Invincible Iron Man #200: Review

Nov 1985

Dennis O'Neil, M. D. Bright

Story Name:

Resolutions!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #200 Review by T Vernon (August 29, 2016)

Comments: Part three of three parts. First appearance of the Silver Centurion armor, along with Tony's return to being Iron Man full time. The Chessmen appeared in issues #163-166. Final appearance of Obadiah Stane.

Review:The Obadiah Stane running plot is wrapped up in a most satisfying manner as we return to the status quo of the ongoing series. The final battle is guided by characterization as much as by technology and we see in the end how different these two industrialists are. Mark Bright gives us several beautiful, wordless bits, notably the suiting up sequences for the two antagonists and the final page. The scene with Iron Man ascending then descending across the country is another impressive moment. Very, very good.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #200 Synopsis by T Vernon

At the hospital in the wake of the bombing at Circuits Maximus, Tony Stark meets with an injured Jim Rhodes and Clytemnestra Erwin; she blames Tony for the death of her brother in the blast. Tony sees that she is right: having tried to escape his identity as Iron Man for fear that it would tie him to his alcoholism, he let his responsibilities lapse. Now he determines to stop Obadiah Stane....
[In New York, Stane tells his lover Bethany Cabe that his plan in the bombing was to drive Tony back to the bottle....]
Tony arrives at West Coast Avengers HQ where he dons the newly designed armor he has been working on—a silver and red version. He launches himself into the air, heads into the stratosphere—and descends, his cross-country flight taking twenty minutes. Using his stealth capabilities to fly past Stane's radar, he reaches the office and demands to see Stane. When Stane sees him on the monitor, he dispatches a Circuits-Breaker war device to stop the hero. After Iron Man destroys that, Stane sends out a trio of Chessmen who, likewise, do not last too long in battle with the avenging Iron Man. Stane dons his greatest creation, an improved version of the Iron Man armors called—the Iron Monger....
The two antagonists battle in the sky over Stane Industries; the damage to the labs triggers an evacuation before an explosion rocks the area. Iron Man pursues Iron Monger into the building where Stane has built a secret sub-basement. There Tony sees all of his captured friends, including Madame Masque, in suspended animation; Stane reveals that if Tony moves an inch, the motion sensors in the room will electrocute them all. Tony recognizes that his chest plate is facing the power line to the hostages' apparatus and he gives a mighty blast, burning out the circuits and saving the prisoners. He pursues Stane outside where the villain is threatening to crush the Anders baby unless Tony removes his helmet. Instead Shellhead blows up the computer controlling the Iron Monger so it freezes up and Iron Man catches the baby. Helpless, Stane does what he can to prevent Tony from enjoying his humiliation: the villain uses the repulsor ray to blow his own head off.