Invincible Iron Man #24 – Stark: Disassembled Part 5

Conclusion: just rubbish.  Let me explain why dear reader, why this comic may no longer be worth my time or yours after this issue.  With Matt Fraction in charge of this title as writer it is difficult to determine if he is just following orders or setting the pace and tone of Marvel Editorial’s effort to align the character to the movie portrayal and exorcise the political dimensions that some Marvel readers (note I do not say Iron Man fans) have associated with the character since Civil War and before.

From the start of this story arc it was certain that Tony was losing his memory and the question opened was if he would lose what makes him – Him.  What is a person if not their experience and thought process? This metaphysical question has confounded many a philosopher, writer and scientist.  As work of fiction dealing with a science fictional approach to such questions, Iron Man has abided by the basic Materialism of a superhero powered by technology.  As far as being a fiction and not an actual person Tony Stark has been a construct of certain consistencies of thought and behaviors that I have argued in these blog posts as consistent with an ethical system equally artificial yet apparent to readers as a valid system. It is a non-foundational system based on a shifting relative ‘greater good’ otherwise known as teleological contrasted the term deontological. Following on that businessmen, like Stark, commonly think in terms of purposeful action as in, management by objectives.

On this level the story takes on Consciousness which is the subject of much research in the philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill or comatose people and Tony’s comatose state can rest on any of these disciplines to explain what we see on the page as Tony Stark’s subconscious experience.  Or can they?

The divine hand of the writer is at work in this story to alter the Ontology of the character not just alter the character’s experience to suit the needs of his own. Unlike in the past issues where Tony died and the reader was presented by writer Len Kaminski with memories (issue #284), Matt Fraction presents something more nebulous in origin if particular as a central part of the character’s being. A legacy of bloodshed. Where this sense of guilt and rejection of this legacy comes from along with retaining his sense of self-identity is never explained in the comic in any Materialist terms except to have the Mystical character of the story, Dr. Strange, say that it is not magical in nature. By this trick of narrative the writer buries the very question he raised for one purpose and that is to assert and insert a driving motive for the character which can not be touched by phenomena or experience. One can say that the writer is indeed playing God with the series. This motive made fact is a moral imperative, a principle originating inside a person’s mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative from which Tony reasons out into all his decisions. It’s the major forced element in an issue of forced scenarios that sees the reader to the end of Tony Stark’s self-exile from the community he sought to protect with his actions in Civil War  like a pushy usher that has to get ticket holders to their seats before the show.

That show is of course the larger Marvel publishing universe after Siege and the coming Iron Man 2. The forced scenarios to make this happen are: saving Tony Stark’s body from being killed by Ghost by a succession of friends that solidify his cast of characters surrounding him, laying a foundational motive for all of Tony’s future actions deep in his conscience, waking him from his comatose state and lastly distancing Tony from his recent past actions. If a memo went out to the writer with such a list they are all accounted for in this issue. Maria Hill and Pepper Potts each take their turns in combating Ghost in different ways. Hill with physical force and Potts with brinksmanship. Jim Rhodes as we saw last issue takes a bullet for his friend and the Doctor on the case, Doctor Strange, adds martial arts to mystical arts repertoire.

All this transpires while in the dreamscape Tony faces his parents in a citadel that becomes flooded with blood and told to embrace his legacy. Rejecting this he rises to consciousness in the nick of time to snatch a distracted Ghost’s cell phone. Basically he texts Ghost to Seoul, S. Korea.  In a sort of epilogue, Tony’s original medical doctor explains to Captain America that while Tony had uploaded his memories that he had stored on a hard drive that hard drive was created some time in the past…before Extremis, before Civil War. The final panel of the issue shows Tony in a small library reading newspapers and clips as well as internet articles about events of the missing time and uttering ‘God. Oh my God.’ It is as if he was speaking to his author and deity that has given him a new soul.

It’s a damn shame really because Tony never needed a soul to be human. From a materialist perspective a science based hero should be agnostic if not atheist to complete the theme if not be realistic. Most of the issues in the long history hold to this consistent aspect but most damaging is the change in character. To be clear this is not developmental change which arguably was like when Roy Thomas inserted regret into Tony’s origin story upon rethinking about Vietnam in #47 “Why Must There Be An Iron Man?” Fraction changes Iron Man in a far more foundational way that pre-empts the priorities of his decision-making process with an unmovable object.  Any future derivation from this like happened in Civil War can be called foul not because he didn’t reason rightly but because he is betraying himself.  It is the same lame logic that is implied when people say ‘good guys just don’t do that sort of thing’.

It is far more grave than the role of the memory back-up being set before Extremis, which Tony pointed out he had done in Part 2 of this arc, and arguments about culpability for events in Civil War if he can’t remember them. The re-set in that regard is somewhat understandable as Marvel realized they let that experiment go too far in its political analogy in associating Iron Man with the Bush Administration. (in truth Tony was working with the Bush administration before Extremis over Iraq in the now mostly forgotten run by John Jackson Miller) While one should applaud political diversity in comic book heroes a higher order of diversity has been tossed away in the process of this purge. Ethical and philosophic diversity has been broken over the knee like a dry stick and tossed on the fire. It is with some irony that the following story arc in the “Heroic Age” is called Resilient. The only thing that seems resilient at this point in comics is a monolith of Transcendental morals making for acceptable heroes.  That and the godhead that Marvel has endowed itself with to lay down what is true good and moral.

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