Invincible Iron Man #297: Review

Oct 1993

Len Kaminski, Kev Hopgood

Story Name:

Whipsaw!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #297 Review by T Vernon (October 23, 2018)

Comments: Part two of two parts. Brief cameos at the party by old pals Roxy Gilbert, Eddie March, Marty March, Bethany Cabe, and Mike O'Brien.

Review: The cool Iron Man/Omega Red/MODAM battle is the major highlight of the issue with the birthday party just adding to the soap opera: Veronica Benning! Rhodey! Happy and Pepper! And we will be seeing more of the latter from now on. The oddest bit, and rather interesting, is Tony's musing on his fallen enemies: they are all half-human, half-machine but did they choose their path? What were they before? And will Tony suffer the same fate of the machine overtaking the man? Some nice existential questions there, and perhaps Len Kaminski intends to address them...someday....

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #297 Synopsis by T Vernon

On Boca Caliente, Omega Red and MODAM begin their battle to the death as a damaged Iron Man remote lies at their feet. At home, Tony Stark slowly recovers from MODAM's psycho-blast and quickly hacks into the armor to get it up and running right away. Omega Red summons his death-factor, draining MODAM of her life force; she quickly retreats as OR takes after her, killing some guards and warning Iron Man not to interfere. A.I.M. CEO Alessandro Brannex makes a deal with Shellhead: if he protects MODAM from her enemy, they will return Stark's nuclear materials. The Golden Avenger agrees and takes off after the villain, Brannex intending that he not survive....

Omega Red has cornered the damaged MODAM who claims that she is not Red's enemy Olinka Barankova, as A.I.M. frequently falsifies their personnel records. He proceeds to suck the life out of her as Iron Man arrives on the scene. Red doesn't know how Shellhead is immune to his death-factor so he spears the hero through the heart with a carbonadium tentacle. Iron Man surprises him by a) not dying and b) electrocuting him. Brannex then orders MODAM to kill Iron Man who shuts down her psionic abilities by smashing the synthetic gem on her forehead. Tony utters an elegy over his two fellow cyborg/enemies and heads off with a reminder to Brannex that he will expect a shipment of nuclear stuff soon....

The following day, Tony is in his office with Felix Alvarez when Mrs. Arbogast, Erica Sondheim, and Abe Zimmer take him prisoner at gunpoint. Tony assumes it is the Controller at work when, to his surprise, they lead him to a surprise birthday party. Tony reunites with Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, and on learning Happy is out of work, hires him as his personal trainer to make sure he gets his physical therapy. He discovers from Rae Lacoste that Rhodey is still mad at him (issue #291). And later Tony phones Veronica Benning but she is afraid to answer, suspecting Tony is attracted to her....

Epilogue: A huge earth tremor signals an impending disaster at Stark Enterprises geothermal power plant....