As a big fan of the Dark Horse Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comics, I was excited to find that John Jackson Miller had done a run on Invincible Iron Man. I found the issues on Marvel's Complete Invincible Iron Man DVD-ROM, and I really enjoyed Miller's take on Tony Stark.
It's a mix of classic Iron Man techno-fantasy-adventure with elements of The West Wing. Tony Stark gets himself named U.S. Secretary of Defense after finding out that the military has used some legal loophole to open Stark Industries' closed patents and exploit his technology. Because they're working on the tech behind closed doors and rushing the jobs using contractors who don't understand the theories behind the mechanics, things are going wrong and people are getting killed.
Tony being Tony, he can't just halt production of the weapons, he has to go farther to try to fix the problem. He gets a bunch of U.S. Senators together and claims that as Secretary of Defense he can make it so that nobody ever has to die in war again.
It's a big crazy comic book idea, but it's just the kind of idealism I love - and with how fast technology changes, it really isn't that hard to believe that people could create technology for war that could be non-lethal but effective. Miller also has Tony making the important points about why war needs to change this way - especially in a world where violence doesn't just beget violence, it begets terrorism, fanaticism, and immeasurable collateral damage.
Miller sells it because, like all great Iron Man writers, he suggests technology that doesn't feel too far-fetched or is based on the kinds of things scientists have theorized today.
- JC
JC: "Honey, have you seen my soapbox?"
RD: "Did you check under your feet?"
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