Review: Iron Man: Extremis Part 5

Short synopsis of the issue: While Stark's body undergoes repairs via the Extremis process, he flashes back to a slightly updated origin story of Iron Man. The story is the same one we've come to know and love, only with nameless terrorists in place of communist guerillas. Oddly, we do not see what happens to Dr. Yinsen in this issue (but perhaps in issue six). Stark emerges from the Extremis cocoon and reveals to Dr. Maya Hensen that he tweaked the Extremis before injection. He now has the suit's under-sheath stored inside his body and wired into his brain. As Tony puts it "I control the Iron Man with thought, like it was another limb." After further unnerving Maya by dialing her cell-phone without moving his mouth (presumably by relaying through the nearby armor), he dons a new Iron Man armor and sets out after the Extremis augmented terrorist.

Now, I could go on a small fan-boy rant here that the armor has had a thought control system for ages and doesn't Ellis bother to avail himself of the archives, and bleh blah blech, but really 1) that serves no one and 2) it's probably already been done somewhere else already with more fire, invective, and total perspective loss than I can muster at this hour.

My problem is I'm at best ambivalent about Tony Stark, brilliant inventor and cyborg, as opposed to the more traditional Tony Stark, brilliant inventor. Logically, it's not that huge of a departure, Stark has already gone through one or two bionic hearts. He's rewired/replaced his peripheral nervous system at least once when he faked his own death after being paralyzed. That didn't bug me as much at the time, but that's because I was much more annoyed with the contrived falling out between Tony and Jim Rhodes that went with that plot. I still wasn't thrilled about it.

You could make the case that this is nothing more than an improved interface with the armor. The nerve pickups now reside inside the operator instead of on the inner surface of the armor, and if that's as far as it went, I don't think I'd be as bothered, but when Tony says "I can see through satellites now" I don't think he's exaggerating and I don't like the implications.

To me Iron Man has always been the clever guy in the room full of demi-gods. He's an affirmation that wits, determination, and ingenuity can level the playing field with adamantium claws, radioactive spiders and magic hammers. But in Extremis, that's no longer sufficient. Now you need your own set of trans-human capabilities if you're going to set foot on the playing field, or you're going to get creamed and that just doesn't feel like an Iron Man story to me.