Didjutal Comiks: IRON MAN #222

Digital comics are the future of comics, so says everyone on the Internet and everyone trying to justify their purchase of an iPad and leveraging that into a desperate attempt to generate content for their blogs and stuff. It is in this spirit that the management at Witless Prattle continues the following new, exciting, weirdly specific and slightly iconoclastic feature.

Iron Man #222
September 1987

"The Party"

Writer: David Michelenie & Bob Layton
Artists: Mark Bright (pencils) Bob Layton (inks)

Iron Man begins the day by demolishing a building and this touches off and argument because by destroying the building in seconds, Iron Man's inadvertently cost the union a bunch of jobs and already I cringe because politics and Iron Man comics go together like . . .well, there's no more lethal a mixture than politics and Iron Man comics, is there?--hell, look at Civil War--but thankfully it's just a way to tie up some loose ends and add some quick action beats to what will actually be a fairly low-key issue.

Tony Stark, you see, is hosting a soiree to celebrate his hip new house, which is actually pretty rad. But never mind that shit, here's Mongo--I mean, Iron Man flies off to Stark Enterprises and we are re-introduced to Stark's most awesome secretary ever (Pepper Potts can kiss my ever-lovin' ass) Mrs. Arbogast, who as is her wont, reasserts herself with a vengeance and everyone's happy.

We continue our 32 Short Films About Iron Man vignettes by following James Rhodes, who broods a bit and runs into Marcy Pearson, his on-again, off-again girlfriend who will spend a hell of a lot of time freezing him out until she gets written out of the book, then is written back in and then he fires her. Trust me, it's rather complicated.

Anyways, the party's getting started and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it's nowhere near as excruciating as the party scene in Iron Man 2--man, that thing dragged on for ages until the Iron Men started fighting--and Stark has lost track of time, and in the process of zooming off in his Iron Man armour to get to the party quick--unfortunately, a shedload of small issues keep him from making it in time, up to and including the whole "cat stuck in a tree" deal, the upshot of which means he's late for his own party, and while the party didn't really go as planned, Stark feels pretty good that all the small things Iron Man was able to do really directly helped people.

Oh, and in a teaser for the next arc on the book, Force wrecks a boat and days he's going to see Iron Man.

I doubt you would ever see an issue like this in this day and age--it's got a few quick action pieces to disguise that this is essentially supporting cast and subplot maintenance, and not much can be said to substantively "happen" if you're talking about status-quo shaking events, but it's an issue that actually does something with his supporting cast and fleshes out the "world" of the book.

I suppose nowadays he'd just hang out at Stark tower and talk with the other superheroes about what a drag it is being a superhero, because that's exactly what I want to read, eh?