Seen Iron Man 3? Read Iron Man: Extremis!

I'm sure I wasn't the only one pleased to see Iron Man 3 grace the silver screen recently. Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark is as charismatic, witty and sarcastic as ever (maybe he should be renamed Tony Snark?); Gwyneth Paltrow is lovely, (and you can't help but feel sorry for her - Tony can't be an easy man to be in a relationship with); and Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin (the everywhere-but-nowhere mega-terrorist who in the comics is one of the arch-villains) is... well... mesmerising. If you get the chance to see it, I'd heartily recommend it!

The film, which sees Iron Man fighting super-soldiers genetically enhanced by the Extremis serum, lifts a good amount of its plot from the 2005 comic series Iron Man: Extremis. It's got good credentials: the comic was written by legend Warren Ellis (who also wrote Hellblazer) and drawn by Adi Granov (who became a producer on the first film due to the strength of the artwork). In the comic, a man is injected with a drug which induces a horrific and painful physical change: he becomes covered in grey scabs, which before long forms a cocoon over his whole body. When he funally emerges, he is a new man; scarily fast, strong and invulnerable - and with a score to settle. He marches into an FBI station, and slaughters 50 people single-handedly.

Meanwhile, Dr Aldrich Killian [Guy Pearce in an enlarged role in Iron Man 3], a scientist who worked on the Extremis drug, commits suicide after admitting that he stole the drug and passed it on. The colleague who finds him, Maya Hansen, [Rebecca Hall in the film] is a former lover of Tony Stark's and calls him for help. She explains that Extremis is nano-technology: microscopic machinery, capable of rewriting and enhancing a person's DNA. Tony is determined to stop the super-soldier, but is nearly killed in a fight with him, despite wearing the Iron Man suit. It seems there's only one way to stop him...

Extremis is often hailed as one of the best Iron Man storylines ever, and that's quite likely a fair accolade. The plot itself is something of a turning point for Iron Man, and it also does a good job of exploring Stark's character. Tony Stark started out an arms dealer, but changed his company's direction when he became Iron Man. But is Iron Man itself just a harbinger of violence? But the standout scene for me doesn't involve Tony Stark. It features Mallen, the extremist, extremis-enhanced terrorist, travelling outside a small town on his way to his next target. There he meets a teenage girl, who's something of an outcast in the town. She doesn't think like the others there, and she doesn't trust the government. Mallen suspects he's found an ally, but when he reveals his identity, she is sickened. "You're just as bad as they are!" she yells at him before he incinerates her with his fiery breath. She's only in three or four pages, and we never learn her name, but that girl sticks in my mind months after I've read the book, in an extent that rarely occurs.

If you like the Iron Man films, but don't normally read graphic novels, why not give this one a go? And if you read comics anyway, but haven't read this yet, hurry up and get a move on!


Next month sees the release of the new books from both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, so to celebrate, this blog will host the series "Fantasy: From Toddler to Teen". See you then!