What If? Iron Man: Demon in an Armor (2010) Review - RIB13

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What If? Iron Man: Demon in an Armor (2010) Review

Disclaimer: Yes, I only read this because of the announcement. No spoilers.

TLDR: It’s a good story, pretty short but if you’re a fan of the character and the scenario intrigues you then it’s worth a quick read.

        As most people reading this probably know by now, Robert Downey Jr. is coming back to the MCU to play Dr. Doom in the 2026 Avengers movie. As cheap as it is, it’ll make them money and I like the actor, so it’s a cool move in my book and I’m all for it. I’ve seen a good bit of speculation that this role is based on the 2010 What If? story that essentially asks the question of what if Iron Man became Dr. Doom.

        I don’t personally think that the MCU will be using this material too much but I also would never have guessed that they would’ve done this, so I thought it’d be worthwhile to check it out (plus Dr. Doom is trending on Google, so I might as well try to write about it).

        I liked this story better than I thought I would. I think that it shows the difference in character between Stark and Doom very well and thought that the scenario itself was pretty cool. I don’t know how to phrase the following compliment, but even though the story structure was a bit basic, it really was written with high technical quality, the pacing and dialogue were on point and it was a fun read overall for just about 30 pages.

        I liked the art, it looked a bit old-school for some reason, maybe because this story is literally meant to touch upon themes from the Demon in a Bottle story from the old Iron Man comics, but it didn’t feel dated and for what little action there was it was well handled.

        My only real criticism of the story would probably be about how the fight at the end of the book resolves, when you have two geniuses duking it out I expect a smart or clever way for one of them to beat the other, but that’s not really the case here. It was quite a disappointing victory although with how short the comic is, I understand.

        Overall, it’s a fun albeit not too memorable read with a really good writer. I've heard of Michelinie before but I couldn’t say if I’ve ever read one of his works or not in the past. If you want to fill maybe 20-30 minutes of time with a one-off story about these characters, or are just generally curious about something that might be an inspiration for what’s to come for the MCU, then I’d say it’s worth a read.

Nikhil Saxena

Founder, Destrier Studios

https://linktr.ee/destrierstudios

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