Books I've Read This Week

This weeks entry is a bit of an amuse-bouche as I needed to read something light between some of the weightier books I've got on the go.

Invincible Iron Man - Volume 2: World's Most Wanted - Book 1 by Matt Fraction was a bit of a mistake. I meant to get volume 1 of this run by Fraction but accidentally got volume 2 so there is no going back now! Even though I had not read the first volume which collects the first 7 issues of this comic series I was not lost upon starting to read this volume. We pick up at a point where Iron Man/Tony Stark has been fired from his job of Director of S.H.E.I.L.D. Basically, the top cop in the world. Additionally, his multi-billion dollar company, Stark Industries, is failing and Tony has to go on the run to protect the secrets in his head from the worlds new top cop and former/current super villain Norman Osborn. His audacious plan to protect his secrets includes erasing his memory. Dun-dun-dah!

Invincible Iron Man - Volume 3: World's Most Wanted - Book 2 by Matt Fraction picks up immediately where the last volume left off. There is a pretty interesting plot point that is continued on in this volume. As Tony continues to lose bits of his memory he has to move down the technology ladder to earlier Iron Man suits as he does not have the mental faculties to operate the more advanced armours anymore. Which is a real problem as the threats he face get exponentially more difficult to over come. Anyway, at the end of this volume Tony is left at, arguably, the lowest point of his career. Volume 4 should be an interesting read to see how they put Tony Stark back together again. Oh, and Salvador Larroca is the artist on both volumes. I think he is a great artist but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that some of the photo-realistic techniques he used in the book took me out of the story. It was a bit of an uncanny valley situation where the characters looked too real but not real enough. I really don't mind if my comic books look like comic books or even cartoony.