Saturday, July 27, 2013

Iron Man #120-#122


 
So far we have seen:

Not much, actually.
SHIELD begin their attempts to totally-legally-you-guys take over Stark International.
Tony decide that alcohol is a good way to deal with annoying people.
A decision which will not come back to bite him in the butt in any way, shape or form.
…I wasn’t kidding, nothing happened.


Saturday, July 13, 2013

Iron Man #117-#119



I’ve talked a little about how comics took a turn for the goofy after the 1954 Senate investigation into the effects of comic books on juvenile delinquency. (Spoiler alert: There were none.)  As a result of the hearings and the bad publicity they engendered, the Comics Code Authority was established.  Its job was to prevent such wayward influences as bad grammar, “sex perversion” (read: non-straight people), and say-no-to-drugs messages from infiltrating our comic books. By the early 1970s, the CCA’s influence slackened just enough to allow two important supporting characters—Harry Osborn from Marvel and Roy Harper from DC—to be revealed as drug addicts without their respective publishers running into significant trouble.  Ten years later, having a comic book tackle such serious topics as race relations, homelessness, and addiction was practically the norm.  That’s not to say these topics were all handled well, but a wobbly first step is better than none at all.

And that brings us to today’s topic: Demon in a Bottle, one of the more famous of Marvel’s Bronze Age attempts at sincerity.  It’s a big ‘un, so be sure to check back throughout the next few weeks to see how this arc develops.