The Invincible Iron Man #3: "The Autobiography of Tony Stark, Chapter Three"

[superboyprime]

"It's very much evident out of the gate that someone is gunning for Tony Stark. He's been in that position before, but Tony doesn't really have a Lex Luthor opposite him at the moment... I think the writer secret that we never try to keep a secret, that we want to tell everyone when they want to break in, is be generous to your villains. Be good to your villains because they will nourish your story. And we do." - Gerry Duggan

Comments

[numeronone]

Gerry Duggan has yet to create a villain in whom I am interested, let alone invested.

[morallyambiguousscience]

Gerry hastily inventing a chinese person for his obvious yellow peril villain to murder so he can dodge claims of anti-asian racism is telling.

[numeronone]

True, and adding the "token good one" to get fridged so that Tony is invested just worsens the problem, naturally.

Which, now that I think of it, was exactly what Chinese audiences found so patronising and disappointing about those bonus scenes they filmed for that one movie, the ones you could only see in Chinese cinemas. You know, that obscure little picture called...erm..."Iron Man 3".

[windleopard2]

I'm not Asian but does this guy really count as a yellow peril stereotype? He just comes across as the typical evil rich guy villain Tony usually fights and just happens to be Chinese rather than white. He's certainly no al Ghul or Mandarin.

[alliterator]

Feilong isn't a "yellow peril" villain. There are tropes associated with the Yellow Peril villain beyond just "is Asian" and Feilong doesn't fit any of them.

[morallyambiguousscience]

Rising evil chinese buisnessman who looks to take over america and views westerners as weak?

Its not fucking rocket science to make the connection.

[deh_tommy]

America? Westerners? What? Feilong’s whole thing is human supremacy and trying to conquer Mars. If anything he’s all for the West, he was personally invited to join ORCHIS by Henry Gyrich.

[blueprintstyles]

The story beats are good but the dialogue...

[deh_tommy]

What’s wrong with it?

[windleopard2]

For anyone who's been a long time reader, how did Tony ever pull off the lie that Iron Man was his bodyguard? Wouldn't that cover easily fall apart once people noticed that they were never in the same place at the same time?

[numeronone]

I think the conceit was similar to Bruce Wayne going to his "panic room" in The Dark Knight - i.e., "Oh no! Even the slightest sign of danger? I must tuck my frail, traumatised billion-dollar body away and summon my bodyguard to the rescue!".

Not to mention there's definitely been occasions where he was remote-piloting the suit to make it look like someone was inside.

[cainofdreaming]

Happy, remote control, Rhodey. He probably had a lottery going for his workers for who got to put on the suit for press conferences.

[beyondthefringe]

I think even Clay Wilson (the former Force) got to wear the suit on occasion.

[scorntx]

Presumably Tony has something in his armors that distorts / alters his voice, aided by the fact most of his big speechifying appearances aren't caught on camera, so internet voice nerds can't pick up on the similarities and "hey, that's Tony Stark!"


That, and people in the Marvel Universe are quite, quite thick.

[lordultimus]

He had robots that could come in and pretend to be Iron Man; Silver Age Superman style.

[iamrman]

There was also a Stark LMD.

[dan_ingram]

I've personally never understood why it was supposed to matter.

Sure, people might believe that there's no way Tony would risk his life as Iron Man.

But Iron Man was always enabled by Stark. If some villain managed to kill the guy wearing the armor, Stark could always replace both the guy and armor. Not trying to kill Stark is the way to set yourself up for failure.

[sharpasabowlingball]

It was easier because Iron Man was more the companies bodyguard protecting it from Communist Spies, industrial sabotage and general supervillainy so they weren't expected to be regularly seen with Tony

[numeronone]

Also, I read that "Tony, come on, man" very much as "how come this shit keeps happening to you?", as opposed to "Let's go".

[fra080389]

I thought he was protesting the "burn alive the decoy" display of violence because overcore, but not too much seriously because it isn'tan actual person...

[numeronone]

Sure, but that's not how I read it.

[cainofdreaming]

Why doesn't this Sinister have a suit on his forehead?

[beyondthefringe]

Because there's not an Iron Man suit small enough to fit the forehead. :)

[mastermahan]

Damn, well played!

[sharpasabowlingball]

Technically Tony's had three Lex Luthor's. There was Obadiah Stane who was even drawn to look just like Lex, there was Tyberius Stone and now there's Feilong.

[windleopard2]

There was also Justin Hammer, which makes four.

[deh_tommy]

"He's been in that position before, but Tony doesn't really have a Lex Luthor opposite him at the moment"