Invincible Iron Man #298: Review

Nov 1993

Len Kaminski, Tom Morgan

Story Name:

The unquiet earth

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #298 Review by T Vernon (November 6, 2018)

Comments: a) Prelude to second story in this issue. First appearance of Earth-Mover (Maximilian Stone). b) Part one of three parts. First appearance of H.O.M.E.R., the Heuristically Operative Matrix Emulation Rostrum. Ultimo has been trapped underground since IRON MAN #96 in 1977.

Review: If you can get over Tony Stark, Veronica Benning, and Marcy Pearson all having blue hair, then this issue is pretty cool. The birth of Earth-Mover is pretty exciting and he has a very distinct look, almost like a stone Venom; yeah, his trick of enlarging by absorbing the surrounding materials is a copy of the Technovore in issue #295 but it's still cool. Those fight scenes are spectacular, especially with that eerie underground setting. And we have the return of a long-forgotten villain in a much more dangerous mode: Ultimo! The only dumb part of the issue was the Erica/Abe romance; I don't know who at Marvel was 'shipping them but it should have stayed in the fan fiction.

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #298 Synopsis by T Vernon

Prelude:- “Heart of Stone”

Writer: Len Kaminski. Pencils: Tom Tenney. Inks: Avon. Colors: Ariane Lenshoek.

Dr. Maximilian Stone, director of a geothermal research facility in the California desert, orders the place evacuated when an earthquake causes something to go wrong with the drilling. Stone tries to shut it all down manually but is buried alive. Underground he finds an intelligent being of living magma and the two merge to form one new sort of being—Earth-Mover....

Main story:- “The Unquiet Earth”

Writer: Len Kaminski. Pencils: Tom Morgan. Inks: Don Cameron. Colors: Ariane Lenshoek

Tony Stark is pushing himself in his rehab with therapist Veronica Benning and trainer Happy Hogan; Veronica excuses herself, feeling too much of an attraction to her patient. She goes to the office of Dr Erica Sondheim, only to find her in a romantic clinch with Abe Zimmer....

Tony heads to the armory where he is greeted by H.O.M.E.R., his AI assistant. He has in mind an entirely new approach to an old system....

The unemployed Marcy Pearson receives a call from a mysterious person wanting to know if she would be willing to engage in activities that would inconvenience Tony Stark. She would....

Tony receives word of the disaster at the geothermic facility and that Dr Stone is dead. Tony dispatches his remote-controlled Iron Man armor to the site and he starts digging at the likely location of the drilling platform—and he encounters Earth-Mover. The creature tries to warn Shellhead of the danger the facility still poses to the surrounding area but he is unable to make himself understood; Tony assumes the monster is a menace and attacks. The two fight back and forth and Earth-Mover grows by absorbing the rock and he pins Iron Man down. Meanwhile, far below the surface a being is now fully charged for the first time in over five millennia and he crashes his way toward the surface, confronting the two combatants—Ultimo lives again...!

Story #2