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Overanalyzing Anime
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Now empowered by the Extremis Serum, Tony confronts Mallen in order to put an end to his reign of carnage once and for all.
I did not care for this issue - at least not during my first read through. While I can appreciate a fierce battle - of which this issue definitely has - it occupies such a significant portion of the final issue that it just feels rather bloated, especially since it doesn’t give us anything new aside from the fact that Tony is now capable of going toe-to-toe with Mallen. But, unfortunately, that does little to make this too thrilling, especially since that aspect of the story was something anyone could have seen coming. What the story does do is try to draw comparison between Tony and Mallen, with Tony claiming that Mallen is his “nightmare,” and, “the version of [him] that couldn’t see the future,” and, honestly, it just does not work. At all.
Yes, Tony had to kill a lot of people in order to escape being a prisoner, but Mallen’s circumstances are vastly different, as all the murdering he’s done so far has been to further his own political agenda, not save his life or the life of a friend; Mallen’s motivations have always been purely hedonistic, as he took joy in the act of killing innocent people. While one could claim that Tony took some sense of satisfaction in his revenge against his captors, it doesn’t mean that he and Mallen are two sides of the same coin. Mallen is a stupid, racist, serial killer - honestly, in what capacity do he and Tony share any comparisons outside of the Extremis Serum - of which, they are using very different iterations. It just feels as though the story wants there to be a strong connection between the two even though it is obvious hat there is not one.
That being said, even though it dragged on a little long for my taste, the final battle between Iron Man and Mallen, from a purely artistic standpoint, didn’t disappoint. Having seen the way Mallen demolished Tony in their previous fight, we immediately get a very clear understanding of just how much the Extremis Serum has boosted Tony’s abilities. Tony beat Mallen’s ass, andhave to admit, that was pretty satisfying to see. Also, in regard to Mallen’s death.. that panel really blew my mind. See what I did there? Because, you know, like, his head blew up. Anyway..
As I said before, my first time reading this I did not really care for it - and that was mostly because of how the story ends. The reveal regarding Maya’s true role in the Extremis Serum theft just felt needless. While the story did initially set up the mystery surrounding why Dr. Killian stole the serum, it quickly left that particular plot thread behind in lieu of focusing on defeating Mallen, and so, in its attempt to try and close that particular thread, we learned that Maya worked with Dr. Killian to steal and give the Extremis Serum to the terrorists. The issue I originally had with this idea was that it just felt rushed, and there was no real build-up to it. Even the end, which had Iron Man stating that he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror tomorrow, didn’t really hit home my first time reading it.
However, upon re-reading it, I understood why having Maya be the overarching nemesis was such an excellent move. She says it herself, “Tony, you’re no better than me,” and a part of what she says is true. For a long time, Tony was using military funding to expense his Iron Man project, which he was going to use to “[bring] on the future,” which is almost exactly what Maya did. Her idea was to use Mallen to show just how powerful her Serum was, and then, with the funding she would have gotten from the military, she would have funded her Medical Technology. The two are not two sides of the same coin - they’re the same side of the same coin. Maya didn’t do anything differently from Tony - in fact, one could argue that Tony was responsible for far more deaths with his missiles than Maya was with the deaths caused by Mallen.
Nevertheless, the final act of the Extremis arc was a legitimate treat. While the final battle took up more space than I feel it needed to, I still enjoyed seeing Iron Man pound on Mallen. Not only that, but the end of this story served as a true turning point for Tony as he’s committed, now more than ever, to looking towards the future to create a stronger, better world.
My rating: 8.5/10
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