Superior Iron Man # 1

By Mark Rodriguez

Straight off the pages of the current AXIS storyline, Tony Stark created a new Extremis App that is free and can turn everyone into improved versions of themselves. His personality was somehow warped during the battle against the Red Onslaught. He wants to make the world a better place....whether the general public wants to or not. It also seems that Tony's developed a taste for booze again. Let's see what happens in the first issue of this new series.

The issue recaps Tony giving everyone the app across San Francisco. Everyone applauds Tony Stark, but they were blind to the truth. A week later, Iron Man runs into She-Hulk who is fighting a monster calling himself the Teen Abomination. The green monster was explosed to gamma radiation, and while She-Hulk warns that he's not as powerful as THE Abomination, he's still strong enough to send her flying into a building. Iron Man taunts him about his chosen super villain name and the Teen Abomination swings a lamp post at him that seemingly takes his head clean off!

The headless Iron Man picks up the helmet, proving it's just an empty suit. She-Hulk and Teen Abomination are both surprised, and the villain feels bad that after all the effort to get Iron Man's attention, he didn't even bother to show up in person. He smashes his helmet down violently onto the villain, knocking him out. She-Hulk says he shouldn't have hit him that hard since he's just a kid. Tony says she can do the clean up since he has somewhere better to be.

The real Tony Stark is chillin in a pool where some kind of illusion app in his contact allows him to control Iron Man from the comfort of the pool. Pepper arrives and tells Tony to get out of the pool. He eventually meets her inside and she disapproves that he's in a pool full of strangers and has taken up drinking again.

Tony shows Pepper he is working on a new symbiote-based liquid metal that can fuse with the body to form the Iron Man armor. Pepper tells him about the consequences of his new app. It seems everyone in San Francisco started to party hearty with their new looks. But worse, now the people that don't have access to the app are severely looked down upon.

A group of attractive people gang up on a homeless person, wanting her to leave the city. Just then one of the guys is smacked by by Daredevil's trademark weapon. The hero tells the crowd to back off. The guy he hit starts freaking out saying that 'something's wrong'.

Tony suits up and tells Pepper that the people won't stay perfect forever since he can't make money by giving away something like that for free. Just then the people in the pool outside start screaming a they start turning back to normal. Pepper picks up a phone someone dropped and it reads that the Extremis 3.0 App's free trial is over... and the daily renewal fee is 99.99. Iron Man says he wants to see how far the people will go to get their perfection back now that they had a taste of it. He then flies off.

Pepper consults with someone with how Tony has changed and seems to have fallen victim to his own ego. The person she's talking to says he will help, and it's revealed to be someone dressed in the classic Iron Man armor.

My Opinions

Wow is all I can say. So Iron Man gives the world a miracle cure of sorts.... and then takes it away charging 100 bucks daily if you want it back. Instant drug addiction. Not only that, he created a whole new kind of prejudice as now the 'beautiful people' look violently down upon those that can't use the free app. Pepper has reason to be worried. This Iron Man isn't twisted or misguided, he's an asshole.

Doc Ock as the Superior Spider-Man set out to eradicate all crime for the greater good, but also to stroke his ego and prove he's a much better hero than Parker ever was. All the wrong reasons and whatnot, but he's still doing this with good intentions. This Tony Stark is purposely getting people hooked on his drug. the charge a hundred bucks a day to keep using it after giving the city a week to get them hooked. Then he flies off with glee to see all the chaos he caused firsthand. This isn't some guy doing things with his own sense of greater good.... or some guy that was so short sighted he didn't realize he was causing more harm than good. No. Tony was doing this on purpose, and is about to go out and bask in his handiwork... What in the flying fuck dude...????

As for the victims, I do wonder how this affects the victims. Do they just turn back to normal, or even worse? Yeah, for someone super vain and self-centered it would suck to finally have the perfect body you always wanted.... and then to lose it... but it seemed some of these people seemed to be screaming in pain. And also what the hell is this Extremis app? Does it crawl out of your phone and into your body? Or how exactly does it get out of your phone and into you? I wonder if they'll ever explain that in detail later on.

