Iron Man volume 3 #3 discussion post

[elspethdixon]

Iron Man #3 - The Art of the Deal



Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciler: Sean Chen

Tony uncovers the mastermind behind the attacks on himself and the Countess de la Spirosa.

Meanwhile, Happy and Pepper are settling in to their new roles at Stark Solutions, and Happy may have found a new girlfriend.

Comments

[marinarusalka]

Sigh. I miss comics Happy. Tony needs more people in his life who are just regular people, not superheroes or supergeniuses or other billionaires.

This issue felt like a bit of a place holder. Tony defeats some bad buys and sleeps with an attractive woman while the overall plot arc advances by about an inch. But I liked Tony defeating the Dreadnaughts with his engineering know-how, and his interactions with the Contessa were refreshingly adult and non-angsty. In addition to more regular people, Tony's life needs more exes who don't try to kill him.

[elspethdixon]

This entire mini-arc has a lot of good Tony-being-an-engineer(and-businessman) content.

[eruiel]

Tony is still a self-sacrificing idiot. I don't even want to know what Tony believed were the acceptable odds of surving the Dreadnought explosion. Maybe someday Steve will teach Tony that blowing yourself up is not an appropriate tactic.

I really loved that Tony could not stop himself from noticing the design flaws of the new Stark laptop. It is a wonder he was able to delegate any work when he owned the company. I also enjoyed that Stephanie initiated their encounter before he left. Too often I see Tony depicted as someone who thinks about sleeping with you first and having a conversation with you second. Also lets hear it for adult friends with benefits.

[elspethdixon]

Maybe someday Steve will teach Tony that blowing yourself up is not an appropriate tactic.

He'll think he has, and then some circumstance will arise where blowing himself up is totally the only way to save the entire world and it'll be back to square one.

Too often I see Tony depicted as someone who thinks about sleeping with you first and having a conversation with you second.

I see that, too, and pre-Fraction/Gillen comics really don't bear that out. He clearly tries to hire you to work for him/recruit you into the Avengers first, and then thinks about sleeping with you.

[eruiel]

I often rail at Tony for his belief that his own life is always worth sacrificing for the greater good and if it is a choice between himself and any other Avenger he will always choose himself (probably because he feels he deserves it and/or is less important). However in truth this quality endears him to me. It's not necessarily the self-sacrificing itself, but that it seems to be his first choice. I'm not sure Tony takes the time to look for other solutions. So I agree Steve will have to repeat this particular argument for the entirety of their lives. I kind of want Tony to say "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." and Steve to look at him like, "You did not just try to get out of this discussion by quoting Star Trek."