Invincible Iron Man Shows The Future Of Men Of SteelWe may have snarked about it before, but it's time to eat humble pie: Matt Fraction's The Invincible Iron Man is, without doubt, the best way Marvel Comics could've followed up this summer's Iron Man movie. With the completion of the series' first storyline in this week's sixth issue, Fraction's been talking about how he came up with his take for the comic - as well as his involvement in writing the second movie. Spoilers ahoy.To hear him describe it, Fraction's take on the Iron Man concept is very clear:
To me, Iron Man is a science fiction book wearing a superhero's costume. Or he's a superhero starring in a science fiction book, I dunno. And to me, the most evocative science fiction, the most frightening science fiction, is the stuff that takes place in the next twenty minutes, the stuff that's recognizable just over the horizon. I mean, hell, William Gibson is writing books that take place in the past now, right?
Invincible Iron Man Shows The Future Of Men Of SteelSThat take is what fired up "The Five Nightmares," Fraction's first story as IM writer: A story that pits Tony Stark against Obadiah Stane's son, Ezekial - a genius who retrofits the Iron Man technology to create the ultimate human bombs - while also touching on the characters and themes (What happens when Pepper Potts has to get her own version of Tony's electromagnetic heart implant after being caught in an explosion? And how does Tony deal it?) but most importantly, tone that made the Robert Downey Jr. movie work so well. Something that, according to the writer, was a happy accident:
Well, I had no idea what the film was gonna be. I had no special access to anything different than anyone reading this. I saw the trailer when everyone else did, I read the casting announcements in Variety like the rest of the world. So basically I just made a lot of lucky guesses. I saw the movie opening night like everyone else. I had three scripts in the can and was starting on #4 and couldn't have been happier with how close we were, tonally. I just wanted folks coming out of the movie to be able to plug into a character with forty-five years of history to him, and those who've read those forty-five years to get a book worthy of their time and attention.
Invincible Iron Man Shows The Future Of Men Of SteelThose lucky guesses didn't just help The Invincible Iron Man sell out repeatedly - they also landed Fraction in LA, meeting with director Jon Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux to discuss Iron Man 2 - but that doesn't mean that he's blase about it just yet:
I've already been out to LA for three days, working at Marvel West with Jon, the screenwriter Justin Theroux, Kevin Fiege, the head of Marvel Studios, and Jeremy Latcham, the film's producer. We went over the thing, basically, the spine of what Iron Man II is and how it moves and why and who's in it and what they want and how they get it and what happens and were it takes place and why and everything. Workshopped it all. So, in a very literal way, it meant me, being in a room, with those guys. Which is brain-meltingly awesome. And the movie's gonna be amazing.
Invincible Iron Man #6, the conclusion of "The Five Nightmares," is in stores now. A hardcover compilation of the storyline will be released December 3rd. Matt Fraction: Invincible Iron Man & Iron Man Movie Sequel [Newsarama]