Stephanie Kay
Oct 13, 2007, 11:40 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=10384" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/marvel/0107/IMHYP001_colt.jpg" hspace=10 align=left alt="Iron Man: Hypervelocity #1"></a>Reviewer: Robin Lewis, lucillerobin@aol.com
Story Title: Hypervelocity (part one of six)
Just another day for the model-bagging playboy billionaire genius inventor moustache-guy.
Story & Layouts: Adam Warren
Art: Brian Denham
Colors: Guru EFX
Lettering: Artmonkeys' Dave Lanphear
Consulting Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
It's been an interesting couple of years for the Invincible Iron Man. He gets his own title relaunched and accidentally transformed into a quarterly by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov, is part of the highest selling monthly Marvel puts out, and now he's the driving force behind the biigest event seen for a decade in the Marvel universe. His power levels have been hiked up considerably, and the idea behind the character has never been more successfully nailed than it was by Ellis. He's more important than he's ever been, and if you're one of those people who thinks a man should be measured by his enemies, this guy is throwing down against Captain America. Clearly, Iron Man is getting more attention than he has done for a long time. So why is it that his his last mini (the rather fine The Inevitable) ended up doing less business than Sentinel Squad O*N*E*? Granted, that was before Civil War really kicked off, but it's not as if sales of his ongoing picked up before the official crossover issues began, several months after the event proper began. For all of Marvel's big push of the character, it seems we don't care about him much more than we used to. That isn't going to stop them trying to change our minds, of course. And so we have Hypervelocity, a six-part mini from the mind of Adam Warren, the man who brought us many fine and amusing adventures of Kei and Yuri, more commonly known as the Dirty Pair, and the wonderful Livewires in 2005. And if you had to pick one Marvel character for Warren to write for, Iron Man would almost certainly appear to be the best match for his unique talents.
Apparently set (and conceived) before Iron Man took the Extremis virus and turned into the good guy you love to hate in Civil War, Hypervelocity is a return to the Tony Stark of old. A Tony Stark whose biggest worry is falling off the wagon, or having his armour stolen for the twenty-eighth time. Of course, this being an Adam Warren book, this is also a story with several layers of impressive technological acronyms and fancy schmancy weaponry like the 'Superhardened tungsten sheathing depleted-uraniuum core kinetic energy penetrators'. It's also fun. After the seriousness of the Extremis storyline and Civil War, it's nice to see a more playful Iron Man. The set-up is nothing earth-shatteringly new - someone is chasing Iron Man in some very nicely done action scenes, and Tony is concentrating hard on not drinking and idly wondering who the tattooed woman who has taken to inserting herself into his memories and daydreams might be. There's a nice reveal on the last page to introduce some mystery into things, but the main point of this first issue is to set out Warren's store: this will be an action comic, with everything done as fast and as excitingly done as is humanely possible.
Adam Warren's only doing the layouts here, handing over the actual art duties to Brian Denham. You can still see Warren in the lively action scenes, imbuing them with his customary vigour and fun, but everything else seems oddly muted for a Warren comic. Were Marvel leery of making Iron Man look like a manga character? Given the popular-as-dysentry Marvel mangaverse it's probably a smart business decision, but it's disappointing nonetheless. This isn't to say that the art's bad: Denham is more than competent, but when you're reading an Adam Warren book, what you want is Adam Warren art.
What's not to love about a funky little book like this? It takes the most purely enjoyable aspects of the character and tells the best action story it can. It's all done with Warren's light touch, making it seem pretty insubstantial compared to Stark's more recent stories, but that makes it all the more welcome. I just wish he was doing the art as well.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imhalf.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imnone.jpg
‘Buy this issue online now from X-WORLD and save!’ (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=21884)
Story Title: Hypervelocity (part one of six)
Just another day for the model-bagging playboy billionaire genius inventor moustache-guy.
Story & Layouts: Adam Warren
Art: Brian Denham
Colors: Guru EFX
Lettering: Artmonkeys' Dave Lanphear
Consulting Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
It's been an interesting couple of years for the Invincible Iron Man. He gets his own title relaunched and accidentally transformed into a quarterly by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov, is part of the highest selling monthly Marvel puts out, and now he's the driving force behind the biigest event seen for a decade in the Marvel universe. His power levels have been hiked up considerably, and the idea behind the character has never been more successfully nailed than it was by Ellis. He's more important than he's ever been, and if you're one of those people who thinks a man should be measured by his enemies, this guy is throwing down against Captain America. Clearly, Iron Man is getting more attention than he has done for a long time. So why is it that his his last mini (the rather fine The Inevitable) ended up doing less business than Sentinel Squad O*N*E*? Granted, that was before Civil War really kicked off, but it's not as if sales of his ongoing picked up before the official crossover issues began, several months after the event proper began. For all of Marvel's big push of the character, it seems we don't care about him much more than we used to. That isn't going to stop them trying to change our minds, of course. And so we have Hypervelocity, a six-part mini from the mind of Adam Warren, the man who brought us many fine and amusing adventures of Kei and Yuri, more commonly known as the Dirty Pair, and the wonderful Livewires in 2005. And if you had to pick one Marvel character for Warren to write for, Iron Man would almost certainly appear to be the best match for his unique talents.
Apparently set (and conceived) before Iron Man took the Extremis virus and turned into the good guy you love to hate in Civil War, Hypervelocity is a return to the Tony Stark of old. A Tony Stark whose biggest worry is falling off the wagon, or having his armour stolen for the twenty-eighth time. Of course, this being an Adam Warren book, this is also a story with several layers of impressive technological acronyms and fancy schmancy weaponry like the 'Superhardened tungsten sheathing depleted-uraniuum core kinetic energy penetrators'. It's also fun. After the seriousness of the Extremis storyline and Civil War, it's nice to see a more playful Iron Man. The set-up is nothing earth-shatteringly new - someone is chasing Iron Man in some very nicely done action scenes, and Tony is concentrating hard on not drinking and idly wondering who the tattooed woman who has taken to inserting herself into his memories and daydreams might be. There's a nice reveal on the last page to introduce some mystery into things, but the main point of this first issue is to set out Warren's store: this will be an action comic, with everything done as fast and as excitingly done as is humanely possible.
Adam Warren's only doing the layouts here, handing over the actual art duties to Brian Denham. You can still see Warren in the lively action scenes, imbuing them with his customary vigour and fun, but everything else seems oddly muted for a Warren comic. Were Marvel leery of making Iron Man look like a manga character? Given the popular-as-dysentry Marvel mangaverse it's probably a smart business decision, but it's disappointing nonetheless. This isn't to say that the art's bad: Denham is more than competent, but when you're reading an Adam Warren book, what you want is Adam Warren art.
What's not to love about a funky little book like this? It takes the most purely enjoyable aspects of the character and tells the best action story it can. It's all done with Warren's light touch, making it seem pretty insubstantial compared to Stark's more recent stories, but that makes it all the more welcome. I just wish he was doing the art as well.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imhalf.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/imnone.jpg
‘Buy this issue online now from X-WORLD and save!’ (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=21884)