Invincible Iron Man #7: Review

Aug 1998

Kurt Busiek, Sean Chen

Story Name:

Live Kree or Die! 1 of 4: Bad Moon Rising

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #7 Review by T Vernon (October 15, 2019)

Comments: Arc title comes from the Revolutionary War slogan, “Live free or die,” now the New Hampshire state motto; story title comes from a late 1960s song by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The original Lunatic Legion was a band of Kree insurgents who faced the original Captain Marvel in CAPTAIN MARVEL #34-41; this team is the survivors of the first group, first appearing in AVENGERS #366. Victoria Snow previously appeared in IRON MAN Vol. 1 #62, this is her only other appearance. The arresting officers on the final page are drawn to resemble Jimmy Smits and Dennis Farina, stars of the TV series NYPD BLUE. Richard Howell is credited with a plot assist. Eric Cannon and Sean Parsons are credited with inking.

Review: Iron Man presents the first chapter of a miniseries that centers on Warbird/Carol Danvers/the future Captain Marvel and she gets to do some heavy lifting with her characterization: bitter, ashamed, paranoid, angry, feeling a lot of things at once. Tony's sole job is to try to solve everyone's problems—Carol's, Pepper and Happy's, Victoria's—and fail because that's not what he's good at (and really, can you imagine Robert Downey Jr. playing counselor to the unhappy?). Which is why Tony's number one contribution to Carol's situation is to knock the head clean off a giant robot. Stick with your strengths, I always say.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #7 Synopsis by T Vernon

In the ruined Blue Area of the moon, a band of Kree survivors vow vengeance against Earth; their first step was to resurrect the Supreme Intelligence, unaware that it has plans of its own....

Iron Man visits a home in Beverly Massachusetts, looking for Carol Danvers who summarily quit the Avengers (in AVENGERS v.3 #6). When he enters her room, he expresses his and the team's concern for her, revealing his secret identity as Tony Stark. Carol pours out her despair at having had everything then lost it, reviewing her career as security chief, becoming Ms. Marvel and joining the Avengers, losing her powers to Rogue, becoming Binary, losing those powers and becoming Warbird, now leaving the Avengers. Tony asks if she has been drinking to deal with her depression and she flies into a rage and orders him out of the house....

On the way home, he asks Pepper Potts about her marital problems and is told to butt out. They arrive at PowerSource Inc., run by former employee Victoria Snow on the trail of the Arms Merchant's mysterious employer (we know it's the Mandarin but Tony doesn't). Tony asks about the new Firebrand, who was created at this very facility (see issue #5) and Victoria pleads confidentiality—and then Warbird crashes in, smelling of alcohol and angry at Captain America and Iron Man. She stops herself from hurting Tony but then the Lunatic Legion leader Dylon Cir, believing that the Avengers are on their trail, crashes in and tries to capture Warbird. She blows a hole in the floor so Tony can escape and change into Iron Man and then it's the two of them against the Kree and the heroes are winning—until a third figure enters the fray: Sentry #571. The rest of the Kree depart leaving Sentry to deal with Iron Man and Warbird. The monster encloses the building in a Kree Vibro-field, trapping everyone inside so the two heroes take him on....

Hiding in the basement with the PowerSource staff, Pepper asks Victoria how she came to be involved with the Kree; Vic tells how her company was facing bankruptcy when the Kree offered to fund the company's new power plant and she was so grateful that she didn't ask questions, even when they spoke of dooming the entire Earth. Pepper tells Tony via comm-link that the Kree have the prototype weapon....

Warbird, blaming herself for the situation, musters her powers and crashes through the Vibro-field in pursuit of the Kree ship. Iron Man musters all his frustration and knocks the Sentry's head off and takes off after his partner—but then he sees that the building is about to collapse and so Shellhead stays behind to hold up the generator to catch the pieces of the falling roof....

Victoria Snow is arrested for treason but authorizes Tony to look at her client records and he ponders the tragedies that have befallen Victoria and Carol....

Story continues in CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol. 3 #8.