Invincible Iron Man #8: Review

Jul 2023

Gerry Duggan, Juan Frigeri

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You can't stay at a party too long if you don't go to the party

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Invincible Iron Man #8 Review by Rob Johnson (July 28, 2023)

Tony Stark has to wear his new stealth Iron Man armour from now on. In the 1st 2 issues of the latest Avengers series he was in red & gold but in #3 released this week he's in the stealth armour.

This year's Hellfire Gala issue was also on sale in this same week. Within it we see Cyclops responding to an alarm at the treehouse. Tony isn't in the issue but the other Avengers (Black Panther (T'Challa), Captain America (Sam Wilson), Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Thor and Vision) are seen responding to the DC alarm. And we also see Rogue responding to Captain America (Steve Rogers)' distress call. Then Orchis attack in the form of Nimrod, Dr Stasis, Karima Shapandar and MODOK who inform Prof X that they spiked the medicines provided by the mutant nation to humanity. MODOK presses a button and humans start dying in agony. Then they demonstrate that they've taken control of the Krakoan teleport system as Orchis troops start porting in. And Iron Sentinels join in too. Cyclops mentally contacts Jean Grey from the New York treehouse to say he's dying (see Free Comic Book Day 2023: Avengers/X-Men) as Moira MacTaggert kills her. From there it goes completely downhill, ending with seemingly another mutant massacre. And Orchis kill the human ambassadors who have witnessed it all.
Then as we hear here Orchis spin it that the mutants killed the ambassadors and were responsible for the deadly medicine.

The FCBD issue came out 2 months ago. In it an unknown Orchis agent broke into the NY treehouse, stole the Captain Krakoa suit, savagely beat Cyclops and dropped him from the top of the 'building'. Then claiming to be the Captain he attacked the Senate Building killing many. Meanwhile Cap-SR's motorbike exploded on the Brooklyn Bridge. Steve dived into the river and fought off Orchis scuba-troops. Rogue came to help with the magnetic powers of Polaris. This was all a prelude to a new Uncanny Avengers series featuring The Hunt For Captain Krakoa.

Captain Krakoa was a disguise Cyclops adopted in X-Men (2021) #6-12, I believe to hide the fact that he had been resurrected. Though Forge wore the suit in a few later issues.

Kingpin is allowed to live with the mutants on Krakoa because his wife Typhoid Mary is a mutant. (It seems like this loophole will be used again in an upcoming issue of this title.) We (or at least I) don't know what deal he's done with Emma Frost here.

It will surprise no-one that I predict that Tony's final gambit works and he's still alive next issue. And his armour is now in safe hands.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #8 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Feilong (Kelvin Heng) has taken over Stark Unlimited and used its tech to build Iron Sentinels, the latest version of the mutant-hunting giant robots, for the Orchis organisation. His scheming has also reduced Tony Stark to living in an abandoned cab firm office. Last issue War Machine (and secretly Tony in new stealth armour) destroyed the Stark Sentinel factory (but Orchis secretly has many more). Orchis retaliated by killing the foreman who led the evacuation of its work force, and leaving his body in the ruins so that James Rhodes would be arrested for his murder. And Orchis have several more strings to their anti-mutant bow, and all are being unleashed at the mutant nation's latest Hellfire Gala which is happening alongside this issue.

Now Stark his consulting his attorney Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk) about his problems. She's working on getting Rhodey out of jail but it'll take time. Meanwhile she tells him that Feilong now owns the patents on the Iron Man armour and has issued a cease and desist order to stop Tony using it. He'd have to invent a new armour to use instead (which luckily he has, the aforementioned stealth suit). Or he could move his base of operations to another country, say the mutant nation's Krakoa island - she's going to the Gala later and could try to arrange it.

Outside Tony tries to ignore the 'Stark Sentinels' patrolling the skies of New York, to mass approval. He returns to his cab company base and arranges for it to be sold - he needs the money for Rhodey's legal fees. He prepares to surrender the Model 70 armour, and muses that he'll have to use the stealth armour on Captain Marvel's new Avengers team.

But then he gets an Avengers alert about the mutant hero Captain Krakoa attacking the Senate Building in Washington DC (as seen in the Uncanny Avengers prequel in Free Comic Book Day 2023: Avengers/X-Men). So he dons the armour for 1 last ride. As he sets out he hears that Carol Danvers and the other Avengers are leaving the Gala to respond, and he gets another alert from Captain America (Steve Rogers) on the Brooklyn Bridge (FCBD again) so he diverts to there. But he arrives to find it's all over. Rogue had arrived from the Gala to help Cap against Orchis troops who attacked him (including planting plastic explosive on his motorbike). So now the trio do head to Washington. But they get there too late for that too.

When IM returns to NY later that night he spots an Iron Sentinel breaking through a window high in an office building and reaching in for Emma Frost/White Queen. Stark uses 1 of the weapons he installed after Armour Wars - a projectile that clogs up the hovering giant's boot jets causing it to crash to the ground. Inside the room Tony is astonished to find Emma with the villain Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (in gaudy Gala togs) signing an agreement. Frost is angry with our hero because 'his' Sentinels have just murderously attacked the Hellfire Gala. Stark retorts that he warned her about Feilong and them (the previous Gala and our #5).

But a Sentinel now knocks the Golden Avenger down from where he's hovering outside the broken window and 2 of them face White Queen. Kingpin makes a strategic exit while she speaks to Feilong through his puppets and threatens him with retribution. But he tells her what humanity is being told happened at the Gala. The Krakoans had poisoned the medical drugs they've handed out. The human ambassadors at the party confronted them about it and the mutants killed them. Mutant leaders like herself now have Interpol arrest warrants.

WQ turns into her diamond form to be impervious to Sentinel attack, but 1 of them picks her up and throws her down to the street to join recovered Iron Man. Where they are confronted by 3 Sentinels. Both hero(in)es offer to cover them while the other escapes. Stark thinks they're after the IM armour, Frost thinks they're after *her*. Shellhead settles the argument by flying her to a nearby subway station and then returns to the fight. Emma drops her diamond form to mentally tell him she's going to bring what remains of the X-Men to help him.

But IM gets immediately smashed between fists of 2 Sentinels and falls barely conscience but thinking "Help me". Emma rushes back to the site while entering his mind. She locates 'him' in his mind without his armour in a snow-covered alleyway littered with empty beer bottles. And she takes control of his mind to control his body and the Iron Man suit. Her 1st attempt accidentally fires a missile at a nearby building. Her 2nd go jets him horizontally out from under a large repulsor blast. Meanwhile she desperately tries to get Tony to wake up as the Sentinels notice her body.

1 of them grabs her and affixes an inhibitor collar around her neck to nullify her powers. Tony wakes and sheds his armour to surrender and ask them not to kill Emma but give her a fair trial. The watching Feilong gets the Sentinel to loose her. She's harmless now and he prefers to have her in the Randall's Island gulag where he can 'drill into her head'. Tony asks her why she abandoned her invulnerable diamond form. She explains that she can't use her mental powers in that form. He thanks her for saving him. Emma claims it was pure self-interest because the bad guys would doubtless have killed him and blamed her for his death.

But Tony decides to balance the books by telling his armour to enclose her and fly her to safety. Which is what happens to Feilong's angry dismay. Stark then taunts him to use the Sentinels to kill him. Because killing a defenceless Avenger in the street will surely earn swift deadly vengeance from his comrades.

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