Iron Man 2.0 #9: Review

Sep 2011

Nick Spencer, Ariel Olivetti

Story Name:

The Palmer Addley infection, part 2

Review & Comments

Rating:

Iron Man 2.0 #9 Review by Rob Johnson (February 26, 2013)

Part 2 of 5. This issue uses the nano buzzword to justify Palmer Addley's scientific magic.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Iron Man 2.0 #9 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

More than half of this issue is spent showing how Palmer Addley did what he did.

Unstable genius Addley was working in an ultra-secret DARPA lab, effectively under house arrest for crimes he committed as a youth. Under the noses of his employers and guards he created a virus, which he drank, and which totally invaded his body. The virus then effectively encoded his consciousness.

He could then expel that virus and contaminate others, taking them over. In this way he got a guard to smuggle him a gun, with which he committed suicide. But his blood infected the medics who took his body, and they immediately harvested his organs.

Judith Brickley from last issue got his kidneys (as seen in #1). A boy who got his liver still died. But Luis Garcia got his tendons. And Judith and Luis were driven to become regular blood donors, spreading the infection.

We now return to the present where Kaylie Harrison has been (as we saw in #7.1) skiving off work as part of the Palmer Addley investigation team since she learned his true history in #4. Now she rushes back to Mackelroy army base, saying she's worked out how he did it. (But accompanied by a visual which hindsight will tell us indicates she's been infected.)

She runs into the room where Judith Brickley is being interrogated, declaring a theory which is a combination of the above and what the team worked out last issue. Then she pulls a gun and starts shooting. But it isn't Ms Brickley she shoots, but her teammates Ernst Hoyer and Mike Zelinsky.

Afterwards Kaylie doesn't seem to know what she did. As guards take her away, James Rhodes suits up as Iron Man 2.0, now knowing what he faces.