Dis-Order

July 27, 2007 by Rich

Let me say upfront that I am fully aware that this post will firmly entrench me as a nerd. Given that I have a blog about comics, I think that’s pretty much a given but, hey, there you are.

Its about The Order – Marvel’s new Initiative-spawned book. I read it last night and, well, I hated it.

Well, not totally – but pretty much.

But it’s the hate side I want to talk about; Henry Hellrung, team leader is a former actor, recovering alcoholic and born again straight arrow. You know who he played on TV?

Tony Stark.

With a goatee.

AS IRON MAN.

Now I know that one of the conceits of the Marvel Universe since the Silver Age FF has been that there’s a Marvel Comics in the MU and they publish comics about the Marvel heroes; TV shows are an understandable spin-off of these comics. I can live with that.

However, my understanding of these comics is that they’re slightly different than the ones we see – Peter Parker isn’t shown to be Spider-Man for example. In fact, now that I think about it, wasn’t there a fifth week thing a few years back that showed how comics in the Marvel Universe differed from the ones we had?

Anyway, my point is – Henry played Tony Stark as Iron Man in a TV show years before he ‘came out’ as Iron Man. How do we know that it was years before? Because when Henry got bounced from the show for alcoholism and later recovered, he sponsored Stark into AA – which was, what, pre ish #200 of the original Iron Man numbering. And I’d like to point out, nerdlike, that Tony Stark didn’t have a goatee until he came back from the Heroes Reborn world (yep, I’m that guy!)

Which means this TV show – with Henry as Stark as Iron Man – has been around for years, with Tony Stark as Iron Man. So does this mean that everyone knew Tony was Iron Man all along (which was kinda obvious, admittedly) or does it mean Tony, in a complete D’oh! moment, suggested that the makers of the TV show use his character as Iron Man in a cunning double bluff?

This might be nerdy, this might be pointless, this might be nit-picky but goddammit, I hate that. I hate the idea of it, the in-joke of it, the knowingness of it. And it almost completely destroyed what there was to like about the issue (which was Barry Kitson).

I’m also a little curious that the team at the start of the issue have been training for almost a year – which means that its been a year Marvel-time since midway through Civil War. I don’t know why, but that annoys me too.

Okay, fanboy rant over.

That aside, The Order really came across to me as re-heated Youngblood funnily enough, and I really dislike Pepper Potts getting super-powered implants so she can be Oracle-that-walks.

Sigh. I wanted to like this book, and I’ll probably pick up the trade for Barry Kitson’s art but this was big disappointment.

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