Comics: Avengers: Disassemble vol.3 86-89

or, The Moment Tony Realized That He Was Overworked and That Having His Secret Identity as Public Knowledge Was a Bad Idea Only to Forget It Two Years Later.

Since I don't have a car or comic store within twenty minutes of me here at school, I can't make any comment on the new comics that came out this week. Or last week. Or the two coming weeks.

:'(

As such, I'm going to be commenting on the comics that I can get my proverbial hands on – digital ones :D

So, I finally got to read the Iron Man: Avengers Disassemble arc. I had seen the TBP in stores a couple times, but I knew the Digital Archive was going to be spamming it out to coincided with the DVD release, so I never picked it up. That, and I'm a cheap ass. The actual Avengers: Disassemble arc starts back in #84, but that's just a prologue of sorts, so I'm starting with #86.

Now, coming in late to the comic game, and knowing what's happened in the...what? Four years since these first came out, it's just a tiny bit painful to read this arc. I read Tony's inner monologue in #87 and thought, “Good lord is his memory really that bad?” Or, I guess I should say, is the think tank at Marvel's memory that bad?

A little set up is in order, I suppose. Tony became Secretary of Defense, but then the Scarlet Witch caused him to act all crunk and threaten the Latverian ambassador at the U.N. (he's still pissed about that whole Zombie War in King Arthur's Court thing, I suspect), so he was forced to step down. His stint lasted, what, like, three months in comic? One thing about the Marvel U, they go through SECTDEFs like I went through tissues reading Fallen Son (shut up, I'm a girl, it's okay for me to cry at stuff like that). There was the guy before Tony, Tony, that lady after Tony that Wolverine more or less killed, and then the guy who basically forced Stark to become Director of SHEILD (who then ran off and got himself killed by the Mandarin). It's like the Marvel U's Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position – never last more than a year and most of them turn out to be evil jackasses.

Anyway, so at the beginning of the story, we don't actually know it was the Scarlet Witch that got Tony crunk, so he decides to do something that I'm sure to him sounds like a great idea, but to everyone else sounds a bit stupid – he deals with it himself. He doesn't know what's wrong with him, but he sure as hell knows that he doesn't want any help dealing with it.

Oh Tony, I know you meant well by it, but really, next time let someone else help. Maybe we can avoid more breakdowns that way. Wait, wait, he desperately needs a breakdown right now, because breakdowns lead to character restarts – TONY! Whatever you do, avoid all of your problems so they can come crashing down on you later!

Okay, okay, seriously? Maria Hill is the first person to
notice something's wrong? He's surrounded by the morons

There you go, perfect.

Right, back to the past. Tony goes off and locks himself up in isolation, completely cut off from the world. He has a nice little introspective in which he realizes he can't save the world by himself, that he's taken on too many responsibilities and has lost touch with what's most important in his life.




Apparently, the sheer trauma of the next few minutes caused him to forget whatever temporary insight him might have just had. That's the only reason I can think of that would explain his willingness to take on even more of the exact same work and stress only two(?) comic years later (well, okay, maybe not the only reason, but that's a different post).

Right, back to the post. Turns out it doesn't really matter that Tony's gone to extra lengths to ensure that he doesn't hurt anyone anyway. Why? Because meanwhile, Iron Man is blowing sh*t up. Yes, it's one of those, where someone, somehow manages to get a hold of one of Tony's changes of clothes and goes around destroying stuff, namely the Stark International executive board, scarring Pepper for life in the process (perhaps leading to the “I don't want to be a bomb” comments from IIM recently? Or is that assuming that the writers actually read this arc?).

So everyone's all freaking out, including Tony's latest on-again-off-again-currently-mostly-off girlfriend, Rumiko. She's been with him more or less throughout all of volume 3. She's probably one of the better girlfriends he's ever had. Yeah, she was a bitch and cheated on him with his childhood best friend but, you know, she didn't shoot him. Which, really, is saying a lot when it comes to Tony's girlfriends.

So Rumiko flies over from Japan to check up on Stark. On the flight stateside, we get this juice bit of gossip:



Tony Stark? Settle down? Sorry, sweetheart, couldn't have that.



Okay, seriously, the only guy who has a longer list of dead girlfriends is probably Daredevil. That's kind of why I hope Tony and Pepper never get together; I like Pepper too much.

So fake!Iron Man throws Tony around a bit, which is fun for us, because we get mostlynaked!Tony run, jump, and generally destroy his house. I like it mainly because we get to see his mechanical heart. I like his mechanical heart. I could probably do a whole post on the symbolism of it (English major, remember), but I won't. It was retconned in Extremis, though, right? That's too bad :(

And then we find out that the guy in the suit is some dude we've never heard of before. Even Tony hasn't heard of him before. So Tony mops the yard with him, shows that his Schwartz is stronger than whatshisface's, and we get this little speech from Random Army Dude who was assigned to task of killing the last Iron Man Standing:



And that's the last time anyone will be saying that for a very, very long while.

The story arc ends with Tony giving a speech saying that he's realized that having his identity public knowledge has put those he loves in danger. Thus he resigns as Iron Man. This, of course, is a complete lie, which is why everyone was surprised when he took the helmet off during Civil War.

God the public is a collective idiot. That's why Tony has to protect them with the SHRA.

Basic summary of this arc? Tony over estimated his abilities, realized he was in over his head, and got out, if a bit late.

Basic summary with a Post-Civil War prospective? Tony is a hypocrite. Great, got to add that one to the list....