What I've been reading: Iron Man: War of the Iron Men - Fred van Lente & Steve Kurth

Dragon Rating: Steady Hearth Fire

I'm not actually going to review this much beyond the fact that I read it and I enjoyed it. Before it goes back to the library, I'm going to read it again to look over the art-work in more depth - the way that I always do with comic books - although the general impression it left was favourable if not remarkable. Anyway, I'm not an art critic, I'm a stories person. And I can't really justify much comment on the story. 

Sure, the political aspects interested me, although I did feel that the presentation of Stark's dilemmas were... not perfectly realised. But that's all I'll say.

The reasons for this reticence are to do with relationship it Marvel Comics and the honest admission that I am not a proper geek. I like Marvel Comics, and always have liked Marvel Comics, in the same way that I will assert that I have always liked, say, dolphins because, well... who can have a problem with dolphins? Dolphins are cool.

But my contact with them has been fleeting.

As a kid, I would read anything that came my way. This included the odd Avengers, or Spiderman comic. Between these and the animated series they showed on Saturday mornings, I gathered the basics of who most of the characters were. Then, when I was a young teen, a lot of the films were coming out. I've always preferred books to films so, as well as seeing them, I read a little bit more deeply into the Marvel canon, but still, I barely scratched the surface. I only really became a comic fan in my late teens, mostly through the DC Vertigo titles. I've always been uncomfortably aware of this gap in my knowledge but... trade paperbacks are expensive, and there's just so much I didn't even know where to start.

Then, about six months ago, the universe started leaving Marvel titles in my way. Yesterday, as I took the toddler to a pre-school group at the local library, I found this on a chair in the kids section. I borrowed it and I read it and it was good. Not mind-blowing, but solid and well told. I think the time has come to close the Marvel gap.

So, where next?