Ultimate Iron Man, Vol. 1 by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I give this 2-stars because really it's only one half of the story. But given Card's reputation, this book is all ready a bit of disappointment

If starts off really slow. This book collects Issues 1-5 of the Ultimate Iron Man story line. As Card is writing in Marvel's ultimate world, he's not bound by the back story established in Marvel's regular (616) continuity.

He made a key change in giving Tony Stark powers from birth that come with a natural blue skin stone as a result of experiments done by his mother Maria just before she died. I'm not at all closed off to making Tony Stark blue in the Ultimate Marvel universe except for the fact that it really does nothing for the story.

The first four issues focus mainly on the mechanations of the adults around young Tony Stark. Only Issue 5 does a Young Adult Tony begin to emerge. Even then, Card introduces the alcoholism element, which is really a stretch and also unnecessary. Stark as an alcoholic was used in 616 to flesh the character and humanize him. It really doesn't do it here and with all the craziness in childhood, it's far from required.

Most of all, Ultimate Iron Man shows that it shares the same weakness as most modern comics in relying on shock value and gross out factor rather than compelling stories. In this Ultimate universe, Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane are students at a school for gifted children where Obadiah seduces classmates to suicide. No one commits murder with a simple shot to the head, poison, or knife, murder has to be a ritualistic affair.

There is some emergence of Tony as a bit of a hero towards the end of the volume but so far it's not looking good.





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