By Kiel Phegley
It took an extra day to deliver our weekly Q&A, but that's only because this one comes twice as stuffed with talent.
Much like the respective characters they currently guide through the Marvel Universe, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN writer Matt Fraction and WAR MACHINE scribe Greg Pak each hold their own strengths when it comes to crushing villains with armored fury. While Fraction takes Tony Stark from super spy to futuristic fugitive in the current "World's Most Wanted" arc, Pak drives James "Rhodey" Rhodes like a tank straight through the grittier battlefields of the Marvel U in WAR MACHINE. But friends such as these can't be kept apart for long, and in March 11's INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #11, Tony and Rhodey reunite and clash. To prepare, we tapped both Fraction and Pak for their take on where each character stands, why they must remain apart and what could bring them back together.
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INVINCIBLE
IRON MAN #11
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Salvador Larroca |
Marvel.com: Greg, with your start on WAR MACHINE and Matt, with your second, bigger arc on INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, you both took off in new directions as a result of Dark Reign. Did you get together to compare notes on Tony and Rhodey at all before you got the ball rolling on your respective stories?
Matt Fraction: We do now, but I was sort of told very early on that I couldn't use Rhodey, not because of Greg but because of what was going on with Dan Slott in THE INITIATIVE. And so I had to hustle to get him to pop up in the first issue. I understood that Rhodey was on his own separate course of destiny as it were and tried to plan the book without him. Now, subsequently, Greg and I have talked a few times as things have gone on, but from the word "go" I knew Rhodey was kind of off on his own and it'd be wiser for all involved to let him be.
Greg Pak: Yeah. Matt was well underway by the time I came on the book, so we weren't coordinating as he said. It's been nice that we've been able to bump into each other face-to-face a few times and talk to each other via e-mail about a few things—one of which you'll see shortly in the pages of IRON MAN.
Marvel.com: When you write a Marvel Universe book these days, there is the bigger super story and you as writers get to decide how much that big idea affects what you do. Greg, I know that the launching point for WAR MACHINE came from editor Bill Rosemann. Did that pitch tie strongly to Dark Reign the same way Matt's "World's Most Wanted" story does, or was it convenient timing?
Greg Pak: Actually, I've never asked Bill where that idea came from. He may have just come up with it and had this vision of what to do with War Machine. The first I'd heard from him was this idea for Rhodey taking on the kinds of monsters and madmen in the world that no one else deals with. We always say "Never again, never again, never again," but at any given time there are always horrific atrocities and genocides going on across the world that everybody talks about but never does anything about. So that hook hit me pretty hard, and I thought it sounded like a great story to take on and a great new direction for the character. Thematically, in terms of the general "darkness" of the storyline of Dark Reign, the initial pitch did not say, "This stems out of the Osborn Regime for X, Y, Z reasons" but as we worked on the story and figured out how Norman and Ares and other Dark Reign characters would play a role, those things became clearer. The nice thing about the book is that the initial impulse Bill had still guides it, but the Dark Reign elements are able to work in and help it in some pretty interesting ways. I'm particularly interested in how the Ares appearances are working starting with issue #3. You're going to see some things from Ares that we haven't quite seen in the Marvel Universe, and how he imagines his role regarding War Machine is a new thing.
Marvel.com: Matt, you played with similar thematic elements in the first arc of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN in terms of who Stane was selling Stark tech to. Do you guys feel those kinds of geopolitical action stories fit  |
WAR MACHINE #4
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Francesco Mattina |
well with Iron Man and War Machine because of their general story background, or is that something that's a unique fit with Marvel characters in general?
Matt Fraction: I don't think it works for all of them necessarily, but Tony was a weapons manufacturer. It serves as a natural outgrowth of how he started. In the same way that [Captain America] is never too far away from military matters, it feels like Tony is never too far away from this type of thing. And taking the book as a science fiction book that takes place 20 minutes from now, thematically there's a lot of overlap with that direction.
