Iron Man 2.0 #3 & Captain America: The Fighting Avenger #1

Well, I had a whole little intro whipped up here about the comics I was reviewing tonight when BAM, the wire for my laptop died on me... A broken laptop wire means the laptop isn't getting power... Which means that when this charge is finished, I'll be Internet-less. Well except for my PS3, but obviously I'm not going to be able to do/post any new reviews... Yeah... What I AM going to do is fiddle around with this damned wire to see if I can rig it to work, and if not, I'll have to see if I can pick up a compatible wire somewhere. And if THAT doesn't work, it looks like I'll be buying a new laptop, which I really don't want to do. Bottom line, if I can't get this wire to work, and I can't find a replacement wire in my area, I won't be able to post any new reviews... So if I fall off the face of the Earth for a few days, that's why. :-(

Iron Man 2.0 #3:

Summary: Last issue saw War Machine(James “Rhodey” Rhodes) getting blown up good. This issue starts with the government pulling Rhodey's utterly wrecked War Machine armor out of the wreckage and shipping Rhodey off to the hospital. Needless to say, getting blown up is the opposite of what Gen. Babbage expected Rhodey to do, and as such wants Rhodey fired and taken off the Palmer Addley investigation. Pepper Potts, who is sitting in for Maria Hill, tells Babbage that the government had the wrong information on Addley, which is what led to Rhodey getting blown up. Since Babbage couldn't pin the explosion on Rhodey, he's forced to allow him to continue working for the government. From there Rhodey(just out of the hospital) meets up with Tony Stark to survey the damage done to his War Machine armor. Tony begins tearing pieces of the War Machine armor apart, including the phallic machine gun on the shoulder(HA!!!), before telling Rhodey that it was time for him to upgrade his armor. Tony leads Rhodey away from the destroyed War Machine armor and introduces him to the souped up Iron Man 2.0 armor. IM 2.0 is as light-weight as Tony's IM armor, but has a mess of extra bells and whistles, including anti-radar, intangibility and chameleon mode, as well as a combat mode for those times you REALLY want to blow something up. Needless to say, Rhodey is happy to take the new armor out, ending this issue.

Thoughts: This comic was pretty much the tale of TWO comics... The beginning was sort of slow and I'd even say a bit boring. Once we got up to the Rhodey/Tony new War Machine stuff though, this issue kicked it up like 8 or 9 notches. One thing Nick Spencer has proven he's GREAT at is dialogging Tony and Rhodey's scenes. Their interaction was awesome in IM 2.0 #1, and it was awesome here. They come across EXACTLY as I expect them to, so kudos to Spencer for that. The storyline from the first two issues kind of took a break here, as this issue built up to the unveiling of the new War Machine duds. While I would have liked a little bit of story advancement, I can overlook that since War Machine really DID need a new suit of armor! That old one was SO 1990!

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Heh heh, he said, "phallic"!


Captain America: The Fighting Avenger #1:

Summary: This issue takes place during WWII, and is prior to Captain America's first official mission(or before he even had the Captain America name!). Basically four members of a special army unit get told that they'd be babysitting Cap through his first mission. They aren't exactly fond of this duty, but head off to Germany to blow up an unmanned bridge. Should be simple, right? Wrong! Cap and the soldiers head off but get ambushed and captured by Baron Strucker... D'oh! Strucker takes the five Americans to a German prison and reports to his superior officer, the Red Skull, back before he actually HAD a red skull, and was simply Johann Schmidt, Nazi scientist extraordinaire... Wha-huh?! Anyway, Cap and his crew escape the dungeon and raid the castle. The four soldiers look for an exit, but find Strucker and a bus load of Nazis, while Cap goes looking for his shield, finding it is a secret laboratory with Herr Schmidt. Schmidt drinks a vial of something and becomes Super-Schmidt, Scourge of Democracy! Schmidt throws Cap around the lab for a bit before the potion begins to show some unexpected side-effects, namely Schmidt's skull turning red. Cap takes his shield, places some explosives in the lab, rendezvous with the other soldiers and escapes the exploding castle, returning to America a hero, even though he never did blow that bridge up...

Thoughts: I'm not exactly sure what I just read actually... I mean it couldn't have been an in-continuity story, right? Then again I GUESS it could have been, except for the fact that Red Skull's origin was ALL wrong. If I'm not mistaken, Red Skull was on the scene BEFORE Cap! Plus he wasn't a scientist, but a bellboy who Hitler himself trained. So since this couldn't have been in-continuity, I'm guessing it was some sort of tie-in to the upcoming Cap movie? Or maybe an alternate retelling?? I don't know... Whatever it was, if you either disregard the continuity discrepancies, or flat-out don't know the real Skull/Cap histories, this wasn't a bad comic! I'm a sucker for that really cartoony look, and Gurihiru(who did the art) did a great job of that. The story wasn't anything spectacular, but was a good, solid, straightforward tale. I have to say, I had no major complaints about this one.

Score: 7 out of 10.The Red Skull, Scourge of Democracy!!!