialists make awesome heroes, Gwyneth Paltrow’s secret superpower is wearing absurdly high heels, plus metallurgy sort of rules. But mostly, we’ve realized that we cannot humanly wait until April 2010 for Robert Downey Jr. to don another steely suit as he possibly grapples with his love of hooch.
Thanks to comics scribe Matt Fraction ("Casanova," "Immortal Iron Fist") and illustrator Salvador Larroca ("Uncanny X-Men"), we’re pretty much getting that sequel now with "Invincible Iron Man," the Marvel title that springboards effortlessly—and satisfyingly—off the blockbuster film. Here, Stark traces a series of catastrophic suicide-bombing attacks to one dude: Ezekiel Stane, son of fabled foe Obadiah Stane (or, Jeff Bridges in the movie), who’s a busy little villain, what with dealing Iron Man-esque nuclear gizmos to the highest baddie bidders and also refining the technology to finally whack Stark.
After the jump, Fraction gives Splash Page a taste of his greater designs on Iron Man, then offers us an exclusive, explosive peek at this arc’s penultimate issue (number 5, out Sept. 3).
MTV: How much did the "Iron Man" film inform the story or tone of "Invincible"?
Matt Fraction: I'd started writing the book before I saw a frame of the film or knew anything about it other than what had been in the trades, so it's all happy coincidence. I made a lot of guesses and tried to intuit the kind of film I believed that group of people were going to make...and got stupid-lucky. I mean, you don't cast Gwyneth Paltrow if Pepper Potts isn't going to have some serious game, right? And you don't cast Robert Downey Jr. if you want, uh, Christian Bale. That said, I had the thought, as Kyle Cooper's astonishingly great end-titles rolled that "Man, I wish I wrote 'Iron Man.'" And then realized I did, and sorta did a little happy-dance, right there in the theater.
MTV: And would you ever consider throwing your quill into the ring (inkwell?) for an Iron Man sequel?
Fraction: Man, that'd be a thrill. Of course. And, y'know, they put together an Iron Man brain trust and workshopped some of the story stuff on the first film, so you never know... Or is this one of those things like Prom Queen, where you're not supposed to act like you want it? Then no, no, that'd be just awful.
MTV: Was the relative zen-ness of last issue (especially Tony Stark’s the chess game with Reed Richards) meant to offset this issue’s all-out action?
Fraction: We've definitely got two issues of mayhem and murder on tap—to say nothing of the craziness at the end of #5 -- so this was our last chance to, pardon the pun, examine the pieces on the board relative to one another and spend a moment taking in a breath before everything is absolutely set on fire. And I'm kind of guessing that we’ve got a lot of new readers, folks who came to the book from the movie and don't necessarily know the minutiae of the last 45 years of Iron Man or whatever. So I'm doing my best to give the supporting cast some time to shine in their own right, to set up the relationships in a way that honors the history of the book while moving the story. Accessibility is the watchword.
MTV: As an Ingmar Bergman fan, I can't help but wonder: Was the chess game some kind of metaphor for how Stane is actually waging more of a mind game against Stark? How will this ultimately play out?
Fraction: More of...it's a metaphorical bit of foreshadowing. Like Tony said: It's how he'll beat Stane. Or how he'll die trying, anyway. And I wanted to illustrate the way Tony—and people in that megagenius class of thinker—actually thinks, visually. Simultaneous horizontal and vertical problem solving and all that.
MTV: This is a six-issue arc right? Will you continue to pen Ult Iron Man? If so, any tease for what you'll write about? As we come in to the close, can you shed light on how this story, this battle, will affect the Stark character in the long run?
Fraction: Yeah. Then issue 7 works as a little epilogue/prologue to our next arc which -- by way of tease, I'll give you the title -- is called "World’s Most Wanted." The battle with Stane [in Invincible Iron Man 1-6] is the first time Tony -- a former arms designer and dealer, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the maker of lots and lots of difficult decisions in the name of the public good -- has had to fight a Fourth Generation war, fought by a 4G thinker. My take on this book, and everything I want to do, is to bring about a real reckoning for Stark, where all the ghosts of his past come calling. Marvel heroes are always anchored by their great, flawed humanity. And for my money, there aren't any greater or more flawed Marvel heroes than Tony Stark.
MTV: Lastly, have you read director Jon Favreau's comic, "Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas"? What do you think of it?
Fraction: Oh, it's a blast. It's like the "Iron Man" movie that's too expensive to ever be made. And I wish I'd have gotten Tony into bed with two girls first.
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What do you think, folks? Is our unrequited appetite for a throwdown in issue 4 finally sated? Are you looking forward to more Fraction/Lorroca-inflected Iron Man comics? And should Marvel loop Fraction into helping script "Iron Man 2"?
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