Infamous Iron Man #1 (2016)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev
Doctor Doom gets his own regular series for the first time since the 70s, but you wouldn’t tell by its title.
We begin with a flashback to when Doctor Doom was a member of the Cabal.
Hood has a couple of questions for him; you’d think this was because Bendis was overly fond of shoving Hood into ANY series, but he’ll actually play an important role in the series.
Doctor Doom doesn’t answer the question. It takes Emma Frost to translate.
Hood is still alive only because he’s the writer’s pet, isn’t he?
Dude, you’re in a room full of supervillains who just told you to stop bothering the wizard scientist king of supervillains… JUST SHUT UP!
Like I said: writer’s pet.
That was when Doctor Doom was his old self. Without his armor, he seems to have lost quite a bit of weight.
We then move to the present day to meet Diablo.
Who, as a 9th century alchemist, cares enough about online listicles to kidnap the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Maria Hill this week) to make a name for himself.
While I don’t think Diablo is being written in-character here, it DOES make sense for him to be the first supervillain to face a redeemed Doctor Doom.
Doctor Doom and Diablo have history dating back all the way to Marvel Super-Heroes #020.
Diablo tries to shoot some weird creatures at Doom, but it’s clear he’s massively outmatched.
Well at least Hood is not alone in the “why don’t you shut up” category.
Doom goes as far as killing Diablo for this.
He’ll be back in about a year to fight Spider-Man, of all people.
On paper, “Doctor Doom becomes one of the good guys” shouldn’t work. But a big part of what this is selling it for me is how much smug and self-centered he still is.
Doom then visits Dr. Amara Perera, the biologist he met in the previous Iron Man series, to talk about Tony Stark’s death during Civil War II.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that people always think Doctor Doom has ulterior motives.
At least Doom is aware of that.
This should set off the alarms of anyone who has known Doctor Doom for any amount of time: if he wants to do something big, it will be BIG.
Doom clearly has some feelings for the scientist, but vanishes before anything can happen.
It was probably just to avoid the awkward conversation with Amara’s next visitor.
Brief tangent here.
This is actually a tie-in to the Guardians Of The Galaxy series that Bendis was writing at the time; the Thing is informed there that Doom is trying to redeem himself, and THIS is his reaction there.
It’s also where the Thing is recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to hunt Doom.
They’re going to need help, if they actually believe Doom is not prepared to meet him!
He’s also brought up to speed on Doom’s talks with Stark by Mary Jane.
Back to Doom, he meets the AI that replicates Tony’s mind (which also has a role in another Iron Man series).
Would Doom really be impressed by Stark recreating his mind in an artificial intelligence?
Aren’t his Doombots vastly more advanced than this?
And then Doom decides he’s going to be the next Iron Man.
It’s not elaborated, he just says so and leaves.
That’s anticlimactic, and it won’t be elaborated much in the rest of the series.
While that’s disappointing, it does make a certain amount of sense: what other hero identity could he take? I suppose he could just be himself, sure, but as mentioned his name DOES come with a lot of preconceptions.
I don’t think there’s any other Marvel hero with a thematic relationship with Doctor Doom whose name is currently available and makes sense.
Well I suppose he could’ve taken the name “Mister Fantastic”, which WOULD be fine for someone with Doom’s ego, but that is probably a step too much for him.
The only other option is Black Panther, whose name is already taken and is racially problematic.
That just leaves Doctor Strange… except that’s not a superhero name, that’s LITERALLY the dude’s name!
Which doesn’t mean Doom won’t take his place a little under ten years after this series.
And we close the issue with someone looking at Doom’s latest identity…
…HIS MOTHER.
As mentioned, there is currently another Iron Man series (also written by Bendis) where Stark’s AI appears.
Despite the series title, the main protagonist is Riri Williams a.k.a. Ironheart.
The Doom connection isn’t big enough to warrant a full review, but the series does involve both Latveria and our old friend(citation needed) Lucia Von Bardas.
Normally, a hero would be added to the count when fighting a Doombot… but these ones are sent and controlled by Von Bardas, so Ironheart is not in the count yet.
Riri defeats Von Bardas, declaring herself Queen of Latveria.
It lasts for just about one issue.
Riri received a terrible reputation with the fans from this series, which is not entirely unjustified… this isn’t a good series, and Bendis is MUCH worse here than on Infamous Iron Man.
She will develop into a fine character once Bendis stops writing her, but having her blunder into accidentally becoming queen for five minutes certainly didn’t help.
To be fair to Riri, though, it’s not like anyone else on the planet is handling Latveria’s situation well.
Riri’s short-lived reign ends with elections.
Given Bendis butchering the representation of Latveria in previous series, I sure hope Riri is talking about Latveria’s lack of schools during the occupation by rebel forces!
We will revisit the series when it merges back with Infamous Iron Man.
I can’t exactly recommend the series… if you want to see Ironheart develop into an actual character, read Champions or the Christopher Cantwell run.
Because if Infamous Iron Man has a surprisingly solid Bendis, Invincible Iron Man is back to his old idiocy.
While I bounced between series, I’m only rating Infamous Iron Man here.
Doom significance: 10/10
This sets Doom’s role for the next couple of years.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
I should hate this series. I’m not a Bendis fan, the premise is clearly set up to fail, and the artwork doesn’t really mesh with the setting.
And yet it’s surprisingly working for me. Doom is FAR more subdued here than usual, but that helps keeping the suspense because you never know what he’s going to do next.
The dialogue is also solid, something incredibly unusual for Bendis.
My only real critiques are the artwork… I like Maleev but he’s a bad choice for the mood of the series… and the complete lack of weight to Doom deciding to take Iron Man’s role.
The last issue of the previous series hinted at something meaningful behind this decision, but it falls completely flat here.
Times Latveria has been conquered: 16
Riri William’s “reign” might just be the shortest regime change so far.