Invincible Iron Man #32: Not Resilient but Revolutionary
For a genius like Tony Stark, the world's problems don't come in threes but in the millions. With over a million missiles controlled by app users on their phones locked in on repulsor signature, a monolith monster like Detroit Steel, and a world market changing automobile to protect...Tony has his work cut out for him.
Writers have always tried to move Tony Stark past his role as an Industrialist. The Stark Solutions arc by Scott Lobdell was an attempt to turn Tony's assets into a think tank. It didn't last very long. John Jackson Miller made Tony into the Secretary of Defense in the Best Defense arc. It also didn't contribute any long lasting changes to the character mired in the Iraq Invasion. However, Matt Fraction (Casanova) finally gets it right in Stark Resilient.
From the wreckage of Stark Industries/Enterprises/International/Fujikawa/whatever, Tony Stark 2.0 made a bold move to correct the mistakes of his past by going green. Mini Repulsor technology like a pentium chip with a power source aimed to put all his rivals out of business by ending the world's dependency on oil.
Once again, Tony's reach overextends his grasp when he attracted the attention of the Hammer family. While Justin is long gone, his wife and daughter have continued to be a thorn in Tony's side. The plot thickened when Tony realized that Hammer's daughter was in cahoots with Obidiah Stane's son who forced Tony to EMP & destroy his entire financial empire in order to save their employees.
Much like Ed Brubaker's work on Captain America, Matt Fraction always cleverly added socio-political messages to all the tropes that he identified in his character. Tony is not the arrogant SOB he was during Civil War. He's a man who wants to fix the problems of the past by making a better future. What others call failure, he would call setback. That's why we love Tony Stark. He doesn't want to change his life, he wants to change the world for the better. What's more American than that?
I couldn't be more amused by Fraction's little sardonic dig at gamers and app crazed users who can't not be bothered to be occupied every minute of every day doing absolutely nothing productive.
Therein lies the genius: One man trying to change the future and about a million people who obsess about gaming on their phones, not realizing that they are contributing to destroying the more important goal and salvation to the energy crisis.
It's not only genius but also prophetic.
Rating: Buy it!
