Iron Man Vol 5 13

Cover: The colouring was fun to think about – Black and Gold ended up as the motif. I was trying to suggest something that evoked the Celestial and cosmic spheres. The Godkiller design itself is by the enormously talented Matteo Scalera. We went back and forth on its design a whole bunch – maybe they’ll be included in the trade? – but we were trying to get something that was simultaneously predatory and animalistic and somewhat elegant, while having the detailing that evokes the Celestials.

Page 1: And here’s Death’s Head again, sliding back into the plot and being all kinds of awkward.

The chemical mask as a polite AI is Greg’s interpretation, and an interesting one. I like the juxtaposition between the tone and the feature. I think the idea I suggested was a glorified emoticon.

Page 2: I had a last minute note to add a bunch to Death’s Head dialogue here to justify that 451 underestimating Death’s Head, with some details of how it happened, DH getting some obscure ID, etc. Frankly, too much hand-holding, too much over-explaining. It’s implicit enough, and it makes the scene much punchier. I’ve a tendency to make a scene so air-tight against picking holes it loses life – and it rarely works anyway, as the people who pick holes are often people who aren’t reading closely anyway. You have to file that under The Cost Of Doing Business.

I do like Greg’s facial expression for Death’s Head.

Page 3: The fourth panel is my favourite alien crowd scene from Greg too. Nice sense of the bubbling alien culture of a place like Hope’s Pustule.

“Freelance Peacekeeping Agent” is what Death’s Head always calls himself. He hates being called a bounty-hunter.

Page 4: With the beauty of the Nebulae background the sphere is a little easy to see, but I suspect most comic readers would miss it on a first read. If only because people really do seem to skim the art.

Page 5: M-Banks Class Orbital Body is my small tribute to Iain M Banks, who recently passed. I wrote about it at the time. Banks is one of my big teenage influences, and you can probably see his influence across this arc more than most. The full scale of his Space Opera doesn’t really work well in the MU (it’s too hard – in a Banksian universe, Earth would have been invaded the first time aliens turned up, no matter what heroes Earth had) but there’s glimmers of it here.

Coincidentally, Hickman had Tony making a Dyson Sphere over in New Avengers. I had to really write this bit to stress that this kind of Dyson Sphere is a very different thing than what Tony was constructing around Earth. It’s there if you’re reading New Avengers and hopefully transparent if you’re not.

Page 6-7: If you can’t introduce a nearly five mile robot suit with a double-page spread, what can you write a double-page spread for?

Very different from how I wrote it, but that’s fine. This is a much more classic superhero approach to the topic, with a threatening up-shot. I think I was trying to do something that evoked the 2001 opening, in terms of perspective, and its illustrative coldness would have probably have lost that drama.

Page 8: I didn’t name the aliens originally, for a variety of reasons, but dancing around it was confusing. I settled on Aspirants for a variety of reasons, not least the vague implied pun that 451 notes.

Page 9: Hello, Heart of the Voldi, last seen back in the GODKILLER arc. You’re looking good. What you been up to?

Page 10: “As many as the stars themselves” is the sort of epic scale space-opera stuff that always makes me smile.

Page 11: Playing a little with some of the cosmic elements bubbling along in the MU at the moment here.

I think I wrote this page as 4 panels, but Greg moves it to 3, so giving much more room to sell the concept of scale of the thing. That’s got to be the key thing when you’re working in a setting like this.

Page 12: Quietly reiterating the fact 451 is controlling P.E.P.P.E.R. As we haven’t explicitly mentioned it this issue.

Lava Lamps amuse me.

Nice sinister final panel….

Page 13: And an Alan-Moore change-of-scene from 451’s eyes to the Godkiller’s.

I rarely write SFX in my scripts. They’re almost always added after we see the art.

Page 14: Threat by 451 in the middle goes right to the core of the story. If Tony fears he’s just another program, 451 shows that he plans to take that even further. I saw someone note the nested egg structure of all this in a review – robots in robots in robots, etc. I’m not subtle, me.

I do like pop up hologram HUDs.

Page 15: Big robot, big panel.

I originally didn’t have 451 say a line about him being surprised – we deal with it a little later, after all. On the page, the question rather than being taken as a mystery, it would be taken as a plot-hole. By adding the “How did you get–” it tells the audience that, yes, we know, the cast knows, and it’ll be dealt with. I wish I made that call earlier, as then I’d have integrated it better.

Page 16: I do like how Greg does the force-field signature.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Page 17: And Tony’s free. At last! Really, at last.

Page 18: Death’s Head swappable hands is one of my favourite things about the character. It’s just fun.

Page 19: Always like this kind of panel-layouts, in terms of moment for moment transitions and freeze frames. Also the slightly trippy layout in the first panel with the dancing circuitry. People talk about greg as a photo-realist a lot, but his splashes of design lead stuff is rarely touched on.

By implication, the fact 451 only just managed this implies why he didn’t do this earlier against Death’s Head. He didn’t think it was worth the risk of a confrontation when he thought he could get away.

Page 20: And… what to do, Tony? He hasn’t had a chance of a free action since issue 9, which is very much the theme. What now, Stark?

Well, what now is issue 14 and Greg’s swansong on Iron Man. I think it’s fun. Onwards!