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Invincible Iron Man #513

Feb 2012
Matt Fraction, Salvador Larroca

Story Name:

Demon 4: Control


Synopsis

Invincible Iron Man #513 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
Iron Man is trying to protect China's Three Gorges Dam from attack by a horde of Dreadnought robots. He is joined by Dynasty, China's answer to the Avengers (all apparently flying), led by The Star (an armoured Captain America, complete with shield). The rest of the team are The Revolutionary (armour-suited), Soldier One (with shoulder-mounted heavy weapons), Saber (wielding curved light-sabres) and Weather Witch (emitting lightning from her hands).

Despite destroying Dreadnoughts left, right and centre the heroes are losing the battle. Especially when some Dreadnoughts go into suicide mode to breach the dam. Then War Machine shows up to help.

Meanwhile in Paris Doug Johnson, the original Detroit Steel, kills a nest of terrorists to get hold of a passport. (Actually there's no indication they really are terrorists. Just minor criminals stealing tourists' passports to sell.)

In Mandarin City Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane are monitoring the battle. Stane is working on Project Omega, building a giant war mech with tentacles. Stane doesn't understand why the tentacles are important, but Mandarin claims Project Omega has waited thousands of years (but the dam had to be attacked *today*). (I think they're creating a mechanised Cthulhu!). Stane gets uppity, but Mandarin uses a ring to mentally dominate him.

Back at the battle Star tells all the heroes to abandon the dam, and the Chinese airforce blow it up. Apparently it's politically better than allowing it to be destroyed by an enemy. And the rebuilding will provide jobs.

War Machine leads Iron Man to a plane waiting to take them home. But they're also surrounded by members of the Detroit Steel Corps. Stark is effectively under arrest. On the way home he examines some bits of Dreadnought, and determines that their latest upgrades bear the hallmarks of both Mandarin and Stane.

Mandarin and Stane now address an army of (supposedly) old Iron Man villains, with their equipment revamped. Blizzard and Living Laser have already attacked our hero during the last 3 issues. Now we also see Chemistro, Crimson Dynamo, Firebrand, Firepower, Mauler, Melter, Titanium Man, Vibro and Whirlwind.


 

Review / Commentaries


Invincible Iron Man #513 Review by (February 17, 2012)
This is part 4 of Iron Man's Shattered Heroes arc Demon, where alcoholic Tony faces the consequences of having a drink in Fear Itself. Dreadnoughts were first sent by Hydra against SHIELD in Strange Tales #154. Since then they have been upgraded several times, and utilised by various villains, often against Iron Man. Their last appearance in these pages was IMv4#13. We haven't seen War Machine here since #500 and #500.1. His own series Iron Man 2.0 has finished, but he's still the US Army's tame Iron Man, and he still spends time with the Avengers and Secret Avengers. The US Government want Tony to answer accusations of driving the armour under the influence of drink. The cover with Iron Man fighting War Machine is, as they often are, misleading. Mandarin's gang of villains are touted as all wanting revenge on Iron Man. This seems dubious in some cases. The female Firebrand is totally new, but maybe she has some connection to one of the previous 3 versions. The young 2nd Melter has only previously appeared in Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1-5 and Age of Heroes #2. I think he only qualifies as an Iron Man villain because the 1st one was. The 3rd Chemistro is also trading more on the reputations of his namesakes. His only Iron Man appearance was in #251-252. Whirlwind is a generic villain. His only Iron Man outing was in Annual #11. The other new additions to Mandarin's army are more convincing. Firepower was last in #500.1, and Mauler in IM: Titanium. Vibro was last here in IM#267, but was last seen in Wolverine #27. Titanium Man is probably the original version. His latest IM appearance was v3#83, and he was last in CA#617-618. If Crimson Dynamo is the latest (magical) version (no. 15!) then he has only previously been in Iron Man/Thor #1-4.


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Preview Pages




Salvador Larroca
Salvador Larroca
Frank D'Armata
Salvador Larroca (Cover Penciler)
Salvador Larroca (Cover Inker)
Frank D'Armata (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Joe Caramagna.
Editor: Alejandro Arbona.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Captain America
Captain America

(Steven Rogers)
Crimson Dynamo
Crimson Dynamo

(Anton Vanko)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Anthony Stark)
Living Laser
Living Laser

(Arthur Parks)
War Machine
War Machine

(James Rhodes)
Whirlwind
Whirlwind

(David Cannon)

Plus: Chemistro (Curtis Carr), Detroit Steel, Detroit Steel Corps, Dreadnoughts, Ezekiel Stane, Firebrand, Firepower (Edwin Cord), Mauler, Melter (Bruno Horgan), Revolutionary, Saber, Soldier One, Star, Titanium Man (Boris Bullski), Vibro, Weather Witch.