Invincible Iron Man #157: Review

Apr 1982

David Michelinie, Alan Kupperberg

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Story Name:

Spores!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #157 Review by T Vernon (October 20, 2015)

Comments: Sole appearance of Sylvia Karnowsky; her intro seemed to promise more, or at least a larger role in this story.

Another cool and creative sci-fi adventure pitting Shellhead against a seemingly invulnerable foe. The art and the writing come together once again to make a fast-paced action tale as a break from more character-centered stories. Tres cool!

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #157 Synopsis by T Vernon

Tony Stark is at his lab late one night, running tests on the Iron Man armor. Suddenly an electrical surge shoots through the room, burning out the computers and only Tony’s swift throwing of a switch spares the armor from a similar fate. A sensor pinpoints the area the surge came from so Tony dons his armor and sets out to investigate….
Meanwhile in space, a mass of sparkling spores came upon an alien spaceship in orbit around the Earth and invaded it, passing through walls to feed on the energy from the ship’s fusion reactor. The automatic defenses kick in but the spores cause an overload in the computer and it burns out….
Iron Man discovers researcher Sylvia Karnowsky conducting some after hours experiments in changing electricity into unleaded gasoline. Shellhead is immediately seized by a transport beam and is drawn up into the alien spacecraft where the damaged computer begs for Iron Man’s help. The spores invade Tony’s armor and he has a lot of trouble trying to regain control with none of his weapons working against them. The computer increases the gravity which scares the spores out of Iron Man and they reform into a hideous acid-secreting slug-like beast. With a hint from the computer, Iron Man electrocutes the monster, transforming it into an equally caustic vapor. Shellhead lures the vapor into a cryogenic chamber and freezes it solid but removing it causes it to reform into spores again. By now the computer has repaired itself enough so that it can immobilize the invaders. The ship explains that it was one of a fleet created to track down and eliminate the spores but it had been damaged in solar storm, allowing the spores to gain the upper hand. All it could do was to call on the most powerful being it could detect on Earth: Iron Man. Now the computer alters their metabolic modes so that they can feed on sunlight, rendering them harmless. And then the ship sends Tony home….

Story #2