Greg Pak: And both characters, Tony Stark and Jim Rhodes, have stories that revolve around military and geopolitical issues. They've been classic, big, fun super hero stories, but at the same time they've been undergirded with questions of war and armed conflict. So I think the characters lend themselves to working with those themes. I particularly like the way the characters fit into that same milieu but have very different backgrounds and can come at those themes from very different angles. Tony is an entrepreneur and an inventor and a business person, so he works starting off as a weapons manufacturer. Rhodey is a soldier, and that's the fundamental nature of his background. And I think that's reflected in the books to this day where in the WAR MACHINE book, the question of how far Rhodey will go in terms of violence can go a lot further, as we'll see. He'll be grappling with other struggles than some super heroes do as we move along.
Marvel.com: That difference seems to manifest itself as well in the different ways you guys use the armor technology in the books. Tony's armor is much more sleek and futuristic while Rhodey's is dirtier and battle worn. Do you think in those terms when playing with the sci fi elements and how they relate to the themes?
Greg Pak: I definitely thought about that in terms of when you see Parnell Jacobs help Rhodey refit the armor in order to go rescue Parnell's wife Glenda who has been captured by the mercenaries of Eaglestar international in occupied Aqiria. The kind of armor that they put together is definitely different from what Tony Stark would be designing for Iron Man. They're going for maximum firepower at every stage. I think of Tony as developing gorgeous, functional technology that's a beauty to behold. It has the sleek functionality of an Apple computer. I'm not sure what the similar analogue is with Rhodey. It's as if someone has taken an old Mac, tricked it out with every overpowered processor and the most amped up hard drive available, and they didn't care what it looked like.
Matt Fraction: And the root of the Iron Man tech is the repulsor technology. I think of it as more of a power issue, which we're going to come upon more soon. Now that Osborn has all these suits that Tony left behind, Oscorp can't quite replicate the repulsor tech which is proprietary Stark stuff. Osborn can make the suits run but they don't run as well. The root of Tony's genius was really that invention that started implanted in his chest but is now external to his body. It's definitely the cornerstone of the Iron Man armor. So to me, it's not a matter making the armor simpler but exploring how it's powered and how it's run. The War Machine stuff is much more about ballistics.
Greg Pak: Another thematic angle
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INVINCIBLE
IRON MAN #13
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Salvador Larroca |
to the War Machine stuff is that James Rhodes is literally a man in pieces—he's had his arms and legs blown off. One of the big features of his armor is adaptability and the ability to incorporate other elements instantaneously. It's pretty fun to watch him do that, but it also fits the theme of Rhodey being a man in pieces and the way he is pulling in this machinery to replace the parts of himself that are constantly being blown away.
Marvel.com: One thing that the two books seem to share is the idea that since both Iron Man and War Machine were always together for 20 years at least, now that they're apart they're each developing a new supporting cast. How do those new players help you develop your characters and story line in the absence of that best friend?
Matt Fraction: For me, it's all about Mariah Hill, who I think [writer Brian] Bendis and I may be the only two people working in the Marvel Universe who like her. I've been very fond of Mariah Hill, and with Rhodey gone, I asked Brian, "Do you have plans for Hill?" and he said, "No. Do you want her? And I said, "Absolutely I do." Then we both went, "Yaaaaaay!" which is sad but true. So Hill has filled the Rhodey-shaped hole in my book, but I've had the added advantage of having them sleep together, which Tony and Rhodey wouldn't get into unfortunately. So I've lost a Rhodey, but I've gained a love interest—or at least a sex interest.
Greg Pak: [
Laughs] People always talk about continuity being a bear to work with, and it can kind of drive you crazy with characters who have 40 or 50-year histories. But the awesome thing about continuity is that, like with the history of Rhodey, it's like a real human being, and we all have great, strange little things going on in our pasts. And any new story may tap into those old stories in ways that illuminate things in a whole new way. In terms of Rhodey and his supporting cast, I'd always been struck by a few characters including Parnell Jacobs who is an arms dealer who is also one of Rhodey's oldest friends. I think he was the very oldest friend that had ever been revealed. Actually, Parnell's wife Glenda Sandoval may be Rhodey's oldest friend because he knew her even before he knew Parnell. These are characters who appear in just a few issues, but they were so interesting to me because Parnell was a great foil for Rhodey since they both came from the same military background, but Parnell went one direction and Rhodey went another. Parnell became a mercenary and an arms dealer, but at one point Rhodey walked away from that life as he didn't approve of the moral choices Parnell was making. Parnell was a great character to bring back because Rhodey was going down a much more morally dangerous road, and if Parnell thinks something is crazy...boy, it's got to be really crazy.