It was also good to see She-Hulk and Daredevil in this. I always like seeing these little cameos and it does make sense since most of Marvel's heroes live in New York City. I also assume eventually the other Avengers will come after Tony once he goes too far. We'll have to see what happens. I'm interested in what's gonna happen so far.

Sonic Boom # 1

By Mark Rodriguez

Sonic gets yet another reboot as he gets a new cgi cartoon series and a new game called Sonic Boom. I'm not exactly sure if it's an all-out reboot or if this is just 'the new look' from here on out but it seems the Sonic games from now on will look like this. The cast trimmed down to a few characters (so far) and the most notable differences in design are Sonic's new scarf and Knuckles being taller and bulkier to fit his fighter personality. Surprisingly to me, rather than just have Sonic suddenly want to wear a scarf and come up with some way to explain Knuckles' new look and continue the long running comic series... it seems Archie comics has made a whole separate comic book series (I assume) based on the continuity within the new game and cartoon show. Let's take a look.

The comic starts with Dr. Eggman attacking the gang with a giant robot. As the team, Sonic, Tails, Amy and Knuckles gets re-introduced to new readers, they all come together to take him down. Eggman's giant robot swims away and the battle is won for now.

All is not well though as Sticks the Badger (must be a new character?) tells Tails that his house has been robbed. Tails asks what exactly was stolen, but Sticks clarifies that the house itself was robbed by a giant stone golem that came up from under it. They soon find it and see that Tails' house is on its head. The heroes try to attack the monster without causing damage to the house, and eventually Amy, Knuckles and Sonic destroy it (after Amy has to explain the plan to Knuckles several times). Luckily the house manages to land just fine.

Even the good guys celebrate, Knuckles hold some resentment, mostly towards Amy since she keeps insulting his low IQ. The comic ends with Knuckles arriving at Dr. Eggman's hideout asking if he wants to team up.

My Opinions

Kind of a simple story. Besides the cool visuals and getting used to the new designs of these classic characters all that happens is that team takes down two of Eggman's giant creations. I guess in this case it's alright since again, this is an intro story. The characters point it out too as everyone gets introduced with their full name drawn as a logo... and there's a lot of 4th wall breaking about it.

One thing that annoyed me is Knuckles' characterization. I assume this is how he acts in the new game and series, but wow, is this ever gonna get really old really quick. Granted, Knuckles has never exactly been a genius, one of his problems in the games is how easily Robotnik seems to trick him into siding with him on several occasions. The first time in Sonic 3 I can let slide since he didn't know him yet and Robotnik would be quick to take advantage of anyone that naive... but any other time after clearly seeing how evil he is... no.... shame on you Knuckles.

However, Knuckles was never flat out 'the dumb one' like he is here, constantly saying random and stupid things, or never understanding what's going on, even after it being explained to him. I swear the only thing missing him is for him to say 'duuuuh'. While his dumb ass remarks makes everyone facepalm, it annoys Amy the most, which leads her to insult him constantly until he finally got fed up with it.

I might check out a few more issues, I decided to take advantage of this since it is the first issue. I assume, as a whole new comic series, it will only feature characters from the new Sonic Boom game and not the gi-normous cast of over nine thousand characters the main 300 issue series. Although I'm curious why they didn't just give Sonic a scarf in the main comic series and call it a day.... I guess this is an opportunity to let new readers have a fresh new start without having to get lost with the long-ass backstory and history of the main series with so many original characters and storylines. Still, I do wonder if the main comic will eventually slowly go with the Sonic Boom re-designs and have Stick appear.

As for Stick herself, so far I just know she's the new character and seems to be more feral than anyone else in the series. Everyone else seems to be pretty much the same. Eggman even has the same robot sidekicks Orbot and Cubot from the newer games.

As for the game itself, which apparently the 3DS version will be different from the Wii U version.. from what I seen at Game Stop, it seems to be interesting. With them mentioning that it relies on platforming and puzzles, it sounds more like the classic 2D formula (with 3D graphics I'd assume) than the 3D format of the Sonic Adventure series. Sign me up. I haven't seen the actual how yet though.

I do have to say... I loved this little scene in the beginning. Not only does Tails take some time out to compliment Eggman on his genius, because after all, good guy or bad guy, Tails does appreciate genius done right... we also get a clever Back to the Future reference. Gotta love it.