Review: Iron Man/Thor #4 (of 4)

COVER BY: SEGOVIA & KEITH

WRITERS: DAN ABNETT& ANDY LANNING

PENCILS: SCOT EATON

INKS: JAIME MENDOZA

COLORS: VERONICA GANDINI

LETTERS: VC’S CLAYTON COWLES

PUBLISHER: Marvel

RELEASE DATE: February 23th, 2011

 

Now this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you write cosmic on Earth!

I feel sorry for those who may have forsaken Marvel temporarily because of the seeming slack of its cosmic line or those not paying attention due to the glut of material out there involving the principals, but lemme tell you:

DnA’s Iron Man/Thor has been one sweet celestial ride and just as cosmic as The Thanos Imperative. It just happened here on Earth!

In issue #4, we have a mystic Diablo encased in the Odin-built armor of the Destroyer, actually absorbing the energies from the other god pantheons of Midgard. Since he has usurped the High Evolutionary and turned things to a more mystical/divine plane, H.E. is forced to depend on Iron Man and Thor to fight the good fight to prevent this alchemist who would be God for a needy 21^st Century (at least according to the Evolutionary).

The pacing of this issue by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning is, as usual, just beautiful. We get a bunch of character – a well-defined origin story for an old established character, Diablo (just as we got one for H.E. last time around) – and a ton of action as Shellhead and Goldilocks prove that, disagreements from Bendis sagas aside, they are still one of the best dynamic duos in the Marvel U.!

Ulik and the Crimson Dynamo see some action herein also, but they have served their purposes in previous issues. DnA give such respect to the Marvel ages of the past, give great respect to these old villains that were alive and around when even your humble reviewer was young (and that wasn’t last summer!).

Working together, the founding Avengers bring Diablo to his knees. I won’t tell you how, but it is a given that should be seen coming as it has tied in with the High Evolutionary before. We even have a Stark/Blake double punch to the puss before the issue is over.

As I have said before, I love DnA’s handling of the Evolutionary and this story actually dovetails well into Greg Pak’s Silver Surfer #1. (It is almost the continued saga of H.E. as Pak gives him the same voice and the same respect. I look forward to more issues of SS, another mini showing how to write “Earth-centric” cosmic well!)

Scot Eaton handled the art chores to my great delight, and the inking of  Jaime Mendoza and hues of Veronica Gandini set just the right tone for this magic-meets-mechanics mix.

As you may be able to tell, I enjoyed this mini immensely, and I hope – with all the Thor material out there due to the coming motion picture – this gem by cosmic masters DnA did not get lost in the shuffle.

Great job on this limited series by all.