Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 6: Stark Resilient, Book 2 Paperback – August 31, 2011

I have become a fan of Iron Man over the past few years, and Matt Fraction's run has been incredible thus far. He has built an even more complex and intricate character out of Tony Stark over the past few years and I can only imagine what is in store for the intrepid industrialist. This is a great arc in the return of Stark from his mind-erasing battle with Norman Osborne

Reprints Invincible Iron Man (2008 series) #s 29-33. In the previous Stark Resilient volume, the Iron Man team showed us that they could make a top level story with very little action but with lots of plot and dialogue and character, focusing more on Tony Stark than Iron Man. Here in Invincible Iron Man Volume 6: Stark Resilient Book II, they prove that they can certainly still deliver the action too, kicking it into high gear without dropping any of the balls they were juggling in the prior collection. Here's where we are in the Iron Man story as of the start of this book: the Siege event--felling Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers--is over and Tony Stark is back on his feet and vindicated, hailed as a hero once more. He's missing a number of his recent memories though, which explains why things are getting awkward between himself and Pepper Potts and between himself and Maria Hill. And he's decided that, other than with Iron Man and his connection with the Avengers, he's getting out of the military business for good and is concentrating on trying to give the whole world clean and sustainable energy by adapting his RT (repulsor technology) for every day use, starting with the automotive sector.We have a much less friendly source looking to fill the military void with the duo of Justine and Sasha Hammer and their allies, including some corrupt U.S. military personnel. As they continue drawing in new collaborators, their own armored warrior, the massive Detroit Steel, gets to be much more active this time around. Great art on this new character, as is the art with all the other players. The looks for the current Iron Man armor and for Pepper's new Rescue armor are very sharp, very well done. Looking to not only beat Stark but bury him, the Hammers have been putting into action their plans to have Detroit Steel, masquerading as a hero, replace Iron Man in the public's eyes, and as part of this they've come up with a strange new angle. Okay, this may sound ridiculous, but the creative team takes the following plan and makes it (mostly) work: they've recruited literally millions of unwitting allies in the form of users of their new Detroit Steel mobile app., who will pilot an army of drones while thinking they're playing a video game. Yeah. What comes to mind is that this might have been a better fit for something like the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies than a title like Invincible Iron Man, which is going for a decidedly more serious feel. Somehow they've stopped this from coming off as unbelievably silly (mostly) and unrealistic...no, actually this IS quite unrealistic, but they make it work, and deliver the angle in an almost credible way. And it turns out a bit of a humorous scenario doesn't really hurt the book.As Tony and his small new Stark Resilient team work around the clock to get the first of their prototype cars out on time for a demo, the project is plagued with sabotage. The book heads into a massive action barrage involving Iron Man, Rescue, and War Machine vs. Detroit Steel and this huge swarm of killer drones, with Tony and company desperately trying to avoid civilian casualties as the battle rages across the city.What else? Old villains are reappearing to team up with the Hammer side. As for Sasha Hammer, she's a lot of fun to watch (credit to both Salvador Larocca for the highly impressive art--same with the other female characters--and to Matt Fraction for writing her lines). Too bad she's a villain. A villain who adds a lot to the book, though. Meanwhile her mother Justine is impressive as the power-hungry orchestrator of all this; she's the more ruthless of the Hammers and is skilled at assuaging the reservations of team members who Don't want to see side casualties, enough to get them grudgingly onboard with her plans.Just a great book overall (even with the drone pilot/gamer scenario), from a great period for Iron Man. Highly recommended.

