Dual Wielding Plots (The Wrong Way)
SO WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS...
With Iron Hands has two central story threads. The first deals with a nuclear terrorist named Nasim Rahimov and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s efforts to take him down. Rahimov has developed what are called "Thumbnail Nukes", small nuclear bombs that leave nearly zero radiation in the wake of its detonation. Serious business, obviously. The second thread involves a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Nicholas Weir, or "The Other Nick", who attempts to steal a powerful weapon developed by his agency after finally getting fed up with them in light of Stark's ascension to the top of the food chain. The theft goes wrong, the weapon bonds with Weir, and the two go out wreaking general mechanized havoc around the country.While both threads sound pretty interesting at first, their execution in print is really lacking. The problem lies in a crucial error in the structure of the story. Plot A is abandoned temporarily midway through the book in favor of focusing primarily on Plot B. Plot B, though, exists for the sole purpose of providing the writer with the needed tools to resolve Plot A. Unfortunately, by the time those tools are acquired and focus is returned to Plot A, my attention had been taken away from it by Plot B for so long that I had lost interest in it.
In addition to that, given the nature of Plot B as merely a means to an end, the story feels heartless and has no feeling behind it (though the reason why had eluded me until finishing the book). There's nothing to be gained by reading it than the means to make the ending make sense. It's the comic book equivalent of a fetch quest, a mission in a video game that adds nothing to the experience other than a means to pad its length through arbitrary measures.
Not that the story that has an actual point fares any better. At the end of the day, Tony mentions that he has to make the tough decisions and sometimes that means people are going to get hurt. Despite this, he never forgets any of them. That's all well and good, but it's delivery feels so forced and fake that I think I liked it better when the story was pointless. Everything you expect from cheesy and cliched lesson learning moments are present. We've got the ghostly figures of people who have been touched (hmm, perhaps not the best choice of words when it comes to Tony; let's say "affected") by the main character hovering over the thoughtful figure as he narrates to the reader everything morally relevant in the story while awkwardly working in the title to said story. Bleh!