Invincible Iron Man #118: Review

Jan 1979

David Michelinie, John Byrne

Story Name:

At the Mercy of My Friends!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #118 Review by T Vernon (January 21, 2015)

Comments: Part two of three parts. First appearance of Mrs. Arbogast, Tony Stark’s long-time secretary, and future Iron Man/War Machine James Rhodes. Major oddity: the villain Buck Richlen has a Doc Savage haircut.

Review: Well, there’s a nice cool cover! And the equivalent sequence inside is even more thrilling thanks to guest penciler John Byrne working with the underappreciated Bob Layton. This atones for the absurd scene wherein the baddies conveniently explain their scheme to one another for the benefit of the hero (and the reader); really, you’d think these guys would know this already. Otherwise a pretty cool adventure and the mystery of the chest beam going on by itself? That will be explained in the next story arc, the classic Demon in a Bottle!

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #118 Synopsis by T Vernon

After spending a night repairing his armor damaged in the fight with Spymaster (last issue), Tony Stark ponders the big question: how did his foe come by all those advanced weapons which Tony recognizes as devices he created specially for SHIELD? While getting ready for his appearance at a NATO conference hosted by SHIELD, he takes a call from his secretary Mrs Arbogast who tells him Bethany Cabe is waiting to see him. Curious, Tony meets with her and she rides along in the monorail to the airport, expressing an interest in getting to know him better. Tony leaves her to meet his private helicopter, giving his pilot Rhodey a break by flying the craft himself up to the SHIELD Helicarrier. Nick Fury is annoyed that Tony is so late and curious as to why he has handcuffed his attaché case to his wrist. After a few minutes, Tony ditches his guide and sneaks off to do some investigating; he finds a mystery file on the computer and downloads it to his armor (!). Unfortunately, his guide Val Adair is one of the rogue agents plotting against him so when he reports back to leader Buck Richlen, the baddies gas the Helicarrier knocking everyone out….
They seize the opportunity to achieve their main goal by tossing Tony overboard. The rush of air awakens him as he falls and he manages to don his armor in mid-air in the nick of time; Iron Man swoops low over a Bavarian village and heads back to the Helicarrier. He enters and hides so he overhears the villains explaining their entire plan to one another, how they got rid of Stark and plan on pressuring the company’s stockholders into resuming weapons production, to make America strong again. Then Iron Man’s chest beam activates by itself alerting the bad guys to the hero’s presence. Shellhead takes out the baddies except for Buck Richlen who heads to the conference room. Iron Man finds him there holding a gun to the head of the unconscious Nick Fury, threatening to kill him unless Shellhead uses his repulsors to kill himself….