Invincible Iron Man #13 Review and *Spoilers* - Marvel Monday

Magical Mystery Tour

Written By: Brian Michael Bendis
Art By:  Mike Deodato, Frank Martin
Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 7, 2016
Review by: Christian Faulds  

**Non-spoilers and score at the bottom**

I am actually enjoying Iron Man. He is a character that can come off either sympathetic or as an insufferable tool. This story has me getting the feels and Tony comes off as the former. Tony is still grieving and trying to get over his best friend's death. While he might not be dealing with it well at least he is not drinking so that is the brightside. With Doctor Doom teleporting Tony around and the whole Civil War shenanigans going on in the background, I am ready to go. We got a recipe for something great so let us jump in.



We start off this issue with Doctor Victor Von Doom (whom I love as a character ever since Doom ‘99) teleporting Tony to Cambridge. Tony is understandably nonplussed and proceeds to go off on Doom. Doom without missing a beat, explains where they are and leads Tony inside to a lab. All the while, Tony continues going off on Doom and Doom remains unfazed and in fact, even gets in a barb in of his own by asking Tony if he flunked out of Cambridge when Tony says “I went to school here once. For five minutes.” 

Then Tony finds out that this is where his ex-girlfriend,  Amara, has been hiding away, all thanks to Good Guy Victor. They have a conversation, Tony tries to explain what he has been doing and Amara is reasonably angry. Tony, looking for comfort, says to Amara, “My best friend is dead” and she lashes out and snarkily replies “are you sure?”  Oh snap!

Then, we have Tony sitting outside a coffee house,  though it's hard to tell since the art in this issue is not the greatest, and we get a flashback. Tony is looking over Rhodey’s casket going through the denial stage of grieving then as a distraction he tunes into Captain Marvel giving a radio address. This is the boring part of the issue because it’s basically a summary of what is happening in the Civil War event which is just a bunch of boring nonsense. Tony turns off that broadcast probably as bored as we are with what is happening.

Next, we go to Rhodey’s funeral and we are treated to a panned out shot showing how many people came to pay their respects. We see MJ come and tell Tony that people are looking for him, but he's rather be in his lab which doesn't make MJ any happier. This is reinforcing the fact that Tony is a broken man who has lost all his drive to do anything. It is understandable, since Rhodey was Tony’s pillar and his rock and now that he is gone, Tony doesn’t know what to do.

We then get a series of flashbacks of Rhodey being awesome to Tony. He's Helping Tony when he was a uncontrollable drunk and trying to get Tony to stop. There is also Tony and Rhodey kicking ass and taking names in France, beating a bunch of power armored villains and Rhodey thanking Tony for his War Machine armor. Then, after thanking him, Rhodey tells Tony he loves him. It really hammers in the bromance for those who were not in the know.

Then, while Tony is sitting there, Good Guy Victor Von Doom teleports in to talk to Tony. He tries to give him a pep talk and then Tony traps him. He tells Doom he invented this force field after Doom took him on his last adventure and that there is no way out. That is cliffhanger we leave on.

Bits and Pieces:

Overall, I really enjoyed this issue. It got me excited for the next issue and brought me into the story going on. While it was a little hamfisted with Tony's emotional state at the moment, I can understand that it's all to get everyone up to speed. The only real glaring issue with this issue (teehee) is the art. The art threw me off... the faces come off weird and it seems under detailed.  The art doesn’t bring the issue down that much though and I still enjoyed the issue.

7/10