Invincible Iron Man #196: Review

Jul 1985

Dennis O'Neil, Rich Buckler

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #196 Review by T Vernon (August 1, 2016)

Comments: Part four of four parts. Starting here a different penciler draws each issue until #200. Dr. Demonicus returns in occasional issues of NEW AVENGERS and SECRET INVASION.

Review: Hm, Tony Stark versus two Iron Men? Let's see what it looks like. Attractive (if a bit darker) art by Rick Buckler has some nice sequences; my favorite is Omnos' destruction of the balloon. And Omnos was a brilliant idea, it's just that he/she/it only served to return the armor to Tony; once that was accomplished, Omnos didn't have a point so it just vanished. Which left the main villain of the piece to be Dr. Demonicus, generic megalomaniac who was impossible to take seriously being a total cliché. What's amazing is that the story was as good as it was with Tony playing the hero as he jumps between a mystical concept and a cartoon baddie. That's one of the reasons why Denny O'Neill is the greatest.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #196 Synopsis by T Vernon

In the dimension that James Rhodes and Shaman visited last issue, a force being known only as the Omnos discovers the abandoned Iron Man armor and reassembles it; deducing that it was meant to be inhabited, the Omnos enters it and goes off in search of its owner. Meanwhile, Shaman tells Rhodey he can never return to that other dimension to recover the armor—but he senses the Omnos and advises Rhodey to find Tony Stark quickly....
Elsewhere the giant sea monster returns to Dr. Demonicus bearing the gray armor that Tony Stark discarded in the ocean (issue #194) and the villain decides to postpone his plan to take over the world and instead use the armor to take his revenge against Iron Man....
The armor possessed by the Omnos heads straight for Los Angeles, piercing a hot air balloon flown by a honeymooning couple; only being snagged by a tree branch saves their lives; they hurry to the nearest town to tell the world how Iron Man nearly killed them....
At the Headquarters of the West Coast Avengers, Tony has shaved off his beard and brushes of Rhodey's apologies for losing the armor. Obadiah Stane appears on television disavowing responsibility for Iron Man. Tony decides to investigate; donning a new pair of Iron Man gauntlets with a costume cobbled together from what is in the Avengers' storage, he takes off in a Quinjet—but Dr. Demonicus, wearing the gray armor, spies him from his own craft and pursues Tony and Rhodey to the Circuits Maximus site. When Iron Omnos arrives, Iron Demonicus attacks and the fight is on. The commotion draws Tony, Rhodey, and the Erwins out of the building; Tony, in his generic superhero costume, takes the Quinjet into the air and he blasts the two Iron Men with repulsors so that they magnetize and stick together. The Quinjet hits an air pocket, hurling Tony out; thinking quickly, Tony uses the repulsors to slow his fall so that he lands unharmed. The gray Iron Man is unmasked as Dr. Demonicus; when the helmet is removed from the golden armor, Omnos vanishes into the wind....