It seems a logical step but, to be honest, it’s probably the least interesting aspect of the story. He never really answers the question, because he’s not sure of the answer.Įllis garnered a lot of attention for essentially rewriting the character’s origin, updating it to Afghanistan.

Over the first two issues, in two absolutely fascinating conversations, Tony’s mentor and a left-wing documentary filmmaker both tear into Stark in order to explore his frequent claims of what the suit is or what the suit could be. It has seemingly squandered its potential. While Stark’s failures stem from bad choices and poor decisions, the suit is arguably even more guilty – it has done nothing.

In fact, the real focus of the miniseries is not Stark, though it does explore his own personal failures and the mistakes in his history (designing smart bombs and munitions chief amongst them, along with hints of his alcoholism and professional irresponsibility), but Iron Man – the series lays the most serious charges at the feet of the suit itself. Over this somewhat sparse plot (which only exists to service Ellis’ themes and character study, not that there’s anything wrong with that), our author draws a picture of Tony Stark and – arguably to a greater extent – of Iron Man. All you need to know is that domestic terrorists have gotten their grubby hands all over a top secret super soldier experiment – one that essentially ‘builds’ the man of tomorrow – and Tony Stark must stop them.

So I’m really not too surprised that Extremis is relatively light on plot. As charming as they were (and they were charming) Jon Favreau’s Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were relatively weak on the old plot front, requiring the charisma of the character and Robert Downey Jnr. I found myself defending Matt Fraction’s run on The Invincible Iron Man as a thorough and considerate character study, while acknowledging that there wasn’t really anything spectacular going on plotwise. I don’t mean this as a slight on Extremis by any means – in fact, Warren Ellis’ revised mission statement for the true man of tomorrow may be the best Iron Man story I’ve read. His appeal is centred entirely on the character’s charm, charisma and pride of place as one of fiction’s most famous and prestigious futurists. He’s typically well written and carefully considered (of course, there are glaring exceptions), but he rarely seems to find himself involved in any particularly strong narratives. The more Iron Man stories I read – and the more movies I see as well – it appears that Tony Stark as a lost individual isn’t a metaphor, it’s more of a metaphysical observation. – Sal cuts straight to the heart of the matter It’s used for extraordinary rescue and response situations. I’ve never sold any element of the Iron Man to the military. John Pillinger says the Iron Man suit is a military application.

Iron man extremis 1