director's cut

Iron Man #15
Daniel & Charles Knauf/Roberto De la Torre/Jonathan Sibal
Marvel


this is the first issue of the series under the subtitle "Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."; events from Civil War catapults Tony Stark into the Director's seat of Marvel's foremost superspy agency. having already served as U.S. Defense Secretary, i think he'd be more effective here, having a bit more leeway, and a host of other advantages.

Stark wastes no time in implementing his hands-on management style on the agency - cutting down costs, ratcheting up mission success rates, cutting out the bloat, getting high approval ratings and bringing back public trust - thus boosting troop morale. he even finds time to lead on certain missions, like this Indonesian hostage-taking incident (yeah you know it'd be Muslim extremists).


not everyone is happy about his style, though. case in point: Jim "Dum Dum" Dugan, former honcho Nick Fury's longtime #2. which is strange for me, because in the absence of Fury (ah , now that's a Where in the World Is ... mystery!), i would think he'd be happier to have a superhero leading S.H.I.E.L.D., not a corporate suit, or a agenda-centric career bitch officer like Maria Hill (whom Stark replaced but is still onboard as a sub-commander).


Dugan complains to current DefSec Jack Kooning, who formed a symbiotic-but-uneasy alliance with Stark during the superhero Civil War.


the brothers Knauf (Daniel created HBO's Carnivàle) have refreshingly turned the title into political thriller territory, a far cry from the usual black-and-white Iron Man vs. Brightly-Colored-Villain-Du-Jour. the shades of gray have been started with Warren Ellis' breath-taking Extremis run and the Knaufs' Execute Program series, and obviously we've seen a lot underneath the mask on Stark's personality in Civil War and its related issues.


my interest in Iron Man never waned but i had to struggle a bit with the new direction and the increasingly amoral Stark i'm seeing (war profiteer, control freak, friendships-be-damned). however, Tony Stark/Iron Man is not your usual superhero, and his status in the Marvel Universe (billionaire genius inventor, major league cape) makes him the best possible candidate for this to happen.

and what of Tony's old rogues gallery? well, here's one sitting in a Chinese prison.


obviously, they're not gonna show the lord of the rings without using him in a future issue. fireworks!