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Invincible Iron Man #3

Apr 2023

on-sale: Feb 15, 2023

Gerry Duggan, Juan Ferreyra

Story Name:

The autobiography of Tony Stark, chapter 3

Synopsis

Invincible Iron Man #3 synopsis by Rob Johnson

Rating:

In previous series Tony Stark ceded control of Stark Unlimited and then spent most of his fortune buying up dangerous super-weapons to keep them safe. Then in this series he's suffered concerted attacks which have destroyed his home, making him liable for lots of collateral damage, and made it seem like he's fallen off the wagon. As a side-effect the share price of his old company has fallen making it vulnerable to takeover. Stark thought he had a safeguard built in with an old friend Zhong Wei on the board with lots of voting stock, but at the end of last issue he was found dead.

Now Tony sees the body of his friend being taken away, and the preliminary diagnosis is that he committed suicide by firing a repulsor blast through his chest. (But why don't they suspect that Iron Man shot him, as the solicitation for this issue suggested?)

Stark thinks back many years to when he met Zhong who he admired for resisting takeover of his own company by AIM. Tony tried frequently to persuade Wei to join the board of the then Stark International and eventually he arranged to meet for breakfast with the Zhong family.

This was at the time when Tony was a recovering alcoholic and fighting the 1st Armour Wars to reclaim his tech from multiple villains (ie #225-232 of the original series in real-world 1987-88). This issue shows Iron Man and James Rhodes in a 1-man helicopter taking down a bunch of those villains called the Raiders who damage Zhong's company base. (It's a very different scenario for the 'same' encounter in #226.) And the next morning he did seal the deal with Wei at breakfast.

Now Rhodey meets him as War Machine and they fly to Stark Unlimited's New York HQ where they break in to the seemingly-deserted place. IM's AI BOSS interrogates the site's computer system to identify the largest project initiated in the last month and they find a containment tube (not translucent like such things usually are). Last issue he'd learned that Arthur Parks (Living Laser) had been abducted by men working for 'Tony Stark' and taken to SU where he was imprisoned and experimented on. They detect no lifesigns within the metal tube, and Tony expects it to be a Life-Model Decoy of himself.

But when they break it open it contains an Iron Man armour which immediately attacks them. Between them they defeat it by freezing it with a liquid nitrogen spray. However when they open the faceplate they do find Tony's face looking back at them which starts to talk to them. The voice tells them that Zhong's shares were transferred to a charity before he died and the charity sold them on. The voice says it now owns Stark Unlimited and all its assets, and then the suit self-destructs.

Tony then tells Jim that he's worked out who's behind all this. And that Rhodey should keep out of it from now on because he's going to cause an international incident.

Review / Commentaries

Invincible Iron Man #3 Review by Rob Johnson (February 18, 2023)

The preview page and next issue's cover suggest that I was right in #1 and the villain is the only suspect we've been given - Kevin Heng, head of Feilong Industries.

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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Gerry Duggan

Juan Ferreyra

Bryan Valenza

Kael Ngu (Cover Penciler)
Kael Ngu (Cover Inker)
Kael Ngu (Cover Colorist)

Additional Credits

Letterer: Joe Caramagna.
Editor: Darren Shan. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

All stories. Listed in alphabetical order.

Iron Man
(Anthony Stark)

War Machine
(James Rhodes)

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