A MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVELÂ
By Mike Saenz & Bill Bates (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-291-5
It’s an odd popular art form where as much work quickly becomes outdated and old-fashioned as becomes timeless. Here’s a sad example of the former, which still has much to recommend it but is actually painful to see in places.
The Near Future: Tony Stark has become a recluse, dealing with the real world at a distance via cybernetic systems. He has broken contact with all his old allies, is addicted to rejuvenation drugs and on this momentous day is about to sell all his Iron Man technological secrets to a Japanese industrial combine hostile to America.
At the last moment events rekindle the heroic spark of the man he used to be and amidst high drama and tension the Golden Avenger returns. It’s an old plot well scripted, but falls into two unfortunate traps, one of which is the overwhelming influence of the William Gibson style “cyberpunk†literary fashion prevalent at the time. That, at least, the reader can take-or-leave as required, but the other is a lot harder to ignore.
Billed as “the first computer generated graphic novel†there’s a kind of smug arrogance (reinforced by a frankly tedious technical section at the back) regarding the cutting-edge art created for the book which is simply unwarranted and undeserved – and was so even on the day it was first published.
Perhaps it was groundbreaking at the time – although I distinctly recall being underwhelmed by the grainy repetitiveness of the images even then – but surely the creators were aware that a few colour effects and graphs were no match for a star artist then and that they were only at the start of a process with all its glossy wonders still to come? If not, then I’ll bet they’re blown away by just the colouring in even the most mediocre of today’s comics.
Seriously though, this is a tale that still has merit and could benefit from a 2.0 upgrade, but it’s also a sterling reminder that it’s not the type of pencil that matters but the hand and mind holding it: and if that’s not a metaphor for Iron Man then I don’t know what is…
© 1988 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.