Invincible Iron Man #212: Review

Nov 1986

Danny Fingeroth, Dwayne Turner

Story Name:

Precious Legacy

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #212 Review by T Vernon (December 19, 2016)

Comments: Part one of two parts. Dominic Fortune was created by Howard Chaykin as the Scorpion, a 1930s Shadow-type adventurer for the short-lived Atlas Comics in the 1970s; he was revamped for Marvel, making his debut in MARVEL PREVIEW #2 and appearing in several other of Marvel's black & white magazines. His color (and modern-day) debut was in MARVEL TEAM-UP #120 with Spider-Man, and he made several subsequent appearances with Spidey. This month Marvel had formal portraits for the covers of all of its titles, including this one.

Review: I like Dominic Fortune. He came along at a time when I was getting into pulp heroes, like the Shadow and Doc Savage (plug: check out the Doc Savage Library which I also manage) and here was someone writing the same kind of thing today. Since he never had a regular gig at Marvel I quickly lost sight of him and forgot about him. But someone at Marvel remembered so he became an intermittent guest star over the decades, popping up here and there. This two-part story sees him yet again having to provide a great deal of exposition to inform the readers who he is which gets a bit awkward and dialogue-heavy. The action scenes late in the tale are pretty well done though we don't get to see Dominic Fortune at his best. Fortunately there's another issue coming, which takes the story in an unexpected direction.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #212 Synopsis by T Vernon

Tony Stark and Rhodey are working in their lab when they hear a commotion and find Clytemnestra Erwin smashing lab equipment. She finds herself blaming science for her brother Morley's death and feels she needs to take time off from the company....

Elsewhere, David Fortunov, respected salesman, recalls his days as the brigand-for-hire Dominic Fortune (recently brought to mind by a couple of adventures with Spider-Man) and wants to find his former lover Sabbath Raven; the trail leads to Simon Steele, mystery villain. David's son Jerry can't believe all of this and threatens to have his father committed to an asylum. They are interrupted by a call from a detective hired by David to find Sabbath, asking David to come to Los Angeles (but the reader knows it's a trap). Jerry sees his father off but doesn't want to give up yet....

At the New York headquarters of Steele Industries, a new version of the Iron Monger hardware is being tested successfully by Simon Steele and his youthful associate Sabbath Raven, who plan to use it against Dominic Fortune....

A few days later, Jerry and Clytemnestra cross paths, each sharing their family woes. As they walk down a street, they see David escaping a band of gunmen by hanging on to the bottom of a helicopter. Fortune drops off atop a building where he is attacked by the Iron Monger, falling through the skylight into a large room hosting an electronics trade show. It turns out Tony and Rhodey are at the function and Cly and Jerry arrive at the same time. Fortune duels with the armored monster until Iron Man arrives to take on his new and improved foe. Fortune sacrifices himself to distract the Monger so Shellhead can defeat him. Jerry asks his dad for forgiveness which David grants realizing he did it all out of love. A doctor arrives and pronounces David dead....

Epilogue: Cly checks up on Jerry to find him wearing the Dominic Fortune guise and vowing to avenge his father's death....