So Tony Stark realized he’s adopted, and that Howard and Maria Stark’s real son is named Arno, a disabled guy who has had to live his entire life in hiding until now. Upon discovering all this, his first order of business hasn’t been to seek out his real parents – it’s been to get to know his brother, and what do you know, they are both super-geniuses. Iron Man #19 gives us their first big project together, and if you thought one Stark had big britches, wait until you see what two of them try to accomplish.
In Iron Man #19, writer Kieron Gillen begins his new “Iron Metropolitan” arc, and the logo design inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is just beautiful, and that jumps out at you right away. We see Tony bringing Pepper Potts into his new project (and revealing to her that he based an entire A.I. interface – not unlike Jarvis in the movies – on her, and Pepper is made fairly uncomfortable by P.E.P.P.E.R. Therefore, Tony disengages her from running the Iron Man suit and renames her H.E.L.E.N. and puts her in charge of Troy. Who is Troy? It’s not a who. It’s a what, and that ‘what’ is an entire city that the Stark Brothers plan to create as a utopia – and they’re doing it on the ruins of what was once Mandarin City offshore of China.
At least I THINK that’s what Troy is. That’s definitely what the Stark Brothers are doing, but Troy is mentioned at a “classified” location called The Core. Maybe it’s something else entirely, but the implication is that she’ll be the center of this gleaming new metropolis they have planned. Is it wise to build on Mandarin City, which has apparently gone feral and brutal since Mandarin died and fallen under Triad control? Well, the thought is that it’s a place that the Starks “can’t mess up,” and everything they do will help. However, Mandarin may be gone, but he’s still got some influence left in this town, which becomes all too clear when Tony tries to have a press conference. Superhero press conferences never go well.
Gillen’s new direction here is a bit more satisfying and down to earth (literally) than his whole space adventure, as curiously weird as that could be. This feels like a more relevant way for Iron Man to go, as it looks like we’re going to see ‘big picture futurist’ guys get dragged down by the present. It feels like there may be more to Arno than we’ve seen so far, although that may just be because my trope-senses tingle and it feels like he has to turn out to be some kind of supervillain when all is said and done. But he doesn’t. In fact, it would be much more interesting if he never does. So maybe that shoe won’t drop – although one that does eventually will have to be where Tony came from, and how he happened to also be a techno-godbrain just like Arno who happened to be born at the same time and who happened to look a hell of a lot like Howard Stark.
The art from Joe Bennett in this issue is top notch. The splash page of Iron Man flying over the remains of Mandarin City is gorgeous, and his fight against the Triads running around with Mandarin tech just looks cool, as does the interruption of the press conference that Tony will have a hard time pardoning. So Iron Man is moving forward, taking the space-baby weirdness of the last arc in stride, and giving us some trade dressing that’s going to look great on the shelf. Seriously, the “Iron Metropolitan” logo is wonderful, and that’s twice now I’ve referenced how much I like logos. That ain’t par for the course, y’know. I’m guessing the kudos go to Tim Leong, the designer.
