Iron Mongering: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. & Secret Invasion War Machine

2009-02-03 9:09:57 pm

In my ever-expanding quest to read more Iron Man comics I decided to give a few recent trades a shot, which brought be to Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Secret Invasion: War Machine. I wanted to read all of the post-Civil War Iron Man books, but couldn't find them in the library, so this will do.

IRON MAN: DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Written by Daniel and Charles Knauf, drawn by Roberto de la Torre
As some of you may know, I was involved in the weekly Civil War Room review column on wizarduniverse.com lead by former Wizard staffer Rickey Purdin. I enlisted thinking it would be a seven week commitment (that's how long it was supposed to take to come out right?). Well, it turned into an over year long commitment in which I read 99% of the Civil War related comics (thank you vacation). Anyway, because of all this, I feel pretty confident in saying that Iron Man was not a well handled character at the time, at least in my opinion.

So, with that in mind, I was pretty apt to skip Iron Man's post-Civil War comic which saw him in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. an organization most well known for being lead by one of the coolest characters in the known universe, Nick Fury. But, alas, that didn't keep me away forever.

This trade is a pretty interesting one. The writers Knauf spin an intriguing yarn with plenty of espionage and superheroics all the same. I really like how Tony has built Iron Man-like armor for his S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. That's a cool touch that really makes sense. Also, I like how Dum Dum Dugan doesn't like Tony's way of running S.H.I.E.L.D. (like a business instead of a military organization). There's some pretty cool moments between the two of them as their relationship grows over the issues.

The book, which collects Iron Man #15-18, also features the return of the handless Mandarin who gets the alien power rings surgically inserted into his spine. I really wish I had the next few volumes to read between this and Secret Invasion to see how that played out. Some day I guess...

All in all, good stuff. Maybe not an easy entry point for new readers, but it's a good read for the initiated and also reprints two older stories, one starring Nick Fury, the other Iron Man. There's also reprints of some Marvel Spotlight: Civil War stuff and Marvel Handbook stuff, so that's a good deal.

SECRET INVASION: WAR MACHINE
Written by Chris Gage and drawn by Sean Chen
This book collects the repurposed Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. issues (#33-35) which were dubbed War Machine: Weapon of S.H.I.E.L.D. while Iron Man was stuck in the Savage Land for six months.

I actually really dug this story. It's one of the cooler Secret Invasion tie-ins, far as I'm concerned. What you get is Jim Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, getting a distress call from Tony telling him that StarkTech had been compromised by the Skrulls, but luckily Rhodey (who's apparently a cyborg who looks an awful lot like Cyborg now) doesn't have StarkTech inside him, so he's cool. Tony also leads him to a satellite that's shielded from everyone that also transforms into a giant robot that Rhodey can control.

The story also has a pretty good tussle with the Winter Guard, some cool Super Skrulls that actually get identified (why couldn't they tell us who made up ALL the Skrulls?!) and a character by the name of Suzi Endo who is apparently known, but not by me. I wish this book would have come with some kind of intro or a Handbook entry on some of the characters to let me know what's up with them, but I got the gist of it. I haven't read the new War Machine book, but this definitely makes me want to, especially if it has a satellite that transforms into a giant robot!!!