Iron Man! He's not just the kinda guy who saves the world from supervillains and Jeff Bridges with a shaved head anymore! No, now he's the kind of guy who's off crusading against... Linux? Wait, that can't be right. The latest interview promoting movie tie-in comic The Invincible Iron Man seems to suggest a more software-based approach to the character than ever before, however.


According to series writer Matt Fraction, the battle between Tony Stark and new bad guy Ezekiel Stane is really just an allegory for the battle Bill Gates wages against smaller software providers every single day of his life:

Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist... He has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn't want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. He's the open source to Stark's closed source oppressiveness.


Yes, that's right; Invincible Iron Man will be the comic book to show that big business is sexy and exciting, just like superheroics:

I want to make this book bigger than Los Angeles and New York and show that business is truly international... We've got Stane, who is post-national and Stark, who has facilities all around the world; so this is going to be a globetrotting book. Flip a page and you're in Monaco. Flip a page and you're in Paris. Flip another page and you're in Tokyo.

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I can't wait for the Steve Jobs guest-shot in #3.

A Stark Contrast [Comic Book Resources]