IRON MAN MARK VII

Punctuated by driving beats of melodramatic background music and blasts of weapons fire, Tony Stark works on successive iterations of his Iron Man armor while facing villains from his earlier solo films in this digital minicomic. 

Designed as a bridge between the Iron Man movies and the upcoming Avengers flick—and ending abruptly with a teaser for the latter—the app comprises 16 comics-style tableaux. Each one consists of multiple frames that either shift perspective slightly or allow for the inclusion of insets that extend the story. They set Stark in his lab or out battling terrorists, robotic “Hammer drones” and other previously met foes. Along with optional audio narration of Stark's pithy quips ("No, Dummy! Only if I'm actually on fire, okay?"), each scene not only features a selection of high-tech zaps, zings and like touch-activated sound effects, but the voice-over will obligingly, if pointlessly, repeat any tapped word in the dialogue balloons. It's all smooth and slick, but it's limited by the source material, which is rather less thrilling as a movie tie-in than as a movie.

Straight marketing fluff that offers a gallery of highlights in place of a storyline and is just worth its price (free).