Invincible Iron Man #506 & Ultimate Fallout #2

Hey there all, two reviews to kick off the start of the comic week. The first comic I'll be looking at is this week's top pick, Iron Man #506. I could have went with another Fear Itself book for comic #2, since I have about 5,000 of them to read this week, but instead I'll go with Ultimate Fallout #2. The first issue got a perfect score out of me, hopefully this'll be a repeat performance...

Invincible Iron Man #506(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: The story here is twofold, and I've got to say, both parts are pretty damn good! But that's for the “Thoughts” section, let's hit the review first! The main story involves Odin taking pity on Tony Stark after he offered his two most important things to Odin(since those gods do like their sacrifices), his dignity(since he was kneeling on the ground begging for Odin's assistance) and his sobriety. Odin reveals himself to Stark, and Tony asks for Odin's aid in helping him build weapons that could put Earth's heroes on par with the Serpent and his Worthy. Odin agrees to allow Tony access to his great forge, but tells him that he only had a few more days before the full might of Asgard came down upon the Earth to wipe out the Serpent, oh, and that he didn't see Stark's side having any shot of winning, godly weapons or not... Ah that Odin, what a great guy! Anyway, the slightly drunk Tony heads into the forge and meets with Odin's chief weapon makers, a mess of foul-mouth dwarves. The dwarves aren't exactly happy that they have to stop what they were doing to help Tony create weapons, but Odin is the boss, so they halt their work to hear Tony out on his ideas. After Tony speaks to the dwarves, most of the dwarves go back to work, although a few are still VERY miffed that they were taking orders from a “pink elf”. After Tony drunkenly knocks down some metal, a dwarf punches him in the nose, at which point Tony reciprocates in kind. Having knocked the dwarf on his ass seems to have given Tony some respect amongst the dwarves, so they invite him into their rest area and offer him a drink, which he gladly accepts... As for the other main story, Pepper Potts decides to don her Rescue suit and head to Paris to see if there was anybody still alive for her to help. Meanwhile, the Hammer girls, who haven't gotten a response from Detroit Steel(because he was turned to stone!), decide to head to Paris to retrieve the Detroit Steel suit, and if possible, the pilot of the suit. To that end, the younger of the Hammers hops in a suit of armor, gathers a team, and off they go. Add the Grey Gargoyle, who's still lurking around the eerily quiet streets of Paris, and next issue should give us a three way throwdown between Rescue, the Hammer girl, and the Serpent possessed Gargoyle.

Thoughts: What can I say? This was a very good comic, that validated my faith in it. I mean it wasn't perfect or anything, but it tied into the Fear Itself events perfectly, which makes sense since Matt Fraction is writing both. Whereas most of the Fear Itself tie-ins are unnecessary to the main story, or unnecessary period, reading Iron Man greatly enhances the main FI mini, since events in Iron Man tend to bleed over into Fear Itself. I enjoyed both stories, although I am a bit annoyed that Tony threw away his years of sobriety just like that... I get that Fraction is trying to show that the whole Fear Itself thing is SO big that Tony is willing to do anything to end it, but we already knew it was big, what with Washington DC being destroyed and Paris being turned to stone and all... Tossing out Tony's years of sobriety just seem kind of unnecessary... At least that's how I see it.

Score: 9 out of 10.Well, when in Rome...


Ultimate Fallout #2(of 6?):

Summary: This issue begins where the last one left off, with Steve Rogers apologizing to Aunt May for his imagined role in the death of her nephew, Peter Parker(Spider-Man to you noobs you there). May reads Cap the riot act before slapping him in the face and yelling at all of the heroes present before running outside, where she collapses to her knees. J. Jonah Jameson(of all people) walks over and offers May a hand, helping her up and recommending she returns to the Cathedral, which she does. From there we head to Thor, who's in the Cathedral, thinking about how awesome Asgard was, and envisioning all of the recently deceased heroes hanging out in Valhalla. Meanwhile, Rogue is sadly wandering around the country, figuring that with all of the recent deaths, God would soon be taking everybody else as well. This issue ends with Many Jane writing an article detailing how “the world” killed Peter.

Thoughts: Eh. I liked the last issue and the singular focus it had on Peter's death more than this one. I mean I get that this mini-series is setting up the new Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men series's, but did we really need a bunch of pages featuring Thor thinking about Asgard? We know he's Asgardian, what did his thoughts really add to this story, or the new Ultimates series? Add the fact that we had Rogue(who along with Shadowcat are probably my most hated X-Men) in this one, and yeah, this issue definitely fell short of the high bar set by the last issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Aw, get up ya drama queen!