Invincible Iron Man #14: Review

Jan 2024

Gerry Duggan, Andrea Di Vito

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Story Name:

Here be Mandarin Rings

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #14 Review by Rob Johnson (January 20, 2024)

The Dwarf King Eitri was killed by the God Of Hammers as reported in in Thor (2020) #20. Damage inflicted then was increased when Carnage invaded in his (2022) #9-10 to make them create a version of the Necrosword.

How do Forge and Ironheart (even with help from the Titanian Eros) get to and from Asgardian Nidavellir by spaceship?

Firestar is a mutant mole in Orchis who they were tricked into believing was on their side in the most recent Hellfire Gala 1-shot. And it really *was* her that freed Juggernaut in X-Men #28.

Mandarin's Rings have now been scattered throughout the Galaxy. But what do you bet they'll all end up back on Earth?

Next issue will sport a cover showing a War Machine-like armour. It could be James Rhodes breaking out of prison. Or it could be the long-promised new mysterium-based Iron Man armour Mark 72.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #14 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Feilong took over Tony Stark's abandoned company Stark Unlimited and used its resources to build giant Iron Sentinels to help Orchis force most mutants off Earth in the Fall Of X event. Legally barred from using his Stark-tech Iron Man armours, Tony has teamed up with Emma Frost in the Hellfire Club, including giving her a non-mutant alias as his aide Hazel Kendal and fake-marrying her.

Now Tony wakes from a recurring nightmare where Magneto turns his IM armour into a large spear and kills him with it. He reminds himself that it is measures that he built into his armour to protect himself from mutants like Magneto that now makes the Sentinels such a potent weapon against mutant-kind. Emma enters his room because she heard him cry out. He has things he'd like to forget but he can't use drink to do that anymore. Emma sheds her robe (and is presumably naked underneath). She joins him on his bed to find another way to make him temporarily forget his troubles.

Last issue they retrieved a large amount of the mutant super-metal mysterium from a space casino and sent it via Eros for Ironheart to create an armada of superships with the Asgardian Dwarven smiths. Riri Williams stole an Orchis shuttle to rendezvous with Eros but ran into the mutant Forge in his own craft. But they were both confronted by an alien Makluan dragon who was angry because IH wears Mandarin's Rings which contain the souls of other Makluans.

Now Riri responds aggressively but Forge tries to mediate. The space dragon says he's not here to fight or demand the Rings. Instead he warns her that they will corrupt her and urges her to get rid of them. Then he flies off leaving her to comment that she thought the Rings were just alien artefacts, not intelligent. Forge asks her what she's doing here and she tells him about her task.

We obviously skip the pair meeting up with Eros and getting the mysterium from him because the next scene shows the duo delivering it to the smiths in Nidavellir where they ask to use the forges to create the armada, saying that the Dwarves can have any leftover mysterium. They expected to meet King Eitri but a Dwarf named Zlusk is in charge, telling them that the King is dead and their forges are ruined. They suggest that they can get the place working again. Zlusk takes them down to the forges which combine high-tech with magic. Ironheart starts repairing the structural damage while Forge creates nano-machines to repair the control system.

We skip many days during which the forges are repaired and the spaceships are built (in Iron Man's red and yellow colours). Then Zlusk and his gang double-cross them. He intends to keep all the mysterium (presumably including the spaceships). They only let the duo work to repair their forges and hoping to see how mysterium was handled. But they failed in that so now they threaten the pair demanding to know how it's done. Only the 1 who tells them will be allowed to live. Of course our heroes fight back. Ironheart blasts Zlusk and the automatic defence system in Forge's cyborg leg 'kicks' in to down another Dwarf. Riri grabs all the others with the Rings and threatens to send them into the void. But Forge talks her down.

The pair chat about Riri's original intention to just study the Rings but how now she's getting too comfortable with using them, which scares her. Forge says he has an idea. A little later as they're leaving in his spacecraft they put his plan into operation. Riri wants to get rid of the Rings but doesn't want to know where they go. Forge has created a device attached to the front of his craft. She puts the Rings there and it sends them out into the Galaxy, and he tells her not to worry about where they might wind up. She regrets never having actually learned anything from them, but he suggests they've taught her something about herself.

Later the 5 new spaceships are transported to Arakko (Mars) and left to be observed by Orchis. And then they move on to Earth. Leaders of Orchis (Dr Stasis, Feilong, Moira MacTaggert, Nimrod and Omega Sentinel (Karima Shapandar)) convene with Firestar to discuss the subject. Firestar tells them she has gained the trust of the mutant resistance by pretending to be responsible for freeing Juggernaut from their grasp when it was actually Mystique. She has learned that the ships were designed by Tony Stark and they plan to make their base in the Australian Outback to avoid endangering civilians. The baddies now plan to have all the Sentinels there waiting for them, and Feilong plans to make Stark watch his friend Rhodey die and then imprison him inside his own armour with no control over it.

The 3 humans leave and the 3 AIs (Moira, Nimrod and Omega) make their own plans. They think Stark's too dangerous to be left for Feilong's amusement, so they send a masked agent with adamantium claws to kill him. Stark's 'autobiographical' voiceover has been commenting throughout and now says this is a revived corpse from the Weapon X program.

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