Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Paul Bourcier
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Iron Man vs. Whiplash

Post by Paul Bourcier »

So, what's the deal with IRON MAN VS. WHIPLASH? I don't see any reason to dismiss it as non-canonical, but clues do seem to point to it being set post-SIEGE.

First, there's no mention of Stark having any official status as head of SHIELD or U.S. cabinet member. My guess is that he doesn't have any type of government affiliation after his return at the end of the current Iron Man story arc. And you'd think Osborn would have a field day with Stark's situation in IMVW if he were still in power, so post-SIEGE seems logical.

Second, the Red Guardian depicted in IMVW 1 wears a new costume that is not depicted in any previous* comic. Red Guardian appeared in the old costume during Secret Invasion (IM4 34-35) and after SI in SHE-HULK v4 #34-36 and MIGHTY AVENGERS #22-23. One would surmise that IMVW 1 occurs after these issues, and if that's the case, then it has to be after Iron Man's upcoming return.

*HULK: WINTER GUARD #1, also out this week, shows the new Red Guardian costume. In this story, the Crimson Dynamo (Vadim) with the armor seen in IMVW 1 is killed in battle. A new Crimson Dynamo with a new armor is recruited. This leads me to believe H:WG 1 occurs after IMVW 1, and so also post-SIEGE.

Thoughts?
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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The solicit said, and I quote, "Meet the all-new, all-different, all-deadly WHIPLASH in this special in-continuity lead-in to the Iron Man 2 movie." It's in unless it can't be.
Paul Bourcier wrote:First, there's no mention of Stark having any official status as head of SHIELD or U.S. cabinet member. My guess is that he doesn't have any type of government affiliation after his return at the end of the current Iron Man story arc. And you'd think Osborn would have a field day with Stark's situation in IMVW if he were still in power, so post-SIEGE seems logical.
Iron Man's Extremis armour is destroyed. According to Quesada, he'll be seen in his 70s armour in Siege*; and according to Matt Fraction his new armour will debut in the first post-Siege arc of IIM. Any issues showing the Extremis armour (except IIM 8 and Slott's first arc of MA) must go before Secret Invasion, and if you want him not to be running SHIELD that pushes IMvW before Civil War (but after IM4 6 if he's in his Extremis armour - although the cover seems to show him in his PRE-Extremis armour...).

*I know the main covers for Siege show IM in Extremis, but in his newest column at CBR, Quesada says he had to revise his IM-centric variant cover from the Extremis armour (shown in the early versions) because "Brevoort call[ed him] up and [told him] that [he] was drawing Iron Man in the wrong suit and headgear", and the later versions show the classic armour.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

Post by Chris McCarver »

Somebody wrote:The solicit said, and I quote, "Meet the all-new, all-different, all-deadly WHIPLASH in this special in-continuity lead-in to the Iron Man 2 movie." It's in unless it can't be.
In continuity with the 616-verse or in continuity with the films? Because if I recall correctly, one of the elements of the movie version of Whiplash was the relationship between Whiplash and his father, a Russian inventor.

Is this Anton Vanko supposedly the same character as the original Dynamo, or is it assumed that this is someone completely new with the same name and a possible familial connection to the Anton Vanko who died back in the Tales of Suspense days?

If this is mini is canon, I think it makes more sense to place it somewhere between IM3 50 and IM4 1, since, as you said, he appears to be wearing the armor he wore in the Mike Grell run than the Extremis armor.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Chris McCarver wrote:
Somebody wrote:The solicit said, and I quote, "Meet the all-new, all-different, all-deadly WHIPLASH in this special in-continuity lead-in to the Iron Man 2 movie." It's in unless it can't be.
In continuity with the 616-verse or in continuity with the films? Because if I recall correctly, one of the elements of the movie version of Whiplash was the relationship between Whiplash and his father, a Russian inventor.
It's a new Whiplash with no connections to the old, so why not? [Bear in mind, I haven't read IMVW 1]

