Saturday, July 08, 2006



Tony wonders if he's going after his rouge suits of armor out of a sense responsibility, or if he's looking to get back into action. You know, they don't recommend alcoholics hanging out in bars; so if you aren't sure about going back into superheroing, maybe you shouldn't hang out at the Avengers' house. Or borrow their quinjets.

Demonicus (in the old, gray armor) and the bodiless Omnos (in the classic red and gold) punch it out for awhile, until Tony arrives to break it up. He bats them around with the quinjet, then uses his gauntlets to magnetically fuse the armors together. An impressive victory, made less so by Tony then falling out of the quinjet...which is apparently on it's way to space, because it's not mentioned again the rest of the story. Tony's "Spare Parts Man" didn't come with bootjets, so it's not looking good. (Best guess: the cowl was from Giant-Man, the Vision's cape, and Hawkeye's boots!)

Fortunately, Tony is able to use the gauntlets repulsor rays to slow himself down for a landing. He and Rhodey than unmask Demonicus, or rather, take the grey helmet off him; leaving his weird-skull mask sans fins. It plays like a scene out of Scooby-Doo. Rhodey unmasks the other armor, and the Omnos goes home, leaving behind the armor the message, "You're welcome."

The previous issue seems to go a long way towards Jim no longer being Iron Man, and this issue was still working on the seeds of Tony's return. Both needed to be set up, since by this time that was the status quo for about two years. Tony would be Iron Man again in #200, which also switched the armor from the classic gold and red, to the "Silver Centurion," which lasted about three years.

More Iron Man coming soon! Let me know if you have a favorite story, armor, era, or moment.

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