Invincible Iron Man #22 and #23 recap and discussion post

[heworedecadence.livejournal.com]

Hey everyone! Thank you for all the kind words toward my recaps. Back by popular demand and a more relaxed schedule, I present the most recent two issues of Iron Man. In March, I will have more free time so the last issue of the arc and the following issues will get to you more timely.

Remember the rules, keep the discussions here because I can't reply to you on blog spot and try to keep the Fraction hate to a minimum. But you can rip apart Larroca all you want to :D

Without further delay...



http://starkoholic.blogspot.com/2010/02/invincible-iron-man-issue-22.html

http://starkoholic.blogspot.com/2010/02/invincible-iron-man-issue-23.html

Comments

[cosmicbiscuit.livejournal.com]

I just... generally have problems with Fraction's Pepper. She talks about her husband with Tony, knowing his mind's going, sleeps with him, then gets upset that he can come back when Happy can't, apparently having forgotten that she was the one who asked Tony to turn off the life support in the first place, and then this. She's going through a lot. I understand that. Hell, I don't know I'd be able to put up with half the shit she's gone through. But the other half of it is, half the shit she's going through is also by her own decision. She could have held out hope that Happy might one day be fixed. She could have chosen not to sleep with Tony while his memories were being deleted (yes, long held passions, whatever, we'd been lead for decades to believe she was over that, and happy with, well, Happy, and that Tony was content with a playful, yet platonic working relationship). She didn't do either. And blaming him for the fact that both have more or less come back to bite her is, on one hand, semi-understandable, but still a cheap angst shot by the writer.

[heworedecadence.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that, man. I miss the Pepper from The Order.

[cosmicbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Indeed. (Choice icon, btw. That What If was all sorts of awesome.)

[tonks07.livejournal.com]

THIS so hard. I hate how Pepper seems to have forgotten all about asking Tony to turn off Happy's life support. You do not sleep with a dude after having him do this! And now she is complaining but I have no sympathy because of that. I will just cross my fingers and hope while everyone else is being ressurected someone will slip Happy in the mix (or more likely clone him).

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

I hate how Pepper seems to have forgotten all about asking Tony to turn off Happy's life support. You do not sleep with a dude after having him do this!

God yes. This is the creepy part for me. I can get all the rest--Pepper's had it hard lately, she's kind of losing it and Tony's a good target for emotional projection because he's the one she followed into this mess--but if Happy's death is still bothering her that much (and it's understandable) then sleeping with the guy who pulled the plug on him is...well, it starts getting uncomfortable. I can't help thinking the best way for those to add up is "flirting with a nervous breakdown." Which, admittedly, would also be understandable for her at this point. Given all she's been through, you have to wonder if even Pepper could possibly handle it all.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

The thing is, Fraction's tendency to bizarro pacing made Pepper's Tony-blaming look like a much bigger deal than it actually is. Fractions spun it out over several issues, but all those scenes together add up to a single fairly short-term freakout that she had as a reaction to finding out that Tony had a plan to come back all along. There's no indication that she'd been dwelling on Happy's death and holding Tony responsible ever since he pulled the plug, and there isn't even any indication that she's dwelling on it now, post-surgery. I'd be pretty suprised if she brings it up again.

[valtyr]

It's a clash of 'normal' and 'comic' expectations. Like, when someone's braindead, it's usual to turn them off. Unless you're a superhero, in which case, superheroes assemble to help you.

I think it's possible to interpret her anger as "Tony's got a plan to fix himself; why didn't he have a way to fix Happy?" Like, she's not blaming Tony for cutting the life support so much as blaming him for arranging to save his own life, but not Happy's. Seeing him a vegetable must have brought back painful memories of Happy, and I'm not surprised that she had a little episode.

Also, when they slept together, she thought it was the last time she'd ever see him alive, but he knew, vaguely, that he had a plan to come back.

[muccamukk]

That's how I read that scene, with the letter. It wasn't that she doesn't like Tony, it's just that so many thing he gets to have, no one else does. And it always seems to cost her. No wonder she was pissed.

Not sure I buy the boy talk, nor it turning Maria and Pepper against each other. Like either of them would be remotely surprised that Tony Goddamn Stark slept with anybody. Maria wouldn't care, and Pepper's known him for too long.

[valtyr]

I think both Pepper and Maria, if they felt like casting blame, would know exactly where to cast it, and it wouldn't be at each other.

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

Also, when they slept together, she thought it was the last time she'd ever see him alive, but he knew, vaguely, that he had a plan to come back.

By *that* point, I didn't think even *he* knew that anymore. I could be wrong, I haven't re-read, but I really did think she was the one in the far superior position in that scene, genuine emotional issues notwithstanding.

[muccamukk]

I'm trying to think of a way to put this without dismissing the consent issues, which I think are valid. Because I don't think that Tony was in his right mind in that scene, so obviously there WAS an issue of consent.

However, I also think that Tony, by not telling Pepper that he wasn't actually going to die, was an A+ asshole. She thought she was giving him something he'd always wanted, something that he'd admittedly always been interested in. I doubt she would have done that if she'd know that he was going to be fine after all.

Now, her assumption that he could consent was a seriously dodgy, but I'm still having a difficult time feeling more pissed off at Pepper than I am at Tony right now. Actually, I know who I'm pissed off at the most, and it's not a fictional character.

[valtyr]

Whether mentally disabled adults are able to consent is a hideous minefield in itself, without adding in 'he totally wanted it when running at full capacity' and 'he's going to DIE within days'.

It just shouldn't have gone there.

Agreed.

[muccamukk]

The whole thing makes me want to spork myself in the eye.

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, I totally get where you're coming from there, *g*.

I'm not particularly mad at Pepper *or* Tony. I think the reason I'm giving him a pass at the moment though is I really do think that there was a moment where he lost control of the situation. I mean, by this point does even *he* still know what his plan is?

I agree with you 100% that she thought she was doing something really special and probably wouldn't have done it had she had all the facts. But I also think genuinely *by that point* he was in no position to respond appropriately, whether to consent, *or* to understand that he was taking advantage of her ignorance of the facts. [Whether he should have let her in on his plan earlier is another question of course.]

[valtyr]

He was definitely forgetting things, but it's really hard to determine just how functional he was and what he remembered. I thought he still had an idea of what his plan was, and that's why he didn't just drop himself into a volcano.

[arysteia.livejournal.com]

The fact he says "Who's Happy?" though... That's *far* gone. I thought he'd dismissed the volcano with the whole "Who knows what they'll be able to retrieve?" nonsense. IDEK.

[valtyr]

I think that was after they slept together? So we have the "is Tony even able to consent" question and the "if he isn't does Pepper actually realise" question. :/ I mean, he is still piloting the armour and such, which even in the earlier suits was complex and difficult work. It's just such a mess, narratively, it's hard to tell what's going on - Flowers for Algernon worked because we had a direct line into the mind of the protagonist and could gauge his state pretty accurately.

Yes, they'll be able to retrieve squishy brain bits from lava. Of course. Although I suppose that line could have been Tony deliberately obfuscating his real intent.