War of the Realms: Tony Stark Iron Man #12: Blood of the King

A pretty fun issue that takes us back a ways and in doing so neatly sidesteps the cries of “if Tony is here why isn’t he at Avengers Mountain!?” that surely would have arisen. My one complaint is that everything is taken too literally, to the point that it becomes ridiculous rather than funny. I like the idea that Malekith is scared of Iron Man, as dark elves are very weak to things made of iron. My only problem is Malekith should be smart enough to understand that he isn’t literally made of iron. I did laugh at the dragon, hilariously misinformed through poorly researched third party information, screaming nonsense like an antivaxxer on a message board, he has basically no idea what he’s talking about haha very funny.

Chemtrails are killing our children!

I will confess I’m reading this as a WOTR issue and not an Iron Man issue so i can’t speak to quality or lack thereof for the parts not having to do with War of the Realms, I really like Gail Simone though and generally speaking have faith she is respecting Dan Slott’s main series. I loooved some references to other dragons including Falcor, Fin Fang Foom (that scene was great) and what I think might have been a hobbit reference? Great.

The art by Paolo Villanelli was excellent! I really like his Sadurang and once folks start suiting up the action is killer, so cool. Also noteworthy are the colors by Edgar Delgado, the colors really pop in this book in the varied settings.

I gotta say I know it’s Simone and not Slott but if this is the tone of this series I think I might get a TPB or two I really like what I’m seeing.