Stark: Disassembled, Part 5
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Salvador Larroca
Colorist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
The Marvel meta-plot of the last seven or so years hasn’t been too kind to Tony Stark. He’s been shoehorned into the role of technocratic fascist, put at the head of the charge for superhero registration, and vilified as the guy who failed to protect Earth from a Skrull invasion. He’s royally screwed up his friendships with Thor and Steve Rogers, he’s watched Norman Osborn run roughshod over the world, and he’s had to delete his own brain to escape HAMMER’s clutches.
So, what do you, as a Marvel writer, do to restore Tony’s heroic reputation after nearly a decade of mudslinging? How do you get from “universally reviled techno-fascist” to “one of the three pillars of the Heroic Age?”
If you’re Matt Fraction– and come on, you wish you were Matt Fraction– you go big. You trust in your own audacity of narrative. You do something so outrageous that it should annoy the living hell out of the fans who’ve been following the book for two years… and then you leave it on the last page and let them sweat for a month.