And I don't see that they could claim "in-continuity" with the films - even Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas didn't. I certainly took the solicit to be claiming MU continuity (i.e., introducing the movie version of Whiplash to the MU).
Chris McCarver wrote:Is this Anton Vanko supposedly the same character as the original Dynamo, or is it assumed that this is someone completely new with the same name and a possible familial connection to the Anton Vanko who died back in the Tales of Suspense days?
There's a couple of lines in H:WG that strongly suggest it's the same guy (notably, he says that no-one understands better than him that CD pilots are replaceable).
Chris McCarver wrote:If this is mini is canon, I think it makes more sense to place it somewhere between IM3 50 and IM4 1, since, as you said, he appears to be wearing the armor he wore in the Mike Grell run than the Extremis armor.
It's nowhere near as far back as IM3 50 - that armour changed a LOT as time went on (the Iron Protocols one-shot from a couple of weeks back used a picture of the Grell armour on the cover - for no obvious reason - if you want to compare. The helmet was different, the sides were gold ala the IM 231 armour, and the legs had gold cabling like the Heroes Reborn armour). The version I see on that cover dates from the Jorge Lucas run on IM3, and interchanged with an later revision of the Grell armour until Granov introed the Extremis armour. So if government work is undesired, you're looking at between IM3 89 and IM4 1.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Somebody wrote:
Chris McCarver wrote:Is this Anton Vanko supposedly the same character as the original Dynamo, or is it assumed that this is someone completely new with the same name and a possible familial connection to the Anton Vanko who died back in the Tales of Suspense days?
There's a couple of lines in H:WG that strongly suggest it's the same guy (notably, he says that no-one understands better than him that CD pilots are replaceable).
Okay, then if this is the same Anton Vanko, what of his death all the way back in TOS 52 (not to mention revisited in IM:EM)?
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Chris McCarver wrote:Okay, then if this is the same Anton Vanko, what of his death all the way back in TOS 52 (not to mention revisited in IM:EM)?
I asked the writer over at CBR. Here's what he had to say:
David Gallaher wrote:
Red Guardian's called "Anton" and says that no-one knows better than him that Crimson Dynamo pilots are replaceable. Since I haven't read this RG's previous appearances, is he the original Crimson Dynamo somehow back from the dead, as he appears to suggest?
Good eye.
One could logically make that conclusion.
By the end, we do discover that that RG is at least partially artificial.
But, beyond what is in the book, I can't confirm or deny Red Guardian's full identity at this time.
I'd count that as a tentative "yes, it is, and he's now a cyborg" at least. Since his posts make it very clear he's angling for a follow-up, presumably we'll get the full story if he's ever given the chance, or it'll dangle forever if he isn't.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

Post by Paul Bourcier »

Somebody wrote:
So if government work is undesired, you're looking at between IM3 89 and IM4 1.
But at the end of IM3 89, Stark tells everyone that he's giving up his Iron Man identity, and for a while after that he makes people believe that someone else is occupying the armor. I can't remember exactly when that charade ended, but in IMVW 1, it is publicly known that Stark is Iron Man.

If IMVW is supposed to occur that long ago, then I guess that the new Red Guardian costume was adopted for a while, then abandoned in favor of the classic one. The question then is -- does HULK: WINTER GUARD #1 also occur during this time period in which the new costume was used, or does it represent a recent re-adoption of the new RG costume?
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Paul Bourcier wrote:
Somebody wrote:So if government work is undesired, you're looking at between IM3 89 and IM4 1.
But at the end of IM3 89, Stark tells everyone that he's giving up his Iron Man identity, and for a while after that he makes people believe that someone else is occupying the armor. I can't remember exactly when that charade ended, but in IMVW 1, it is publicly known that Stark is Iron Man.
It ended during Civil War (I think it was shown in an issue of CW:Frontline).

