Iron Man: The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet is a new young adult novel featuring Tony Stark and Iron Man. Tony is off to speak to environmental leaders from all over the world. He orders his AI companion, Friday to take him and his Iron Man suit to his yacht where his decoy, known as Prototony, is making the world think that he is partying with a young supermodel. When Friday starts malfunctioning, Tony reluctantly realizes that his Iron Man suit has been hacked. Friday turns out to be a young Irish girl named Saoirse Tory, a young intern in his company that infiltrated his AI in order to take control of the Iron Man suit. Saoirse is desperate to free her sister from an orphanage where she is being held captive. It isn't long before Tony is taken prisoner by Saoirse and her financial backer, Mr. Chen. When Mr. Chen turns out to be the notorious, Mandarin, Saoirse becomes as much of a victim as Tony is. Eoin Colfer, writer of the Artemis Fowl series, places Tony Stark in a time frame prior to his association with the Avengers, when he is still questioning his purpose as Iron Man. There is lots of action in the book, but the best scenes are those in which he interacts with Saoirse, whose intellect may actually surpass his own. I would have liked more scenes between these two characters, but the overall story is still a satisfying one.

Unfortunately it reminded me too much of Iron Man 3. The jokes were not really there. It didn't felt like I would read a story about Tony Stark. Maybe the next volume will be better.