Invincible Iron Man #515:
Summary: With the Iron Man suit shut down thanks to one o the Hammer girls and General Babbage, Tony Stark is unable to assist War Machine against the trio of Melter, Whirlwind and the Living Laser. Pepper Potts decides to put her Rescue suit back on to assist War Machine, but ends up being too late as the villains kill(!!!!!) Rhodey! By this time, Tony has arrived on the scene(after getting a lift from his head of security, Bethany Cabe, but there's nothing for him to do. Meanwhile, Babbage has invited the Hammers and the Mandarin to the Pentagon(!?). Back with Tony, he accompanies Rhodey's body in the ambulance and after getting passed the throngs of witnesses and media, Rhodey reveals he was only playing dead... Whew... Since Tony now knows that the Mandarin, Ezekiel Stane, the Hammers and Babbage are conspiring against him, he realizes he needs to change up his strategy. As such, he now has War Machine in the background ready to strike the unsuspecting villains when the time is right(since they think he's dead), as well as the fact that Tony admitted at an AA meeting that he had a relapse, something else the villains almost definitely didn't expect Tony to do. So while the villains have won the opening salvo in the war, Tony is just getting warmed up.
Thoughts: Okay, first the bad. I am so pissed that Melter appears to have devolved into your common, dime a dozen villain. I always felt he was better than that. So yeah, that annoyed me. Going into this issue, I didn't expect Rhodey to die, because he's all over several other books... I mean he's in AvX, he's in Secret Avengers, etc. But yep, I TOTALLY brought his death when I read this one! That's some good writing from Fraction, because like I said, I was sure Rhodey wasn't going to die, but Fraction got me here... He tricked me but good! Overall? As usual, this was a strong, above average read. Par for the course with this series.
Score: 8 out of 10.
RHODEY!!!!!!
It's nice to see Fraction back on his game. I don't really care for his work on Thor, and Fear Itself only amplified those feelings. He's got a great grasp of Tony, though, and I like where he's taking this story.
ReplyDeleteI do hope we can finally get to the point where Iron Man stops being a whipping boy, which he's been pretty much since Civil War. He's taken his licks, he's paid his dues, and now it's time for him to get back to being one of Marvel's big guns. Maybe the movie will help get him back on track.
I was one of those people who was really happy to see Tony take his lumps after Civil War, because he was def the villain in that piece imo. But I think all the crap Tony's taken since then has made him into an almost sympathetic figure. I mean I went from rabidly hating him, to being meh to him to liking him and feeling bad for him. So for me at least, the way Tony's been written into the mud has worked in making me into a fan. I can see how it would annoy his preexisting fans, but it did turn me from a non-fan into somebody who is now picking up Iron Man back issues and trades.
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