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

[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.