I Am Iron Man #2 Review

Written by: Murewa Ayodele
Art by: Dotun Akande
Colors by: Dotun Akande
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Dotun Akande
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: April 5, 2023

I Am Iron Man #2 continues the eclectic series of one-shots starring Tony Stark’s famous bodyguard. This time, Iron Man encounters unusual aquatic wildlife while searching for a radioactive meteorite.

Is It Good?

I’m going to be kind and say I apprentice Ayodele and Akande had good intentions going into I Am Iron Man #2. If you read the brief letter the creative team crafted at the end of the issue, it’s clear the creators wanted to use this capsule story to convey a message of support and hope for readers who struggle. However, whatever message was intended got lost in a convoluted, incomplete, broken story.

The story begins with Hazmat workers picking up pieces of a recently crashed meteorite in a field near a small flock of dead sheep. The radiation appears to kill any living being within exposure distance.

Next, the story suddenly shifts to a sleeping Iron Man waking up at the bottom of the ocean. There’s no context or explanation as to how Iron Man got there or why he was asleep, but you eventually piece together that Iron Man is also looking for deadly meteorite fragments in the ocean.

As Iron Man searches the ocean bottom, he encounters a mind-reading Pliosaurus who used to be a sardine. The monstrous animal believes he was transformed by coming into contact with the same meteorite fragments Iron Man seeks, and the two begin a buddy adventure to find the last missing piece.

If that sounds super weird, that’s because it is. The big down point is the lack of sense or setup in the issue.

You don’t know why hazmat workers are picking fragments out of a field on one page, but Iron Man is asleep on the ocean’s bottom on the next.

You don’t know why the fragments are initially shown to be incredibly lethal, but it somehow gives aquatic life transformed bodies with psychic powers.

You don’t know why Iron Man confronts a new threat later in the issue, only to let the threat get away WITH the fragment he’s risking his life to retrieve, even when he now knows the fragment creates dangerous mutations.

Again, the creators’ hearts are in the right place, but the story is a mess.

That said, the art looks great, so that’s something.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts:

I Am Iron Man #2 attempts to spin an allegory about fighting against your body, but the story is clunky, inconsistent, and downright nonsensical at points. The art looks great, but whatever message the writers intended to convey gets lost in translation.