Marvel.com: Coming up, Tony and Rhodey are getting back together in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #11. That's something people have been hoping to see along the line. Matt, how does that meeting get rolling?
Matt Fraction: Tony is in a bad way. Long story short, he goes to say goodbye to Henry from THE ORDER and Henry realizes how bad things are for Tony and tries to talk some sense into him, but Tony won't hear it. We reveal that Tony's inner circle has a secret smoke signal they can send out, and it's Henry who ends up seeking Rhodey out and saying, "I don't know how bad this is, but he can't run. The longer he runs, the
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WAR MACHINE #5
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worse it gets. You've got to try and help talk sense into him." Rhodey agrees and tries to. That's a classic set up of Rhodey going to Tony and trying to bring him in before it gets worse. Tony realizes how big and bad things are in a way nobody else does and says, "Every camera in the world is going to be looking at us right now. Osborn is going to be watching and he'll think you're still on my payroll if we don't scrap it up a little bit." So they scrap it up a little bit because it's a comic, and we want to see that. You get a little Iron Man/War Machine action, but it's War Machine at the absolute top of his game and Tony not quite near the top of his game. The results are a little more different and brutal than what you've seen, and it's going to be the last chance in a while where these two can share the same frame again. So it's kind of a goodbye, in a lot of ways.
Marvel.com: But Greg, even if we're not seeing Tony in the present of WAR MACHINE, he appeared in the flashback to where Rhodey lost his limbs. Will that continue to be part of your series moving forward?
Greg Pak: Yeah. We will eventually reveal the full context of how Rhodey got his injuries and what was going on with Tony at that time as well. And we never know if there may be another chance of some kind of contact between the two. There [was] an interesting theme in the last WAR MACHINE series where War Machine basically goes to war in Africa to free a Nelson Mandela-style character who's been kidnapped and War Machine literally leads an army and fights a war. There's a brief cutaway in there to Tony, and Tony's is aghast. I think the word "ashamed" is used in the caption. And it remains to be seen what Tony's reaction would be if he had the full context of everything Rhodey's been up to over the last few months and what he's about to get into over the next few months. That's an interaction waiting to happen at some point.
Marvel.com: That brings up an interesting point of how each of these characters, while so tied to each other, seems to be able to stand on their own very well too. Is it hard for you guys to work on them without the other piece, or does that reality help you make better stories?
Matt Fraction: I suspect, and Greg can correct me if I'm wrong, that we'd both like free access to one another's toys at this point. Iron Man is a much stronger universe when Rhodey is with him, and War Machine is a much stronger universe when Tony is with him. These are two characters that are great together, and you want to see them. But vagaries of the direction of the Marvel Universe have taken them in different directions so they kind of have to be separate but together, which is a bummer but a reality that I'm sure will change down the road. It makes the times when they do appear together more important, and certainly there's no danger of me taking Rhodey for granted. The few times I've gotten to write him, I've seen what an asset he is to the Iron Man world as a character, and they're terrific characters just not on the menu at the same time at this moment.
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WAR MACHINE #6
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Francesco Mattina |
Greg Pak: I like the way characters can go through different stages in their lives, and it's sort of like how in every romantic comedy, around the 75 minute mark the characters have a terrible misunderstanding and have to go off in a different direction and have to run across Central Park at the last minute as they realize "Don't get on that plane!"—because of course all planes take off from the other side of Central Park. But taking characters away from each other for awhile is the kind of thing that can set up very interesting stories for later on. I see this as an exciting time to play with these characters in different sandboxes, and if and when they're back in each other's ambit, the experiences they've had will provide for some new dynamics and taking them toward the next step.
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