I was listening to the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy interview with Orson Scott Card* last week and they started talking about Card’s dabbling into comics. Until then, I had forgotten about his Ultimate Iron Man series. I had read it when it came out and I remembered that I wasn’t thrilled with it. But I decided to dust off the series and try it again. The first thing I realized was that I had only read Volume 1 and a second Volume had come out a year or so later. After re-reading Volume 1, I decided that I wasn’t interested enough to continue on to Volume 2 (if it gets better, let me know and I might try it). So what was the problem.

*I had missed the news somehow that Card had a stroke in December. My heartfelt wishes go out to him and his family and I hope he recovers quickly.

Now, I haven’t been much of an Orson Scott Card fan lately. His book Empire was pure garbage and his later Ender’s book (Ender in Exile and the Bean books) were blights on the original book. But, Card is still a good writer. His books move along well and are easy to follow, even if they aren’t that good. And Ultimate Iron Man is similar to this. The book moves along, the plot is easy to understand and the characters are clearly delineated, even though the book, overall, isn’t that good. But I do have a few plot point issues that just pulled me out of the book.

Howard Stark is fighting off his business rival (Zebediah Stane)and ex-wife while creating a new liquid biological armor, but it has one minor problem. It eats skin. Since that would cause all kinds of issues for soldiers wearing it, Stark brings in Maria Cerrera (a beautiful genetic scientist) to help fix the issue. Needless to say, Howard and Maria fall in love and Maria gets pregnant. When an accident in the lab causes problems to the fetus, Howard puts his brain to help save the life of baby Antonio. The solution is, of course, the biological armor. Since it turns out that Tony has regenerative abilities similar to Wolverine, he is able to survive the armor.

Then, of course, Howard and Zebediah have it out in the business relationship. Tony grows up and befriends James Rhodes. And Zebedia’s son Obadiah becomes Tony’s rival (and gets Howard thrown in jail for the murder of Zebediah). Tony gets drunk and invents the armor (not at the same time) and a lot of the familiar Iron Man themes come out.

There are two classes of issues I had with the series. First is making Tony Stark a mutant. Tony Stark has always been a (mostly) normal person who used his genius to invent the armor. This version adds in Tony Stark as a mutant. He’s now in possession of Wolverine’s healing factor and a really funky DNA that will probably exclude him from having kids.

The second is with Card’s handling of the business issues. First Zebediah and Howard’s ex team up to gain a majority ownership in Howard’s company. Zebediah runs in and starts barking orders. It’s then pointed out that the armor isn’t actually owned by Howard’s company, it’s owned by a different company of Howard which has been leasing space or working with the first company. Then later, Tony and Howard get enough stock to take it back over during a board meeting in Howard’s jail cell.

These scenario’s are patently ridiculous.Generally a large company (such as a defense contractor) would have a board of directors that would need to be replaced before a new majority stock holder could do anything and that is usually during once a year elections. Also if a person gains more than 10(I think) percent of a company stock, there needs to be public notifications to the SEC. So Zebediah taking over Howard and then Tony getting it back are patently unrealistic. Then let’s address the armor being owned by a different company. If that wasn’t clearly spelled out to the stock holders, then Howard has a good chance of losing both companies (and paying a huge fine for filing false SEC reports). And then, last of all, if Zebediah and Howard are business rivals who are both defense contractors, then there is a good chance that an FTC review of the takeover would be required. I won’t even bring in poison pills (company and spy) or other issues. But some of the basic plot points are completely ridiculous and just wouldn’t work that way.

Overall the book is mediocre. Card’s writing propels the book throughout and makes it at least readable. But the story isn’t interesting, the character doesn’t really work and Card really needed a SEC lawyer to review his business dealings storyline. Mildly (if that) recommended and I don’t think I will read part two.