Anyhow, Fraction has a problem we all do. That's writing someone smarter than us. It can be done. People do it with Reed. But Tony's not only smarter, he's suaver, more with it, more able to live on the bleeding edge of the deal. That's his whole gimmick. He doesn't outplan things, he takes what he has and adapts the heck out of it. He's the 60s ideal. (And that's part of why Robert Downey Jr. was so perfect. And why the mustache has stayed as part of his look.)

Tony wins things by not only fighting them, but by wheeling-dealing them, by whipping something up out of existing materials to counter or exploit their exposed assets. And he doesn't just do that in combat, that's his life. It's wildly out of control, and that's what he does. He rides the whirlwind of excess in so many ways and places.

This storyline... well, Mr. Fraction doesn't get technology. Okay, fine, fine. But he doesn't get the _implications_ of it, either, which is why his Stane character fell flat. Technology isn't just about gizmos, it's about taking those gizmos and seeing what results from them, and how you can work it.

Frankly, if I were to write something for Iron Man, I'd pull a few things off. First, I'd start digging up the opposites of Iron Man. And I mean Firebrand there. Firebrand's a _hero_. Or he sees himself as one. So make a new Firebrand, and make him an internet hero. Not like that crappy one in Spidey, either. Investigative reporter. Honest to god noble person, can't be bought, ideals of youth, and maybe even right. Maybe not right.
Hit him from the business side with a Stane. Stane is boring. Stane is the Old Man Controlling the World. Stane is big and lumbering. And corrupt as hell.
Hit him with a girlfriend who's more off the wall than him, and heading for a fall. Or not. (maybe she's Firebrand in disguise. Give her a brain. Remember Whitney Frost? There's no reason opponents have to be evil anymore.)

Give him drones to _fight_. Taking the _man_ out of the Iron Man. Who? Why? What do they want?

Remember that he is, at heart, Delos D. Harriman. He grabs the world and shakes it. Give him something to play off of.

(Sometimes, it shakes back. That's why the alcoholism _worked_.)

This? Tony shouldn't be on the run. Oh, sure, he can be, but this slow disassembly of self? Bah. All the man is, is himself. He is Ego.
How can you take that away and call it the same character?

(Oh, and I'd bring back the old Destroyer, and that company. Just to see what happens. The daughter lived, as I recall.)

(all claims on the content of this post reversed and granted to whoever reads it.)

(PS: Yes, you post here, you get me. Ut and I hang out a lot.)