After a bit of a lag since Stark Disassembled, the Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca Iron Man book has started to pick up the pace. The latest issue had more plot, as Tony Stark and Sasha Hammer ( Ezekiel Stane's cybernetic girlfriend and part of the mother-daughter team behind the current Hammer Industries ) finally meet, and inevitably come to blows. Before that, they have a surprisingly civil conversation about Tony's new armor, a liquid metal thing powered by his repulsor heart, stored in the hollows of his skeleton, and shaped by his brain. Tony reveals that he got the idea from Iron Lad of the Young Avengers, who came from the future with a similar design. Which led Tony to invent the neuro-kinetic armor technology, which would later be adopted by Iron Lad, who came back in time and inspired Tony to create the neuro-kinetic armor technology, which would later be adopted by Iron Lad...
I appreciate the nod to the Young Avengers ( and Fraction has mentioned in his interviews that the new armor was inspired by both the Iron Lad suit and the movie suit ), but time-travel stories are ridiculous enough as is, and this story had absolutely no need of a continuum-thrashing paradox. Some futurist you are, Tony...
In fairness, Tony's inevitably on the front lines whenever there's a world-shattering rift in the ol' space-time continuum, so he probably figures he's due for a couple good whacks at it.
ReplyDeleteHell, if Kang himself hasn't completely destroyed it by now...
This can all be easily solved by the fact that Marvel uses the "alternate timelines branching off" theory of time travel, not the "the past becomes changed" theory of time travel. So the mainstream Marvel universe is a different timeline than the one where Iron Lad was inspired by Iron Man to build his suit, hence there's no paradox.
ReplyDelete