Synopsis
Invincible Iron Man #504 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
We track 4 of the 7 meteoric hammers falling to Earth in Fear Itself #2. We see 2 landing in Brazil and on the Raft prison, where Hulk and Juggernaut found them in FI#2. We see 2 landing the K'un Lun mountains and Paris. The K'un Lun one will crop up in Iron Man 2.0. We will follow the Paris one in this strand, and here Grey Gargoyle finds it.
Back in Stark Resilient, Tony Stark is liaising with his CEO Pepper Potts before jetting off as Iron Man to help deal with the meteor falls. He comments that Odin has taken the Asgardians off Earth (as seen in FI#1), which puts a big question mark over the agreement for SR to rebuild the Earthly Asgard. An agreement for which Justine Hammer has sarcastically sent a bottle of whisky.
He also wants Pepper to hire Bethany Cabe as Security Chief. Pepper is reluctant. She points out that Stark already has Pepper in her Rescue armour and James Rhodes as War Machine. Tony counters that Rescue has no offensive weapons, and War Machine is on loan to the army. And she almost got killed (by Electro and Sandman) last issue.
Tony accuses Pepper of not wanting to hire Bethany because she slept with him. Pepper misunderstands and thinks he's referring to their own 'moment of weakness' in #15. (She told him about it in #500.1. He'd forgotten because of the brain reload in Stark Disassembled.)
Pepper accuses Tony of wanting to hire Bethany because the 2 women are very similar. He wants Pepper, but can't have her (as she made clear in 500.1). Tony denies it, and insists that Bethany should be hired.
Embarrassed Mrs Arbogast tries to slip away during this argument.
After a quick call to the Avengers, Iron Man chooses Paris. Where he finds everybody in sight turned to stone. And then is attacked by a large grey gargoyle monster speaking in runes and wielding a large hammer, who turns a lone survivor to stone with his eyes..
Pepper flies as Rescue to Cabe's yacht, where she has to talk to Beth by radio because she's underwater exploring a sunken WWII plane. Pepper ungraciously offers her the security job, to be paid in stock rather than cash because Stark is still basically broke. Despite all this Bethany accepts.
Iron Man is still fighting the monster, and is troubled by the fact that their battle is smashing some of the stone people. He recalls that Grey Gargoyle turns people to stone with his hands, unlike this guy who uses eye-beams. And Gargoyle's ability would work on him and his armour, whereas this guy's power doesn't. But Tony does seem to realise that this is the Grey Gargoyle transformed.
Eventually Iron Man is beaten down by pure strength and force of hammer. When he wakes up he finds himself atop a huge pile of broken 'statues'.