Invincible Iron Man #32: Review

Oct 2008

Stuart Moore, Carlo Pagulayan

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Story Name:

With iron hands, conclusion

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #32 Review by Rob Johnson (March 1, 2016)

Once again the art is split between 2 teams. If I was right about previous issues then I would say that Pagulayan/Huet do the 1st half and Kurth/Hennessy do the assault on Rahimov mansion.

There are 2 Alpha Team members active in the last part of the story. Maybe Gomez recovered enough from #29 to help Farrell.

We don't get to see Nick Weir again, and this is the end of Gaffer's brief (since She-Hulk #17 in 2007) resurgence into the spotlight. I also think it's the last we see of Alpha Team - they probably get disbanded by Norman Osborn in Dark Reign.

This is also effectively the end of this Iron Man series. The remaining 3 issues will star War Machine in Secret Invasion.

The 1st story arc in the Invincible IM series (which has been running concurrently with this) are set before SecInv. But the Official Index puts lots of stuff before then, bracketed by some stories in IM 1-shots. The 1st story in Iron Protocols has the Golden Avenger stopping an Antarctic seed bank exceed its programming and try to take its staff and cargo into space to escape what it sees as a doomed Earth. The 2nd story has an old AI assistant of Tony's, Friday, jealous of Pepper Potts who's returned to the job from running The Order. And the 1st story in Indomitable IM features another AI gone wrong as a terraforming probe tries to unterraform the Earth.
The OI puts IM's other appearances between the 2 IP stories.
Shellhead gets involved in the 1st app of Red Hulk in Hulk (2008) #1-2. Then Tony Stark asks Bruce Banner if he knows who this new Hulk is in Hulk Smash Avengers #5, before returning to help minimise the damage of Rulk's fight with Thor and Green Hulk in Hu#4-6.
Our hero next makes a set of interrupted apps in Moon Knight (2006). In #14-19 Tony Stark isn't too happy having MK as a registered hero. The he is involved in the 1st and last issues of True Believers, a rogue team led by a SHIELD agent. In MK#21-22 Stark sics the Thunderbolts on him. Iron Man and the Mighty Avengers help end the Marvel Apes mini-series, and in Astonishing Tales (2009) #1 Shellhead faces someone called Visage. Then in MK#24-25 Bullseye is sent after MK.
Finally before the 2nd story in IP Iron Man gets worried about the activities of the Eternals and the Dreaming Celestial in #2&4 of their 2008 series.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #32 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Iron Man is blasting his way through the Overkill Mind that has taken a form like a giant brain. The tunnel he creates closes up behind him, but he reaches the control centre where he finds its creator Nicolas Weir trapped in an intimate connection with the Mind's AI. meanwhile SHIELD need Tony Stark to find a way of stopping all the explosives in the helicarrier going off in 2 minutes time.

Weir is babbling and seems lost in communion with the machine, so Stark decides to track down the signal that is affecting the helicarrier's weapons. He manages to jam the signal, stopping the countdown. But that only delays the problem.

Nick Weir gains awareness of his surroundings again and recognises his 'enemy' Tony Stark. Stark tries to make him realise that the Overkill Mind has killed SHIELD Agents. But Agent Weir won't believe him - he believes he's the righteous 1 here.

The OM decides to talk directly to Stark. It says they have a standoff. Its nanomist can't penetrate Iron Man's armour, but Tony can't control its computer system while the human element Weir is linked in. The OM claims IM's only option is to kill Weir, an option it knows Stark won't take.

So the Golden Avenger tries a 3rd way. He keeps slapping Weir's face with his armoured hand. The pain weakens the link between Nick Weir and Overkill Mind, allowing Tony to control some of the nanobots that infuse the human's brain. Enough so that Nick comes to his senses and orders the OM to stand down. And his creation has to obey.

As Shellhead frees Weir's body from the machine, Nick is distraught. He designed the Overkill Mind to monitor and destroy all weapons to bring peace to the world. He never meant it to kill people in the process.

But the other threat in this arc, Nasim Rahimov, is still at large. Maria Hill informs Director Stark that, according to their captive Paladin, all Rahimov's mercenaries have been routed. She believes him because he wants to go back to working for SHIELD. But that still leaves the terrorist Rahimov with possibly more of the thumbnail nukes he invented.

Stark uses his magnometer system to locate another cache down in Kirikhstan. He prepares to go deal with it alone. But Agent Weir begs to be allowed to help and make up for what he's done. Feeling some guilt for driving Weir to this state, Tony agrees.

The remaining active member of Team Alpha, Farrell, holds off the local militia while Iron Man investigates the target, the ruined Rahimov mansion. Nasim is there, his twisted body in a wheelchair. He says that he really did plant mininukes in all the sites he warned them about in his video message in #29. They only found 2 of them, but that was because his thumbnail devices are so small, with small amounts of fissionable material. And when those bombs have taken out his government enemies he'll detonate the remaining bombs in this house.

Tony tries to reason with his old friend. But Nasim lays the blame for all this on Stark, because he 'abandoned' him to the Kirikhstan authorities. Tony can't have more deaths on his conscience, so he tackles the terrorist. But Rahimov's chair is surrounded by a forcefield.

Tony continues to engage Nasim in conversation. But this is a stalling tactic because SHIELD has been evacuating the sites. When Maria Hill tells him everyone's clear he authorises a planned strike on the mansion. Weir in the Overkill Mind remotely triggers the detonation of the bombs in the house as Iron Man tries to escape the blast.

Rahimov's thumbnail nukes work as before, their special design minimising the radioactive fallout. But Iron Man is still knocked out and has to be carried home by Alpha Team.

As he recovers in the helicarrier Tony Stark remembers the men who've died on his watch (in the time of this series):- Happy Hogan (#14), Captain America (CA#25), Sal Kennedy (#18), Carstairs and Colletti of Alpha Team (last issue), and now Nasim Rahimov.

Story #2