I’m stunned.
I was all set with my negative review. First, I was going to rant about how the book took over a year to get out six issues (the story is titled Extremis). Then I was going to say Ellis’ mainstream work was stale and only his indie work like Fell was any good. Maybe I would then go on to complain about Ellis revamping an iconic character (though I don’t know why... Ellis is incredibly aware of technology’s cultural implications, so I guess he would actually be a good choice...) Eureka! I remember the final point--arguing the uselessness of Iron Man in today’s grim and gritty comic books.
Unfortunately, Ellis conspired against me. His Iron Man is a fantastic read, probably the best updating of a character I’ve read. Ellis establishes Iron Man in the present, looks at the past’s influence on the character (there are multiple flashbacks and I didn’t mind any of them, even loved the last one), and reestablishes the character’s purpose. When I was a kid, I loved Iron Man. I don’t know why. Probably because of the costume--I don’t remember the content of any Iron Man comic I owned as a child, so it had to be the costume. The costume represents the future and it’s a specific thing--the Iron Man costume in The Ultimates doesn’t inspire, only the red and yellow. It might be all nostalgia, I don’t know. I doubt it, however, since Ellis’ Iron Man is about Iron Man rediscovering his love of a hopeful future. It’s a wonderful story--inspiring on the human level--about a character I didn’t think had any modern relevance. I feel like an ass.
I also feel like an ass because I was going to say--originally--I had to wait for a comic book filled with art out of a video game. Illustrator Adi Granov uses computer generated art. His work has an incredible fluidity to it and emotion to it. Ellis’ story could not have been told as well by any other artist, which is an incredibly rare situation in comic books. So again, here’s me feeling like an ass. It’s just too bad Ellis isn’t writing it anymore, but he doesn’t really have to... his Iron Man stands on it’s own.