Invincible Iron Man #143: Review

Feb 1981

David Michelinie, John Romita Jr.

Story Name:

Meter On the Sun!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #143 Review by T Vernon (July 14, 2015)

Comments: Part two of three parts. First appearance of Sunturion/Arthur Dearborn. Jonas Hale previously appeared in issue #120-121. Bethany’s husband, Alexander van Tilburg, was mentioned in issue #128 as having died in a car accident.

Review: A spectacular space battle—actually several—makes up the highlight of the issue with some very unusual effects to represent Sunturion’s abilities. A cool story with impressive artwork; this is getting to be a common quality at this period in Iron Man history.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #143 Synopsis by T Vernon

Iron Man investigates the Roxxon space station he has discovered. A meteor shower reminds him that his repulsor rays aren’t working in the prototype suit. The station’s guardian, an armored man calling himself Sunturion, arrives and diverts the meteors. He then invites Shellhead inside where he meets Arthur Dearborn, designer and administrator of the station. Dearborn explains that the Star Well was created to collect and store solar energy and focus it on Earth. A failed experiment resulted in the deaths of the people in Allenburg, Iowa, which Dearborn tries to brush off as unimportant. Iron Man gets a bit feisty at this but they are interrupted by a security alarm….
Back in New York, Bethany visits the German embassy in response to the invitation she received (last issue). There they are to give her news about her husband….
In space the Star Well is under attack by Soviet craft for violating Russian airspace. With a flash of light, Dearborn becomes Sunturion and goes out to protect the delicate solar panels from Soviet missiles. Iron Man joins him and together they wreck the enemy spacecraft and Sunturion materializes at the control center in Russia where he destroys the control panel, preventing them from launching another attack. Iron Man heads back into the station while Arthur Dearborn reports to his superior Jonas Hale of Roxxon that Iron Man has discovered their activities. Hale orders the station destroyed but Iron Man anticipated this and has disconnected the self-destruct mechanism. Dearborn pleads with Iron Man not to shut them down, revealing how he submitted to the experimental process with microwave radiation to transform him into Sunturion—a process that cannot be reversed, meaning Dearborn can never return to Earth. Iron Man insists that Roxxon must pay for the deaths of the people in Iowa. Shellhead then flies out to dismantle the Star Well; Sunturion engages him in battle in space but in the destructive melee, the station’s core comes loose and starts to fall to Earth….