I was completely overwhelmed by my apathy when reading this comic book. In Indomitable Iron Man readers get four different stories, none of which are particularly interesting. This is pretty much just a collection of instantly forgettable short stories.
Up front is a pointless little yarn about a wayward space probe that Iron Man has to chase down before it destroys a space shuttle. Guess what, Tony succeeds in his endeavor. There’s just not a whole lot that’s especially compelling in this story. There is one nice little comment about how the space program is rendered pointless in a world of super-heroes, but really I found this story to be completely dull. And the scene where Tony has a psychic connection to the electronic device? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
The second story, written and illustrated by the great Howard Chaykin, is slightly more compelling. However, the weird structure of the story works against it being great. The concept of the story is that Tony is at the center of the Marvel Universe and that he’s constantly besieged by urgent calls, even when engaged in a battle with the Titanium Man. It’s not even really a story as much as a little vignette, but the idea of the story basically works against its effectiveness. There’s just nothing in the story for readers to be interested in; we get the point early that Tony is busy, and don’t get much beyond that idea except a lot of repetition. At least Chaykin’s artwork is appealing as always.
The third story brings us Tony as a Howard Hughes-style recluse in the far future. Aside from the cool image of a secret hideout in the middle of the Mojave Desert, there’s just not a lot that’s interesting about this character piece. There’s no plot to speak of, and I was completely repulsed by the idea that due to Tony’s genius in this future world that all the important inventions had been created. Yeah right.
To wrap up the comic we get a childishly-written text story that reads as if it were left over from a children’s book.
If you’re feeling the Iron Man hype and want to read a bunch of stories about Tony, you have a lot more choices than this crappy book.
