Conference calls! You love them, Marvel loves them, and today saw the first in a new wave of conferences take place. This time we were here to talk about a surprise, which turned out to be Kieron Gillen, and his second arc for Iron Man – ‘The Godkiller’.

Acting as a link of sorts between Iron Man’s work on Earth and his forthcoming membership with the Guardians of the Galaxy, this arc will see repercussions from AvX hit Tony Stark when he goes off on an adventure into space. As you can see from the promo image, the shadow of the Phoenix is haunting Iron Man (who is wearing spiffy new spaceproof armour, yay) as a result of his actions during the event. It looks as though Stark’s work in removing the Phoenix Force as a threat may now result in people looking for revenge, or perhaps the equilibrium of the Universe snapping back into his face.

Greg Land will provide art for the second arc too, in which Stark goes into space in order to live out the dream of any technician: a chance to pretend to be James T. Kirk. Stark has a mission at hand here – a secret one, as we’re only one issue into the book so far, and this arc starts with issue #6 – but that isn’t going to stop him from pausing to try and seduce some alien babes. Which, I can’t believe I just wrote. Cowabunga, man. This will be an arc in which Stark does a bit of self-realisation, Gillen says:

There’s a hunger. He wants to know about the thing that he’s been avoiding previously. He’s driven. This is him being driven. It’s like he’s found a new wing in the library and he wants to read all the books.

Mapping all of space? That sounds like a job Stark could really have fun with. The press asked all sorts of questions regarding the story (I asked about Tony’s moustache, which is NOT getting a relaunch. Some things are iconic and shouldn’t be touched), including whether there would be any ‘robots’. While playing down the likelihood he’d be using Danger or UNIT, Gillen did mention that Death’s Head would be making an appearance in the story, at some point. So SWORD fans should be happy.

The requisite question was raised about the playlist Gillen made while writing the arc, and the answers included: Europe, Kraftwerk, Magazine and New Order. Oh, and Sam Sparro. Don’t think I didn’t hear that, Gillen. For shame.

7 COMMENTS

  1. i recall fantastic four in outer space stories, thor in outer spaces stories, avengers, inhumans, hulk, x-men, and a host of other characters in outer space, but i don’t seem to remember an iron man solo adventure in outer space. his stories always seem to be earth bound in one way or another (not counting the times when iron man fought just above the earth, or visited a space station, etc. . looks interesting.

  2. I think it’s interesting that the first issue came out last week, and was easily the most lackluster thing that Kieron Gillen has ever written, and had horrible art, so now Marvel is in damage control mode, hyping the next arc.

    This does sound more interesting than the current arc, but I might not still be around by then…

  3. I thought that was glossed over in AVX that it was his machine not working right that turned those guys into the phoenix.

  4. The idea in AVX is that he didn’t know if the machine was going to work, or what the exact effect of it would be. He took a leap of faith in his application of science, basically, and that’s new territory for him

  5. As I recall, nobody ever said what the Phoenix Force was in AvX, even in pseudo-technical terms. They just talked about what they thought it was going to do. Taking action against something is pretty hard if you don’t know what it is.

    I have some sympathy for Gillen because he’s trying to craft storylines while being stuck with grossly defective premises (the end of AvX). He tried–tried hard–in AvX: CONSEQUENCES, but if Cyclops was going to remain the admirable superhero, AvX shouldn’t have been written. If Stark is going to worry about the effects of killing a god, he should have killed God.

    SRS

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