Thursday, September 29, 2005

Graphic Novel: The Armor Wars

I've been getting a bunch of graphic novels lately to get caught up on comic stories - and I grabbed a copy of the out-of-print The Armor Wars Iron Man story on the cheap. Iron Man isn't really one of my favorites - lately the book has kind of sucked - but this story was damned good, along the lines of The Power of Iton Man (where Shell Head overcomes his alcoholism). It's a tale of trying to put the genie back in the bottle once it has spread. In this instance, he tracks down everyone who uses technology he developed (and someone stole from him) so that the technology isn't used for evil. But in so doing, Iron Man kills some of his targets, alienates his friends, and becomes an enemy of the government.

So there's the genie theme, but there's another interesting undercurrent that has become more relevant in the past few years - that of ownership rights for technologies. As digital tech, MP3s, DVDs, and the piracy thereof, spreads worldwide, who really owns an idea anymore?

Not a bad read for a comic fan.

2 comments:

Jon said...

So what does it mean when the same enemy of the state Iron Man becomes the Secretary of Defense later in his life?

Artillery MKV said...

Haliburton?