High body count, check; no back-up, check; man is the real monster, check. But the execution is nicely done, and since I just read a crummy Iron Man comic now I want to read a good one: from 1988, Iron Man #237, "Star Hunter!" Plot and script by David Michelinie, layouts by Jackson Guice, finishes by Bob Layton.
This was a single-issue story, but some of the main plotlines were still moving along: Tony fires his legal head for mishandling the Armor Wars lawsuit. Tony is pissed he took a settlement, since Iron Man technically wasn't a Stark employee at the time...even though Tony actually was the 'Iron Man' committing those crimes. I'm not sure how mad he should be; but he's given an out: the government approaches him to have the 'new' Iron Man investigate a "deep orbit space lab" they had lost contact with. They'll drop the lawsuits against Stark, and (nudge) bring pressure to have civilian ones dropped as well. I wonder if that seemed as shady back then as it does now. Still, Tony knows how the game is played, and says he'll "check Iron Man's schedule."
One quick hop to the Koontz space station--and that's not an ominous name--Tony finds the place wrecked up and everyone dead, since their experiment--a genetically engineered "satellite killer" monster--had escaped. In fact, it had even escaped that station, and made its way to the Stark Enterprises space station! Which had largely been shut down since around Iron Man #216 or so, when A.I.M. released a deadly virus there: it lay dormant in the vacuum of space, but would revive in an oxygen atmosphere. Tony finds the creature napping in his offline reactor core, living off the minimal radiation there. It was also created to be laser and bullet resistant, as well as having claws that could damage Tony's best armor to date; so after a brief encounter, Tony decides this is really the government's problem. Except the creature isn't ready for him to go just yet...
I'm not sure I still have the next couple issues against the Ghost--with guest villains Blacklash, Boomerang, and Blizzard, who were like the Washington Generals of this run. The art really clicked on this one, though, in a way I don't think it would again for a while.
Wait, so Tony had to be bribed into helping out? Well I guess that isn't totally unlike depending on who writes him. I will say that who AIM virus-infected space station kept hounding as a year or so later in #256 he's back there again trying to unleash a microbe that will eat the virus. He manages to successfully unleash it, but the whole affair almost kills him.
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