It is a good read

Loved it great story

This volume is a teeth pulling, soul deadening, plodding, tortuous, meandering, sluggish, unimaginably painstaking, disgustingly pointless second half of the unrepentantly awful "Stark; Resilient," and its only half the story... In "Stark: Resilient," Mark Fraction attempts to re-hash an Iron Man tale told umpteen times in the character's 40 year history, to wit: Tony Stark is required to re-build his fortune from the ground up and like a phoenix, rise from the ashes yet again.Thwarted at every turn by the wife and daughter of his dead enemy, Justin Hammer, Tony's efforts to re-launch his new company by developing a repulsor powered car, are sabotaged at every turn. To make matters worse, the emergence of the Justine and Sasha Hammer orchestrated and owned, "Detroit Steel," quickly puts Tony in the unenviable position of becoming irrelevant. The US military is looking at "Detroit Steel" as a possible acquisition for military applications, or some such rubbish, and no one thinks Tony's got what it takes to get back on the map.From that brief synopsis, I couldn't blame you if you thought, "Wow. That sounds intriguing." Cos it does. What makes this volume the rather epic failure it actually is, is the excruciatingly, frustratingly decompressed execution by Fraction. Between volume 1 and 2 of this story, Fraction indulges in navel gazing on an epic scale, with pages and pages and issues and issues of talking heads, focused on pointless dialogue and endless monologues by Tony Stark. Between the two volumes, we are treated to job interviews and office small talk, with copious amounts of hand wringing and reflective self-analysis by the man in the iron suit. To suggest that the stories here move at a snail's pace is actually kind. (It's also Fraction's habit. His inaugural Thor story, "The World Eaters," suffers from similar problems and I suspect will end just as pointlessly.)It's not that this volume is without some genuinely interesting ideas. In fact, there are one or two quite cool ones, especially involving the method of attack by the villains at the very end. What is troubling with the writing here, is that Fraction makes the egregious mistake of forgetting that "Iron Man" is fundamentally a story about a man of action, and that Tony Stark isn't really as interesting as he thinks. Oh, Tony is an interesting character, but not the sort you can spend issues upon issues engaged in psycho-analytical or existentialist rumination on... So little actually happens from issue to issue that I wonder whether Fraction just said, "forget it, I'm going to make this a soap opera and to hell with fans..." By far the most troubling aspect of the story is the incredibly patronizing ending which resolves none of the tension the author spent the previous 9 or so issues building toward.This entire story epitomizes what's wrong with current and Marvel comics in particular. It's the kind of self-indulgent, overly serious, incredibly pretentious approach to the characters that results in long, trade paperback ready volumes where quite a lot of ink and effort is invested building up to very little if anything at all. It's the result of professionals being brought in to work in comics from elsewhere, who subconsciously hate or resent the "silliness" of the material they're forced to work with. They often manifest that disdain with meandering stories that aim for something "more profound" than mere "action/adventure" can supposedly provide, but that ironically have very little of value to say. "Stark: Resilient" isn't about a man constantly driven to reinvent himself. It's about nothing...The art by Salvaddor Larocca is consistently and spookily good. It's unclear what Larocca's method is, and to be honest, it does require some adjustment. Put simply, the art looks like realistic animation. That can have its drawbacks, particularly in a series where the slow pace of the stories force greater focus on the artwork than might otherwise occur in faster moving series, but if you're generally ok with the art style, then Larocca's clean lines will make you happy.Bottom line, don't buy "Stark: Resilient" in these two volumes. Wait for a second Fraction/Larocca Omnibus, or wait until the entire story is collected in one volume. There is nothing here worth rushing to read, or re-read, and the investment of money required is not worth the returns in entertainment.

When Justine and Sasha Hammer said they were going to take on Iron Man and the nascent Stark Resilient, they weren't bluffing. Their implementation of Detroit Steel led to worldwide embarrassment for Tony Stark. The whispers of his irrelevance in the tech industry added insult to injury. But for the Hammer girls, that was merely the opening salvo. With War Machine grounded by the Pentagon, Pepper missing the RT-charged heart that made her Rescue and Tony's Resilient team struggling to put their clean-energy tech into production, they're about to up the ante. Now, Iron Man's going to find out just what "resilient" really means. Collecting INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #29-33.

In the second book of Stark Resilient, we're faced with a new and improved Rescue, a scheming Hammer mother and daughter duo (not to mention an unexpected twist), an army of robotic drones, and lots of explosions. This is a great book. Probably because it makes Tony Stark's new company, Stark Resilient, faced with obstacles one after the other. He's constantly getting trouble from all sides. But that's what happen when you're a new company and you're taking a risk. No matter what Tony and his team faces, this is called Invincible Iron Man for a reason.

Perfect!

Continuing from Stark Resilient book 1, this is Stark trying to pave the way for the future and reboot himself, Pepper and his company. The action builds up and the plot twists are a'coming. I loved the artwork in this edition and certainly I'll be looking out for the next installment of Iron man.

The Invincible Iron Man series is fantastic! I've bought all of these graphic novels in order, they are fantastically well illustrated and the story line is engaging throughout!Invincible Iron Man was the first 'comic' that I had ever bought, I've not been disappointed once.

Fabulous

Great run on Iron Man ; very good writing; making use of IM's history , good pacing & intrigue...The art is top notch also...Stronlgy recommend this one & the previous & following volumes

Perfect condition, as is my only requirement for buying a comic book as long as it has the correct issues.