Comic Review: The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man

Published: 1991
Written by: Danny Fingeroth
Art by: Al Milgrom

Marvel Comics, 103 Pages

Review:

I loved this series when it came out in 1991. My sixth grade friends and I couldn’t stop talking about it and we all thought the idea of the Sinister Syndicate was pretty cool, as they were a sort of B-level Sinister Six full of Spider-Man villains that usually don’t get as much airplay as the A-level baddies.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, reading this thirty years later, but I have to say that I was more than pleasantly surprised. This was a great story with a ton of twists, turns and backstabbery. The villains could barely get along enough to pull off one heist, so seeing them all play against one another was entertaining as hell. Each villain had their own objective and pretty quickly, those solo objectives created real friction.

This also has a few subplots that worked great.

To start, the deceased Ringer’s girlfriend is a part of the gang, as a getaway driver. However, she has revenge plans of her own and it’s neat seeing them unfold, as she sort of plays a classic femme fatale.

Also, The Kingpin gets involved and starts pulling some strings for his own reason. He adds to the chaos in a great way and plays everyone like pawns. Well, that is until a certain character surprisingly outwits him.

I liked the subplot about The Shocker too. He’s not officially in the Sinister Syndicate but he weaves in and out of the story while dealing with his overwhelming fear of Spider-Man, The Scourge and The Punisher.

Danny Fingeroth wrote a really cool, very layered and well executed story. Al Milgrom complimented that with beautiful art.

After revisiting this and loving it so much, I think I’m going to delve into its sequel soon, The Lethal Foes of Spider-Man. That one, I haven’t actually read.

Rating: 9/10
Pairs well with: The Lethal Foes of Spider-Man and The Superior Foes of Spider-Man.

Comic Review: Iron Man: Demon In A Bottle

Published: March 3rd, 2010
Written by: Bob Layton, David Michelinie
Art by: Carmine Infantino, Bob Layton, John Romita Jr.

Marvel Comics, 167 Pages

Review:

This collection of Demon In A Bottle was a pretty cool read. However, people have referenced the story for years and truthfully, it’s not a big arc like many insinuate or imagine. In fact, this covers multiple arcs but each has a common thread and that’s Tony Stark’s fall into alcoholism.

Ultimately, this ends with him overcoming his demons and trying to fix the damage he’s caused, rebuilding himself into who Iron Man needs to be.

It’s also important to mention that this debuted the long-time Iron Man villain, Justin Hammer. Hammer was created as a character similar to Tony Stark but one who stayed on a dark path. He was also deliberately made to look like Peter Cushing and in this story, John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton did a stellar job of conveying that.

The story also features the Avengers, Namor and a slew of C-list villains that Hammer employs in an effort to overwhelm Iron Man. Overall, this is just as action-packed and exciting as it is dramatic and full of real human trauma and emotion.

While it’s not my favorite classic Iron Man story (or stories), it is a very important piece of the character’s history and served to build up his character in a pretty dynamic way. It does what most modern mainstream comics don’t do and that’s showing weakness in a hero.

In fact, this is about a hero’s journey and personal evolution, which is something that was lost in the storytelling art of superhero comics. Hell, it’s been lost in most mainstream media, as we constantly get characters that are made to be perfect and “special” without faults or real struggle.

Rating: 7/10
Pairs well with: other Iron Man stories of the ’80s, most notably the Armor Wars saga.

Comic Review: The Invincible Iron Man: Armor Wars

Also known as: Stark Wars
Published: December 10th, 1987 (start of the story arc)
Written by: Bob Layton, David Michelinie
Art by: Mark Bright, Bob Sharen

Marvel Comics, 209 Pages

Review:

Good lord, it has been an incredibly long time since I read through this classic Iron Man story arc. Probably at least twenty-five years. But as I’ve been going through all my old comics in an effort to preserve them and catalog them, I wanted to revisit this old school tale.

Armor Wars, at the time of its printing, was referred to as Stark Wars, which was probably a cheap attempt at capitalizing off of Star Wars.

The story kicks off with Tony Stark finding out that his tech secrets have been stolen. He sets off to try to correct this, learning that his secrets have been sold off to a bunch of supervillains and tech industry rivals. This sets up a situation where Tony has to go rogue, deal with the consequences of those actions and also has to battle a bunch of his famous foes, who are now more enhanced thanks to Tony’s secrets.

