Wanderings of Iron Man at Couture's

(never before seen in Advanced Iron)

REBEL #1

"WILD BLUE" -
January 2000

Story: Joe Kelly
Pencils: Matt Haley (with Bagley, Koblish and Bernardo)
Inks: Steve Lieber

For those of you who are not familiar with the "Heroes Reborn" event, simply know that this story does not take place in the mainstream Marvel universe. It occurs in the "Heroes Reborn" universe, where many heroes had been banished by Franklin Richards in order to save them from complete destruction at the hands of Onslaught.

When this comic begins, the heroes have already left this parallel universe and have returned to their original lives, leaving this world in very bad shape.

The place is Calivada, an alternate California devastated by a gamma nuclear holocaust. An extremely powerful madman calling himself "God" is in the process of capturing and brainwashing people in order to turn them into his devout slaves.

God (also called "Master Man" as if this fact was meant to help us understand who he is) is opposed by only a handful of heroes. One of them, calling himself Rebel, is a southern man wearing a cowboy hat and packing a mighty powerful shotgun. He is also wearing what appears to be a heavily damaged version of the armor worn by Iron Man during his stay in this reality. It appears that he found it by accident and simply decided to wear it for protection. Accompanying him are three other characters: a paramilitary Pepper Potts (forget the friendly secretary, this one is armed to the teeth), a strange half-man and half-salamander creature called Guinness and a woman called Michka who can paralyze anyone who hears her song (except Rebel for unexplained reasons).

All these characters appear to be mercenaries paid by Pepper to attack and destroy Master Man's operatives in Calivada.

I think the concept of this guy finding an old beat-up Iron Man suit he knows virtually nothing about, using it as best he can in a devastated apocalyptic world, has a lot of potential. I found the idea very original and appealing. I think they could have done something very entertaining with that.

The art is okay, especially the last few pages that were drawn by Bagley, an artist whose art I have always enjoyed for years.

Well, this may be original (it is intriguing, I'll admit), but I did not find it entertaining.

I actually felt like I was arriving in the middle of a long ongoing series instead of a simple one-shot. A lot of things have occurred before this story begins and although these mysterious events are alluded to, very little of it is actually explained. If you don't explain it in the one-shot, you never will so what's the point? I suppose it was an attempt at making Rebel's past very mysterious, but I simply felt frustrated. Many things, such as the character's behaviours or actions, simply made no sense and were just confusing. And then at the end, you are left on your appetite because the story is opening the door to a sequel that never comes.

The other characters in the series were not great either. A walking, talking red salamander wearing dark glasses and armed with a flame-thrower? A woman whose sole ability appears to be the power to put people to sleep with her singing? Gimme a break. How lame is that? And don't get me started on that silly Pepper Potts carrying a gun bigger than herself, it doesn't come much more out of character than that. Pepper has as much chance of becoming Rambo as I do of dressing like Madonna… it just ain't gonna happen, pal, no matter what.

But if you do buy this and you do like it, know that Rebel was next seen penetrating the mainstream Marvel universe (thanks to Doctor Doom) in the pages of Thunderbolts #51-52.

Pepper shouts: "I've had enough of this desperado fist full of testosterone ride off into the sunset garbage!"

(so have we Pep, so have we!)

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