So really, it's the "Iron Secretary" period if we're strict about the armour, or between the Laws fill-in run and JJM's run (i.e., between IM3 72 & 73) if it's that important that he not be working for the government, and we're prepared to be a tad looser on the armour. [Given that the armour went into particular and unremarked flux during the JJM/Lucas run and only really stabilised during Disassembled, it's still not out-of-order to backdate it to the slightly earlier point.]
Paul Bourcier wrote:If IMVW is supposed to occur that long ago, then I guess that the new Red Guardian costume was adopted for a while, then abandoned in favor of the classic one. The question then is -- does HULK: WINTER GUARD #1 also occur during this time period in which the new costume was used, or does it represent a recent re-adoption of the new RG costume?
Oh, it's current - the one-shot has to be the most recent apparance of the WG because the redhaired Darkstar - introduced in HULK 1 and named as Sasha Roerich in H:WG itself - is killed off and replaced by a new blonde Darkstar ("Reena Stancioff") at the end of the issue, and so it can't be pushed back.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

Post by Paul Bourcier »

I think it's time to reconsider the placement of IRON MAN VS. WHIPLASH. Three big clues in issue #2 suggest this series occurs after the upcoming SIEGE.

1) Stark remarks about the time "when Skrulls were remodeling Lower Manhattan" and that he was too preoccupied then to think about drinking. This has to be a reference to SECRET INVASION.

2) We see the imprisoned Ezekiel Stane, who has to be here after his arrest in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #6.

3) Stark states that "every other super hero out there hates my guts." Obviously, this is a reference to the Superhuman Registration Act.

It's obvious from the storyline that Stark is just a businessman -- not head of SHIELD or government official. No mention is made of Osborn, and given the storyline, he would have to have figured prominently if he were still in power.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Well, it's turning into a cluster then, because:

1) We've now seen the post-Siege armour - albeit rendered by JRJr. It looks significantly different from the Grell->Extremis paradigm for armour design.

2) ALL of the pre-existing armours in Stark silos across the world, plus the IM armours Osborn had in Avengers Tower (...including a closeup of the movie armour for some reason...) were destroyed in World's Most Wanted. It's a major plot point of the story. Promos for Siege suggest that Cap/Steve gives him an old ("Classic"-style) armour to use there, and Quesada's said that the cover showing IM in Extremis is a mistake.

3) IIM 1-7 - the Stane Jr. arc you mention - cripples Stark's business, with a skrully cherry on top when all the Starktech that's on breaks from the Skrulls' virus in SI.

4) The last issue of IIM seems to strongly suggest that Stark won't have any memories of anything since he "upgraded" himself with Extremis in IM4 1-6.

5) It also implanted the arc reactor (sorry, "repulsor battery"... you know Fraction, if you have to use the movie stuff, at least use the terminology rather than thinking up sillier names...) in his chest, movie-style, and made it clear it was there to stay. Do we see his bare chest at any point in IMVWL?
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Somebody wrote:
Do we see his bare chest at any point in IMVWL?
No, not in the first two issues.


Somebody wrote:
The last issue of IIM seems to strongly suggest that Stark won't have any memories of anything since he "upgraded" himself with Extremis in IM4 1-6.
I guess he gets better after SIEGE.


BTW, there are a few interesting calendar references in issue #2 to dates from "last year." On "January 17," Stark was "on the moon with the Inhumans." If the Inhumans were living there at the time, that event must occur before SILENT WAR. On "March 26," Stark was "in Latveria fighting Dr. Doom." I don't know if this is supposed to be a reference to a published event. And on "May 23," Stark was "judging the Cannes Film Festival."
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Paul Bourcier wrote:On "March 26," Stark was "in Latveria fighting Dr. Doom." I don't know if this is supposed to be a reference to a published event.
The Dr. Doom arc in Bendis' run on Mighty Avengers, maybe?
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Chris wrote:
The Dr. Doom arc in Bendis' run on Mighty Avengers, maybe?
Ah, yes. Thanks, Chris. MA 9-11 may indeed be the reference here.
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Glanced through #3 when I was at the comic shop there - not only do we see enough of Stark's bare chest to say that he doesn't have the reactor implanted in him, but Pepper's wearing a low-cut dress that tells us that she doesn't either...
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Re: Iron Man vs. Whiplash

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Somebody wrote:
Glanced through #3 when I was at the comic shop there - not only do we see enough of Stark's bare chest to say that he doesn't have the reactor implanted in him, but Pepper's wearing a low-cut dress that tells us that she doesn't either...
Cosmetic surgery or false skin to hide the implants?
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