Invincible Iron Man vol. 9: Demon

I honestly didn’t think what I read here was possible.

Though the “Fear Itself” tie-in arc was an improvement over the execrable Stark-becomes-Doc Ock’s-bitch storyline of “Unfixable” it still left me with the feeling that the title’s best days were behind it.  Now with two volumes left to go, the Fraction/Larroca run heads into its home stretch.  After reading all the previous volumes up to this point, I felt an obligation to see it through.  While I realize that reading stuff out of “obligation” is a TERRIBLE way to go about things, there’s always the chance that the creators could get things back on track and return to their glory days.  That’s the vibe that I got here with “Demon.”

At its core, this arc represents the creators’ take on the “hero’s rogues gallery teaming up to take him down” trope as orchestrated by the Mandarin.  My objections to that particular character as Stark’s archenemy aside, he serves as a very entertaining foil here.  That would be for no other reason than what he does to Ezekiel Stane who is building the man’s weapons of mass destruction and refitting Iron Man’s enemies to make them more dangerous than ever.  Stane, along with the Hammer Girls, has been more irritating than anything else due to the smug sense of superiority and lack of any real comeuppance for his actions.  

Here, though, he winds up delivering sweet, sweet schadenfreude to the reader as the man finds himself on the receiving end of the Mandarin’s displeasure and powers of his rings.  Seeing Stane realize that he is no longer in control of this situation was easily the highlight of the book for me.  It’s also interesting to observe the Mandarin’s corner-cutting in his plans to take on Stark and the world and see how the parallel his botched attempt at moviemaking a few volumes back.  The man may be the biggest threat to the title character right now, but already we can see the seeds for his downfall being planted.  Same goes for the Hammer Girls, as I doubt that the survival of Detroit Steel’s original pilot bodes well for Sasha’s status as its new one.

As for Stark himself, this volume succeeds admirably in portraying him in a weakened, vulnerable state yet without it feeling forced or overridingly plot-driven.  We see him accompany Splitlip the dwarf to AA meetings, then get served with a subpoena by a pretty lady after stopping to help her fix her car.  Then he tangles with the Living Laser and winds up in a hospital, goes to China to help fend off a Dreadnought attack and winds up in the custody of the U.S. military afterwards.  Yes, acceding to General Babbage’s condition for continuing to pilot the Iron Man armor was stupid, and it leads to some incredibly tense circumstances as he races — without armor — to help War Machine fight off the combined forces of the Melter and Living Laser.

It’s all a convincing downhill slide until the final pages which show us that even though he is down, Stark is not out.  More importantly, he saw what the Mandarin and Stane were planning and found a way to circumvent it to a point.  It’s thanks to that last-minute twist that I can take his statement that he has a plan for this scenario seriously.  Though this is a familiar form for a superhero story to take, the buildup was handled excellently here and I can’t wait to see what form Stark’s counterattack takes in the next volume.

In short, I didn’t think it was possible that the Fraction/Larroca run could get its momentum back, but that’s just what they did here.