Tony Stark, man. This is exactly the sort of Tony Stark story that should be told. It is a play on Armor Wars, but a really, really good play. This is classic comics. Iron Man is in two different fights near the beginning and end of this book. The end of the first issue reveals who the big bad is. Pithy remarks as the hero easily dispatches the first enemies he faces.

Yet, the real genius from writer Fred Van Lente comes in the middle of the book. Some Iron Men are using what appears to be his oldest design to murder innocent people in "Transia." So he goes to his Marvel Universe Video Conference Screen to consult with Foggy Nelson and Nick Fury among others. He feels tortured by this sequence of events later on.

At this point, I'm going to mention the lettering in this book. It is really, really well done by Dave Lanphear. There was only one point that I noticed it at, originally. The video conference convo between Rhodey and Tony is lettered with Iron Man and War Machine's colours with two little eyes on the left of the text box during a cutaway shot of James Rhodes' past. There are also shots from Iron Man's perspective with some white text on red that is also quite excellent.

Somehow I mentioned the letterer before the artist on a book, but I will mention that Steve Kurth does a great job on this book. Everything Iron Man in this book looks beautiful, from the early fight between Iron Man and some thugs to near the end of the book where Iron Man flies in wearing his regular Iron Man armor inside a bigger suit of armor and then he pulls out a "Repulsor Blade" and starts kicking ass and then and then and then this comic is just awesome long-running sentences fuck yeah.

Iron Man: Legacy. Get it.