Some days, a two headed soviet robot weaponizes the moon and threatens all of existance. Some days, you have to take care of that shit. Because: comics, you guys!

Iron Man: Fatal Frontier is a story that almost didn’t happen. When current Iron Man writer Kieron Gillen first pitched for the series, he wanted to do something that resembled a hard sci-fi Deadwood with Tony on the moon. These plans fell through - “a sacrifice of the great alter of Iron Man’s better future”, as the scribe describes in the back of this week’s issue of Iron Man - but the story lives in an altered form as part of Marvel’s new Infinite Comics digital imprint.

Equal parts an experiment in digital story-telling and a conduit for great new stories that don’t quite fit in with currently ongoing plot points, the Infinite Comics line has been home to some great stories over the past few months. Readers of Avengers vs. X-Men and Infinity noticed that some of their purchases came with digital download codes for the issue, and bonus comics exclusive to the digital market. Beyond those test-balloon tie-ins, Marvel has unleashed a weekly program whereby stories unfold in thirteen issue chunks, featuring tried and true characters and creators matched up with some fantastic up and coming writers. The first offering in this line was the Wolverine: Japan’s Most Wanted story that featured a story by Jason Latour (who totally didn’t make us cry at the end of his Winter Soldier run) and Jason Aaron. This round, we’re getting a great Iron Man story from Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing.

As mentioned before, the story borrows heavily from Gillen’s original series pitch, though much has been altered to fit into this new format and current continuity. The story begins with the moon attacking the earth through the use of mysterious weaponry built from equally mysterious materials. Concerned, Tony decides to investigate, and stumbles across something crazy. Turns out, years and years ago, the Soviets left some intelligence on the moon - and then, the world forgot about it, leaving the moon largely untouched and unexplored for decades. The intelligence grew weary with being forgotten, and decided to be remembered, hence the attacks.

The story escalates quite nicely and hits a crescendo in the third issue when Tony spends all the energy he has to save the earth, and resigns himself to death. Through a brilliant bit of storytelling, you find yourself wondering just how Tony will get out of this one. Surely he won’t die in the third part of this thirteen part digital series, right? Well, yeah, of course. Tony is saved by his attacker and the two come to a bit of a détante, and talk about what the hell this intelligence used to attack him. Turns out the years of strange energy that’s been released on the moon during various Marvel events has refined a new material, which the pair call phlogistone. It’s an amazingly versatile substance that can do… well, pretty much everything and anything. Within months, the moon is colonized by various nations looking to use this material, and Tony is proclaimed governor of the moon. The soviet intelligence that’s left behind decides that they should consider themselves the sheriff and deputy of this new colony (an idea he hatched having spent far too much time watching old westerns on the moon), and so it goes: sci-fi space western.

Al Ewing has swiftly become on of my favourite comic book writers, able to wrangle the craziest ideas into something resembling plot and progression. Assuming Gillen had a hand in choosing his co-plotter for this series, he couldn’t have chosen better. Ewing handles much of the plotting and all of the script work, and through out these first three issues, you’re treated to some fantastic lines. A decry to “wake up, you necessary monster” had to be one of my favourites, really digging into what Tony thinks of himself subconsciously in an incredibly succinct way.

The entire team does a great job. It’s a little hard to determine how the art breakdown works on a lot of these digital projects, as I’m sure everyone is still learning what the format can really do. Carmine Di Giandomenico provides layouts for Lan Medina, who does a strong job on the visuals. The big, prolonged fight scene that is the second issue is incredibly well done, owing to whoever timed the click-throughs and reveals, and the imagery provided by the artists on tap.

This is a series that all Iron Man fans should be reading. The story is brilliant and fun, and the set-up already has me squirming for more. Many are balking at the $2.99 price point, claiming it to be too much for a weekly digital comic and… well, you can be the judge of that. I know that as much as I enjoyed the previous Wolverine offering in this line, I fell quite far behind as the price point didn’t quite jive with my budget - but this story has its hooks into me so deep that I couldn’t help but set up a ComiXology subscription to the file, so that it will magically appear on my account when I fire it up on Tuesday mornings. Go there now and get the first issue, and see what you think. If any of my descriptions thus far have appealed to you, a read of the first issue should be enough to convince you to get the rest.