Iron Man: Haunted

Collects Iron Man #21-28 written by Daniel and Charles Knauf with art by Roberto de la Torre, Butch Guice and Carlo Pagulayan & Jeffrey Huet and Iron Man: Director of Shield Annual #1 written by Christos Gage and drawn by Harvey Tolibao.

This is the third book in the Knauf's Iron Man run which so far has been an interesting take on what may be the most powerful super hero in the MU right now. This run has been tightly focused on portraying Tony Stark as a human being, that is bringing to the fore his personal problems while also crafting stories about international terrorism, science and money gone wild and the return of an old arch-villain, the Mandarin. The plot has been carefully planned since day one, and the quality of the stories have been getting better and better.

Haunted is a super hero action thriller in eigth chapters which starts out as a New Jersey murder mystery and develops into an international terrorist crisis. In this book we finally get to learn what exactly the Mandarin has been scheming all this time, and we're also presented with a very satisfying showdown in the end. In this book less pages are spent on Stark's mental health, and more pages on minor characters and plot. I am impressed with how well the genre transition is handled here, the change feels completely natural, although I must say I enjoyed the first part of the book the most. The small time Initiative super heroes that are entangled in the murder mystery are really well portrayed and give the story an extra level of depth. They feel as if they were taken straight out of a 'super heroes in the real world' setting, and in certain ways that part of the book reminded me a little bit of the Watchmen, at least in terms of atmosphere.

The Knauf's writing is good, they handle both plot, characterization and dialogue really well, and seem to be very conscious of the direction they're taking the book. In Haunted I especially enjoyed the way minor characters, such as the Initiative heroes mentioned above, Dr. Samson, Maria Hill, Duncan etc., are portrayed. The mood of the book is also very consistent, and somewhat darker than most other Marvel books. I think this is keeping in tradition with former Iron Man runs, especially his periods of drunken misbehavior, while also giving the book a modern feel.

The artists do their part to create a story with well portrayed emotions and dramatic action while packaging the whole thing in a somewhat dark and moody, and entirely fitting, atmosphere. Although a lot of ink is spent on shadows, we are blessed with the absence of violent cross hatching that some artists like to put all over the page. The outcome is a lot more realistic look than what you see in most other super hero books. The visual cohesiveness of the book is not really hurt despite the artwork being done by three (four) different artists. Part of this may be due to the colors being excellently handled by the same person, Dean White, all the way through.

The annual is a somewhat different beast than the main story. This story, which is about Stark dealing with Madame Hydra in Madripoor, is a much more lighthearted fare. It's actually ok in it's own right, although it is standard super hero fare, which I think exactly was the purpose with this story. Annuals come out during the summer holidays, and sometimes it's nice to read a story that you can enjoy without exercising your brains cells too much. I think what I remember this story best for, is that it contains an incredible amount of boobs and butts even for a Marvel book, but I guess this just cements Stark's status as the playboy of the MU.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I would say it is the high mark of the Knauf's run so far. I would recommend it to anyone with a taste for dark stories, where dark doesn't mean lots of senseless killing but dark in the sense of mature storytelling with elements of suspense and drama and with a focus on atmosphere and characters that are not always either happy or angry. Come to think of it, this book really isn't very kid friendly, maybe that's why I like it. If you choose to read it, you should definitely read the two other Knauf books, Execute Program and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., first, as they are all pretty tightly connected.

8/10