Invincible Iron Man #518: Review

Last issue implied Stark was in a hurry to get to the problem at Stark Resilient HQ. He doesn't go there this issue. Mrs Arbogast was Tony's secretary/executive assistant for a long time between #118 and #329. She returned as his executive assistant at Stark Resilient in #27, and was seen often during that story and Fear Itself, but she's disappeared into the background since then. The Mauler armour debuted in Daredevil #167, but it's main user acquired it in Iron Man #156. IM relieved him of it in #225, but he was back with another suit in Alpha Flight #113. Along the way he's been a minor intermittent foe of Iron Man and Spider-Man. In #513 he was unveiled as one of Mandarin's army, with his armour upgraded by Ezekiel Stane. Chemistro was another member of that army. Calvin Carr is the 3rd person to wield the name and alchemy gun invented by his brother Curtis. None of the Chemistro's have actually been Iron Man foes. Calvin came closest in #251-252, but that was only as part of the Acts of Vengeance gang. We're still waiting for Mandarin to unleash Titanium Man and Vibro from his pool of villains. And of course there's the giant squid robot. I don't think we've seen Stane in his armour since #510, and he hasn't actually used it since the end of the Five Nightmares story in #6.

This is part 3 of 5 of Long Way Down. The splash page continues to count the days since Tony Stark had a drink during Fear Itself. In this case it's 23 days, which must cover the last 9 issues, and some adventures with the Avengers and others. The signs are that the storyline after this one will also follow without a gap. At this rate we'll have more than a year's comics packed into 1 month of Marvel time. I presume Reed Richards *did* give Tony a new chest implant at the end of last issue, but it doesn't say so. It turns out that it *is* James Rhodes in the new armour. Stark has been pretending Rhodey's dead since #515, to use him as a secret weapon. Jim slightly misquotes parts of Muhammed Ali's poem about the Rumble in the Jungle. The John Doe in the hospital is presumably Tim Cababa whom Spymaster attacked in #516. If so he's not as dead as I (and presumably Spymaster) thought he was. Spymaster had been living with him as fellow Stark employee Len Pimacher. Presumably Spymaster killed the landlord and wiped the apartment clean to protect his own identity rather than Tim's. Doug Johnson was mentally damaged by being temporarily turned to stone in Fear Itself. he has only just managed to return to the US from Paris. Sasha accuses him of drugging her (see last issue), but it probably wasn't him.