Ultimately, this is a very well written comic book story arc for its time. To this day, this is still considered one of the best Iron Man stories of all-time. It is certainly one of my favorites and when I was a kid, it really served to introduce me to a lot of Iron Man’s famous villains. This is where I first discovered the Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, the Controller and a few others. I was already a fan of Beetle from his appearances in Spider-Man stories.

This story also features the West Coast Avengers, who had one of the coolest comics in the late ’80s.

One of the biggest highlights, however, was that this has a chapter where Iron Man fights Captain America. This happened a few decades before the Civil War storyline in the comics and was the first time that I remember seeing two heroes really throw down with each other without one being controlled by some villain or being corrupted by some sort of power or force.

Apart from the Iron Man and Captain America fight, I loved the chapter that saw Tony Stark go head to head with both the Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo at the same time. This was just a great comic, even as a stand alone and not a chapter in a larger story arc.

This is still one of the greatest Iron Man tales ever written. I thought that the conclusion was a bit anticlimactic but it was an ending that still worked and ushered in a new era for Tony Stark and his friends.

Rating: 8.5/10
Pairs well with: Other classic Iron Man story arcs: Demon In A Bottle, Doomquest, 10 Rings to Rule the World, Iron Monger, The Ghost and the Machine and The Dragon Seed Saga. Also, Armor Wars II.

Film Review: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Release Date: April 26th, 2010 (El Capitan Theatre premiere)
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Written by: Justin Theroux
Based on: Iron Man by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, Jack Kirby
Music by: John Debney
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Jon Favreau, Paul Bettany (voice), Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, Leslie Bibb, Gary Shandling, John Slattery, Kate Mara, Olivia Munn (cameo)

Fairview Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, 125 Minutes

Review:

“If you try to escape, or play any sort of games with me, I will taze you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet.” – Agent Coulson

I remember that when I first saw Iron Man 2, I was disappointed. I really hadn’t watched it since it came out but it was nice revisiting it and I was surprised to discover that it was better than I remembered it. Maybe it’s because Marvel movies are a dime a dozen now but this had more of a plot and more character development than most of the massive team-up movies we get today.

This film also introduces us to Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, who would become a major player in the Avengers franchise, and it recasts James Rhodes a.k.a. War Machine with Don Cheadle, who brought more charisma than Terrence Howard and also has much more chemistry with Robert Downey Jr. We also get more of Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury, Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson, small roles for John Slattery and Kate Mara, a cameo by Olivia Munn and others, as well as the addition of Gary Shandling and the return of Leslie Bibb.

The main additions to the film are the villains though. We get Sam Rockwell, recent Oscar winner, as Justin Hammer, a rival of Tony Stark. We also get Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, who is a combination of Iron Man villains the Crimson Dynamo and Whiplash. I liked both men in their roles and thought they had a solid chemistry when they shared scenes together. Whiplash’s backstory was interesting and I actually would have liked to have seen him return. Well, I’d like to see Hammer return too and since he doesn’t die, his return isn’t impossible.

The film isn’t as good or as refined as the original but it expands on the Iron Man pocket of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe that hadn’t reached its apex by 2010. It is a better film than The Incredible Hulk and seeing it now, I like it better than all of the other Phase One Marvel films after the first Iron Man. Although, I am planning to revisit Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger over the next week.

I think that Jon Favreau did a great job directing the first two Iron Man movies. It was a hard task but he accomplished what he set out to do, which was to build a good foundation for the future of the MCU. The entire franchise was born out of Favreau’s vision for Iron Man and I think it was a good vision and a great starting point.

The climax was long but it was much bigger than the simple fight that capped off the first film. Iron Man had his work cut out for him but now having allies made for a much richer finale. I just wish that the actual fight between Iron Man and War Machine against Whiplash wouldn’t have ended so quickly. I felt like Rourke’s character deserved a few more minutes of being a total badass. Then again, he bit off more than he could chew in engaging two men in Iron Man suits.

Iron Man 2 is a better movie than what I thought it was at first glance, back in 2010. Ultimately, it is a fun, larger than life, popcorn flick. It’s a damn good one at that, though. We now live in a world where there’s a half dozen superhero movies per year and that might be a low estimate. Iron Man 2 is better than what has become the standard, as the genre becomes more and more watered down with each comic book movie and television show.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: Iron Man, Iron Man 3, Captain America: Civil War.