Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Yildiray Cinar
Superior Iron Man leads right off from Tony Stark getting the entire city of San Francisco addicted to a new form of Extremis, which enhances one’s physical condition and charging it $99.99 a day. The city is thrown into chaos as people fight each other to obtain Extremis, and it’s up to local hero, Daredevil, to put an end to Tony Stark’s plans. The only problem is that Iron Man’s a master of public relations as he can turn people ready to kill him into his own pawns, not to mention most of San Francisco already worships him like a technological messiah. Tony Stark has big plans for his new exclusive utopia, and they look nasty.
Oddly enough, this issue of Superior Iron Man is told primarily through the perspective of Daredevil as Extremis starts tearing his city apart. That can be either good or bad depending on one’s mileage. Tom Taylor slips nicely into Matt Murdock’s lengthy and patented internal monologuing without missing a beat. However, this book’s central character come off as thin this time. To compare with Superior Spider-Man, the opening issues of that series go to present Dr. Octavius as a well meaning though delusional genius. He sought to stop criminals, certainly but was also egotistical and ruthless. The new Iron Man mostly hangs around at extravagant parties and manipulates his dissenters. The only time he puts on the suit is to promote, well, himself. The point of this title is Tony Stark becoming a malicious version of his old hedonistic playboy self, but it shows very little of him applying that to crime fighting. All the same, Taylor gets in some of his humorous moments even if they’re small. He knows how to write Tony Stark as the self-serving jerk turning into a monster with a believable edge to come off as a bright and bold innovator above his cheering fans.
Again, Yildiray Cinar proves an excellent choice for this book. His pencils are clean and crisp, showing off the beauty of the new sleek Iron Man suit and the sunny San Francisco. Perhaps it would be a bit more fitting to have some ugliness to his work to express the darker moments, but it’s a minor note. Cinar draws some excellent panels of Daredevils echolocation vision and the only shame is that there aren’t’ more. Also, he seems to be a master at drawing evil smiles on Tony Stark. Some of them are genuinely scary.
While this latest issue of Superior Iron Man loses some focus on the titular character, it stays a solid read. The art and writing show a city that is both made more beautiful yet evil. Daredevil is one man against the world as Tony Stark takes over, and there’s a shocking cliffhanger that spells great stories to come from this title.