Synopsis
Invincible Iron Man #598 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
This issue's page 1 summary is courtesy of Captain America who is coordinating the Avengers' search for Tony Stark. He mentions Ironheart as spearheading the search. But he mainly warns them to look out for Dr Doom pretending to be Iron Man. He doesn't know what the connection between Stark and Doom is, but if anyone runs into Doom on no account take him on alone - that's what the Avengers are for.
We begin with a flashback set between #596 and #597. At the end of #596 Blade came to see Riri Williams. In #597 it said he advised her to go to MIT for some reason other than the search for Tony. Now we see the actual conversation.
He claims to represent people who are building a replacement for the disbanded SHIELD. They want her *and* Tony Stark to work for them. He advises Riri to take the offer from MIT. There are others there involved in the SHIELD business and they can also help find Stark. When she's found Tony, Blade's organisation will contact them both. He suggests she do it fast to prove herself worthy because some of the org aren't convinced of her value.
But now it's back to the ongoing Iron Doom part of the storyline. Hood and his gang, and especially his magic guns, have Victor Von Doom on the ropes. But of course he's still threatening to kill them all. They are in the ruins of his Latverian castle, and Parker Robbins wants to know where are the riches Doom must have had when he ruled the country.
Hood details Wrecker to pry open Doom's Iron Man armour with his Asgardian-magic crowbar. Iron Doom tries to get up but Rampage and Shockwave hold him down. As Wrecker struggles to breach the armour Hood wonders if Doom is *working* for Stark now.
Last issue Riri went to MIT and met Arno Stark, Madison Jeffries and Toni Ho who were already working on the search. They had suspended activity on something else which they were reluctant to talk about but which was related to the Blade thing.
Now Ms Williams has called up a database of all Iron Man's armours intending to track down any which are active. But she'll need help for that from Stark's AI assistant Friday. The AI's hologram pops up. As does Riri's Ironheart armour which Stark Industries confiscated in #596. (She doesn't have time to explain how MIT gave her legal cause to get it back last issue, and it's just flown itself here.)
While Friday goes into a computing trance Riri lets the armour encase her. But she's surprised when the 3 scientists do similar. Friday's attention returns and she announces she's located an armour in Paramus, New Jersey. The 4 armoured heroes fly off. (Toni is presumably in a modified version of her Iron Patriot suit. Arno has an armour which originally gave him mobility, but he seems to have a neater solution for that problem now. Madison Jeffries has always had the ability to mentally remote-control robots, later amended to being able to 'wear' 1.) Arno suggests they call themselves the Armour Squad, but gets no takers.
On the way Riri has a conversation with Toni about Blade. Toni tells her he is a half-vampire who hunts other vampires. Riri is shocked to learn that vampires even exist. But Toni won't explain what Blade was talking about because the line isn't secure enough.
Back to Doom again. The villains finally crack the armour open but find there's nobody inside. They're left to wonder if he escaped or if he was never there in the 1st place. Robbins figures that the best way to get at Doom is to find his 'boss' Tony Stark.
Ironheart and friends have arrived at their New jersey destination. Friday's hologram is of course already there. She says the building is shielded by an innocuous disguise like the 1 she and Amanda Armstrong and Mary Jane Watson almost caught Tony in in #596. When they enter Friday is disrupted by interference. And the 4 humans are attacked by armoured foes.
The enemies look like Beetle, Big Wheel, Jack O'Lantern and a Scarlet Spider, but Ironheart quickly establishes that they are empty remote-controlled armours. So the heroes have no qualms breaking them. (Arno Stark doesn't fare as well as the other more experienced fighters.)
Friday has recovered and they all enter the warehouse where they find lots of other super-costumes but not as far as I can tell an Iron Man armour. And a female who immediately surrenders and tries to plea bargain. Toni Ho identifies her as Ceres Goldstein who supplies tech to villains. She doesn't know anything about Tony Stark.
Friday realises that her program has been subverted by Tony Stark. So Tony now takes over completely to tell them to stop looking for him. He doesn't want to be found. He cryptically repeats "You can't be where I am". And then he hands control back to Friday.
But if they're going to stop looking for Tony then Riri demands that Toni Ho tell her what's really going on with Blade.
Just time for a last page with Victor Von Doom. Amara Perera returns home in Boston to find injured Victor lying on her floor. (So he obviously *was* inside his armour until he managed to teleport out.) He apologises but he didn't have anywhere else safe to go. Besides, she's carrying his child (which he discovered in #595) so she has a reason to help him.
And just time for another last page in the Where Is Wolverine series. Artist for this page is Ryan Stegman with colours by Frank D'Armata.
Logan enters a room in MIT and takes some data readouts from a desk (probably supposed to be the 1 Toni Ho and co were working at). He leaves saying "See you soon, Tony".