IRON MAN vol. 3 #56 (401)
(Aug., 2002) "Sympathy for the Devil, part one."
Cover art: Michael Ryan.
Script: Mike Grell.
Art: Ivan Reis/Joe Pimental.
The ish opens up with Tony Stark walking down a street with...Rumiko Fujikawa(??) pondering his decision to reveal to the world that he is Iron Man. (Cool touch on the opening splash page with Tony and Ru at one of the many makeshift memorials at the old WTC site.) Elsewhere, the space shuttle Columbia is delivering a "Viastone" satellite (a company owned by Ty Stone...uh oh) and there's a problem -- the sat's engines kick in and fry the astronauts working on fixing its position! Suddenly, the satellite is heading directly for the North American landmass! Back on the street, Ru hands Tony stock papers -- a 2% interest in Stark Industries! Thus, Tony now holds controlling interest in his old company once again!!
Back to the descending satellite: an F-15 fails to stop the sat's fall, but guess who pops up to save the day? Yep, 'ol Shellhead. What a surprise. As IM returns home, Rumiko is waiting in a hot bath...but Tony has to recharge his heart. As he returns, however, it is not Ru in the bath, but....Pepper?? It's fairly obvious Ty Stone's grubby hands are involved in this mess somehow -- with DreamVision -- especially after glimpsing that last panel with Tony's eyes "glazed over." And why is it so obviously painful for Tony to recharge his heart? He has to, in essence, "bite a bullet" to take the pain? Makes no sense. The guest art team is superb -- Reis' work on the Avengers was sweet, and he has a Jimmy Cheung-esque feel to him that Pimental's inks mold into very appealing images.
Hube's Recommendation: 3 repulsors!
Fan Reaction 1: I checked out your review of IM #55 and #56. I think you were absolutely right with both - although I don't know that I'd give IM #56 the third repulsor. I'm not sure about Tony's eyes being glazed over - that might just be artistic license. I do think that Stone's handywork is all over this story - check out the letters page - "Live the dream again in 30!" ?!?! WTF!?!?! I also agree that Tony revealing his secret identity in #55 sucked, but I was hoping it'd be part of some intricate, well-thought out plan.......so I held out hope for #56. But OMG - what a flaming piece of crap!!! Tony's glad he doesn't have to run and change into Iron Man in order to stop a mugging???? HUH????? Since when did Tony Stark need to become Iron Man for a mugging? We know that Tony trained with Captain America - tell me he couldn't make a media issue of that, and justify it as not wanting to rely on Iron Man too much? No, Grell's right, it's a lot better to have a whiny Stark lament how he was burdened by his secret identity. And can someone please explain the logic of revealing his ID and having his friends and family be safer??? Remember a guy named Obadiah Stane? He systematically destroyed Tony's life by using Tony's weaknesses against Iron Man.
The culmination of this was grabbing those close to IM. I understand that the bad guys will (these days) do whatever it takes to acheive their goals - it's a point well worth remembering for us all. But wouldn't that make Tony's friends even BIGGER targets? Wouldn't guys like Spymaster and Ghost want to kill Bethany Cabe or Jim Rhodes or Bambi Arbogast just to make a statement? But then, Tony feels better so I guess that justifies this boneheaded writing. I also can't see Rumiko suddenly embracing Tony again instantly - if at all. That makes me think this is all a delusion - but then again, in an upcoming issue of Avengers, Tony's ID is known and mentioned. Lastly - one thing that made Ultimates interesting was that their Tony has no secret ID. I liked that it was different than the regular book. Now it's not so different and I feel like I've been cheated out of a fresh interpretation of Tony Stark. Looks like Grell has taken the great hope I had for him based on his early Sable work and crushed it under a poorly conceived and plotted Iron Man......pity. --
Fan Reaction 2: I am a bit befuddled. I liked the art, I liked the overall plot (both the story and the layout), but there are so many fundamental things wrong/missing.
1 – The secret-identity backlash is not nearly what it should be (as I’d mentioned in a previous issue response).
2 – The re-involvement with Rumiko is too difficult to consider. She’s proven quite clearly that she is considerably beyond nuts, and I don’t believe that Tony Stark is one who would forgive a woman sleeping with another man merely to hurt him – not to the point of taking her back, anyhow.
3 – The entire heart-recharge/Pepper flashback thing. A revisit of Ty Stone isn’t so bad, but DreamVision still being a sub-plot? It was okay as a minor plot, but not a continuous one, as there is no ‘true’ way that IM would be involved. Besides, wasn’t the VOR/TEX virtual Iron Man story enough?
4 – And you are right-on about the ‘bite the bullet’ aspect of the recharge process. Tony Stark cannot come up with a method of recharging the technology for which he himself was responsible for creating?
Other points: He just got his ass handed to him by Son-o-Mandy, yet it doesn’t seem to concern him in the least. We have seen absolutely no development whatsoever of Stark Enterprises (or Industries, or International). Pepper just lost what was more than likely Tony’s baby, yet she gets 1 page in the book and seems not in the least distraught. Pepper point #2: She just potentially lost Tony’s baby, and Rumiko is very obviously back in the picture and right under Pepper’s nose? When was the last time Mike Grell had relationship problems? OY! As an overall book, #56 was excellently done. If one scratches under the surface, however, the inside seems hollow. -- TJ
