A few months back I wrote an article (Check it out) talking about Brian Michael Bendis leaving Marvel and what that meant for Marvel Comics as a whole, particularly for Iron Man and Jessica Jones since they were the primary books that Bendis was working on. Unfortunately I still have no idea what state Jessica Jones will be left in following Bendis’ departure but we do know that Dan Slott will taking over writing duties for Iron Man.
Slott has been at Marvel for a number of years and his most notable work has been on Spider-Man. Slott was a part of the “Big Time” storylines as well as “Spider-Island”, “The Superior Spider-Man” and my personal favorite of his : “Spider-Verse” The man has a talent for understanding his characters even if it doesn’t always look like he does. His Superior Spider-Man run was the one where Otto Ocatavius took over Peter Parker’s body and was Spider-Man for almost 3 years and yes, I ultimately hated that story when it was going on but after revisiting it with some clarity following Peter’s return it’s clear that it was very well written and was a great source of character growth for both Otto and Peter. Even though he got threats and had multiple people cancel their subscriptions to the book, he kept going because he believed in his story and you can never fault a writer for that.
The recent issues of Iron Man have dealt with the return of Tony Stark following his battle-induced coma. Mary-Jane Watson, Friday(His A.I. Assistant) and his biological mother, Amanda Armstrong have all been running Stark Industries while now searching for Tony, who has gone missing. Meanwhile, Two people have taken over duties as Iron Man in Tony’s absence : Riri Williams, who is a 15 year old computer who built her own suit and then became Ironheart and Victor Von Doom. Yes, Dr. Doom has been acting as Iron Man since Tony fell into his coma. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the story featuring Doom but I just think that Riri didn’t really have enough time to progress as a character before being thrust into her own storyline and Doom’s want for redemption has just been more interesting than hers.
Both stories were written by Bendis and I’m sure that Slott will be a worthy successor. I feel like his story will focus primarily on Tony’s return to the Iron Man role while Doom and Riri will both take a bit of a Backseat. There’s a possibility that they’ll have new titles for them but honestly what I would do instead is have Riri join with The Champions, which is a team of young heroes that I think she would fit in well with and would be a good opportunity for her to grow into her own character. I would have Doom team up with Human Torch and The Thing and have to work together to help bring back the Richards family. It would be a great storyline to use for Victor, Ben and Johnny, they’d have some great dialogue and would be able to bring back the first family of Marvel as well. Just in time for the first Fantastic Four film from The MCU.
Dan Slott has proven time and again that he truly loves these characters and I think Iron Man is a natural progression for him. I can’t wait to see what he does with the character later this year.
Side note, back when there was a bunch of feedback over Miles Morales being Spider-Man this was Slott’s reaction
Yup, I trust this guy with any comic he touches.
