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Marvel Fanfare #44: Review

Jun 1989
Roger McKenzie, Ken Steacy

Story Name:

Doombug

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Marvel Fanfare #44 Review by (January 2, 2021)
Comments: Issue features a wraparound cover. According to the Marvel Chronology Project, this story falls during the events of IRON MAN #242. Only appearance of Avro-X/Colin Richard. Tony’s first quote is from Looney Tunes’ Henery Hawk and the armors later sing him the theme song to “Super-Chicken” (a minor 1960s cartoon). Ken Steacy previously did MARVEL FANFARE #22-23 also with Iron Man.

Review: Ken Steacy’s second Iron Man tale for this anthology title is an improvement over the first. The story is more complex and satisfying and the brighter milieu suits Iron Man much better. And there’s some humor too.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Marvel Fanfare #44 Synopsis by T Vernon
Iron Man is fighting a robot in the desert; it’s Rhodey helping him test a new type of virtual reality program. The test was a success for the international robotics symposium tomorrow. Rhodey heads back to town while Shellhead decides to check out something he saw earlier: a small rocket falling from the sky. When he touches it, though, a cloud of gas is sprayed in his face which causes the armor to go haywire before locking up completely. Stuck in the armor overnight, Tony hallucinates that his previous armors have banded together to mock him—in song. Then Rhodey arrives, Ant-Man having had his ants track him down and Scott enters the armor and cuts the power….

The next day, Tony and Rhodey fly to the robotics symposium, taking along Scott Lang in case the armor freezes up again. The symposium is in Latveria, hosted by Doctor Doom. Iron Man meets various scientists with their projects from all over the world—and then systems start crashing and Shellhead has to rescue people from a mid-air collision and he knows Doom is behind it. Iron Man goes to the castle and confronts Doom, accusing him of releasing a bioengineered virus to wreck his competitors. Doom reveals that the virus dies very quickly in the wild—it is Iron Man, exposed to it earlier, who is actually responsible for its spread, as it lives indefinitely in human lungs. But the virus turns out to have mutated in Tony’s body and Doom is infected. The problem is, Doom’s armor is powered by a micro-reactor and with the power off, there will soon be a meltdown, leading to the destruction of Latveria. With Ant-Man’s help Iron Man miniaturizes himself to enter Doom’s armor to effect repairs but he is ambushed by micro-sentries and defeated. Rhodey uses the virtual reality device to gain control of Shellhead’s armor to complete the fix and stop the meltdown. When Doom recovers, he rewards Iron Man for saving his life by allowing everyone to leave with their lives.



Ken Steacy
Ken Steacy
Ken Steacy
Ken Steacy (Cover Penciler)
Ken Steacy (Cover Inker)
Ken Steacy (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Andrew Pratt.
Editor: Al Milgrom. Editor-in-chief: Tom DeFalco.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Ant-Man
Ant-Man

(Scott Lang)
Doctor Doom
Doctor Doom

(Victor Von Doom)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
James Rhodes
James Rhodes

(Rhodey)



> Marvel Fanfare: Book info and issue index

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