Invincible Iron Man #28

The price for this extra-long finale issue is $3.99.

Roberto de la Torre reurns to finish the story after taking #27 off.

Buck Richlen was 1 of the renegade SHIELD agents who tried to kill Tony Stark so SHIELD could get control, of his company in #117-119 of the original series. He'll turn up again in Moon Knight (2006) #17-18 selling stolen SHIELD tech.

The escape pod to a mini-sub in the East River sounds familiar, and Dugan remembers it fondly, but I can't find a reference to it in early SHIELD tales. (There are several underground bullet trains, and a Hydra escape tunnel to an abandoned ship.)

Abigail Brand is head of SWORD, the SHIELD branch that deals with extraterrestrial threats. At this point they've only appeared in most issues of Astonishing X-Men. And I can't find any reference there to them appropriating the mini-sub.

The Iron Man armour used here is the Silver Centurion version which debuted in #200 when recovered alcoholic Tony Stark took back the superhero role from Jim Rhodes and defeated Obadiah Stane. The Official Index calls it the Model 8 armour, but the Iron Man Armory calls it the Model 12.

When Mandarin reappears in the next series his Rings will be back on his flesh fingers with no explanation of the transformation or his survival here. He'll be given an updated (and suspect) origin in Annual #1, emerge as Sasha Hammer's father in #33 and we'll get a glimpse of his future plans in the renumbered #500. Those plans will unroll starting in #510.

Immediately after this issue the Official Index has some other Iron Man comics:- a story in Indomitable IM and the framing tale of the IM: Legacy of Doom limited series. But then there are lots of other apps between here and #29.
He's there with everyone else in Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1 trying to stop a giant space-bullet from hitting Earth. He's involved in the Captain Marvel mini-series featuring the CM who doesn't know he's really a Skrull replacement. In the middle of that IM pops in to Ms Marvel #24-25 to kick off the pre-Secret Invasion story arc where MsM vies with her own Skrull duplicate. Then he liases with Black Panther in BP#35-36 over an attempted coup by Black Panther. Strangely he suggests the supposedly-dead Mandarin as 1 of Killmonger's possible backers. But then Mandarin was behind aprevious Killmonger attempt back in IM Annual #5 - and villains are always turning up not really dead, like Killmonger himself. Then there's a cameo with some Mighty Avengers at the start of Marvel Apes #1. And he's in most issues of Last Defenders, who start out as the New Jersey Initiative team but then become a different group outside the Initiative.
Shellhead joins loads of other heroes to fight a giant robot in Fantastic Four #556-557. And then in #562, the end of the latest Dr Doom story, there's another mass gathering for the funeral of a future Invisible Woman. After that the OI puts the Avengers/Invaders series which Peter Silvestro has already dealt with. Then back to the FF for a cameo in #563. After all that comes Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1 where Stark sends her to be the 1-woman Initiative team in Alaska.