Iron Man #319 — Nick Peron

Aug 8

Aug 8 Iron Man #319

Shadows Call

From his new bunker hidden in the Arctic Cricle, Tony Stark revisits his entire career as Iron Man with a series of holographic projections of his past exploits. He watches his many battles in reverse order knowing that all those years of heroics have been a lie as this entire time he has been a pawn in a game of heroes and villains.[1][2]

He then rolls things back to the very beginning, to the incident that changed his life forever. He was overseas in a war-torn land where he was caught in an explosion that lodged shrapnel in his heart. Captured by the enemy, he was forced to build them weapons. Instead, with the aid of inventor Ho Yinsen, Tony built his first suit of Iron Man armor. Not only was this suit made to prevent the shrapnel in his chest from reaching his heart, but also had the firepower to get them free. Ho Yinsen would later sacrifice his life to buy Tony time to finish firing up the armor. While the newfound power and freedom was intoxicating at first, Tony now reflects back on the incident and in retrospect finds that they were hollow.[3] His eyes then rest on two bottles of liquor that he has brought there and he stares at them longingly, before asking the computer to disengage the holographic projections.[4]

Suddenly, Tony is visited by the image of his father Howard Stark, who questions how Tony can always be ahead of his time by constantly living in the past.[5] Thinking that this is his imagination working overtime, Tony decides to get back to work on the new suit of Iron Man armor he has been working on. As Tony works on his new repulsor gauntlets, he reflects on how many times his armor had protected his life over the years.[6] That’s when he is visited by the image of his mother who comes to comfort her son. Tony knows that this isn’t real, but allows it to continue since he’s been craving his mother’s comfort for so long. The illusion is shattered when an alarm begins going off prompting Tony to act.

Suiting up in his new armor, Tony uses its new equipment to fly out of Earth’s orbit where he stops long enough for Earth’s rotation to put him over Los Angeles in a matter of seconds. He soon arrives at Stark Enterprises where he changes out of his armor in time for a press conference where he is unveiling his the new Starcore command that is being built by his company.[7] While Tony puts on a front of confidence and bravado for the press and cameras, both Bambi Arbogast and Abe Zimmer suspect that something is up because they know Tony so well. In reality, Tony is paranoid that someone might be on to him. He tries to lose himself in the past once more when he sees his old friends Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts. That is until he is reminded that Pepper ended up choosing Happy over him.[8]

That evening, Tony goes to Bethany Cabe’s apartment out of the need for companionship. He finds his mind struggling between the things weighing heavily on his mind.[9] Beth is happy to renew their romance and seeing that Tony has a lot on his mind tells him that he can tell her anything that there are no secrets between them.[10] Rather than tell her what’s going on, Tony kisses her. When Bethany opens her eyes she is surprised to see that Tony is crying.

The following day, Tony tires to occupy himself by showing up at Force Works headquarters as Iron Man. There, most of the team is going through training exercises. The Scarlet Witch uses this opportunity to complain about how Tony has been cavalier about his involvement with the team and, when he doesn’t actually show up, he constantly undermines her authority even though Tony appointed her leader of the group.[11] Iron Man brushes this all off and as he leaves, Wanda wonders what has gotten into him recently.

Later, Tony returns to Stark Enterprises and puts in a call to Jarvis at Avengers Mansion. He has decided to throw an unexpected party for the team, telling the butler that it is long over due. However, Tony’s cheerful smile hides a dark secret…

… This story is continued in Avengers: The Crossing #1.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Force Works (Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, US Agent, Century), Peter Corbeau, Erica Sondheim, Bambi Arbogast, Abe Zimmer, Bethany Cabe, Edwin Jarvis, Henry Gyrich, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan

Continuity Notes

The opening few pages go through a number of Iron Man battles from over the years all in reverse order. These events include:
- His recent battle with Slag from last issue.
- Titanium Man in issues #315-317.
- The Mandarin in Force Works #6-10, War Machine #9-10, and Iron Man #311-312
- VORTEX from Iron Man #307-309.
- Living Lightning from Iron Man #259-260 and 263.
- Iron Man’s battle with the third Crimson Dynamo circa Iron Man #21-22.
- Iron Man and the Avengers first battle with Kang the Conqueror in Avengers #8.
- Iron Man’s battle with Jack Frost from Tales of Suspense #45.
This story is alluding to later revelations in The Crossing (see below) that state that Tony has been a sleeper agent for Kang the Conqueror since after his first encounter with the Avengers. This is all later exposed as a hoax created by Immortus, who implanted false memories in Tony’s mind to help cell the deception. See Avengers Forever #8.
What trip down memory lane isn’t complete without a retelling of Iron Man’s origins from Tales of Suspense #39. It’s interesting to note that here Tony refers to his company as Stark International. However, at of that flashback it was called Stark Industries. It didn’t change its name until Iron Man #73. This is also the first time that it is stated that the bomb in question was manufactured by Stark’s company.
Tony’s fixation on the bottles of booze on the shelf are a reference to his past struggles with alcohol. See Iron Man #120-128 and 167-182. It’s also interesting to note that the liquor bottles are labelled “Hawkman Vodka” and “Extreme Justice Burbon”. Tom Morgan — the artist of this issue — would go on to do art for a few issues of Extreme Justice over at DC Comics in 1996. Perhaps this was his way of subtly announcing he was going to work on that and a Hawkman title? Morgan only ended up doing the one book so something probably fell through.
As revealed in Iron Man #288, Howard and Maria Stark seemingly died in a car accident many years ago when Tony was still a young man. About that:
- Here, Howard and Maria are referred to as Tony’s biological parents. Years later it is revealed that Tony was actually adopted. See Iron Man (vol. 5) #17 and International Iron Man #6-7.
- S.H.I.E.L.D. #5 later revealed that Howard worked for a secret organization called the Brotherhood of the Shield. The organization had come up with a contingency plan to fake Howard’s death should the need arise, using a car accident as part of the ruse. As of this writing, it is yet to be revealed if Stark actually faked his death or not.
Here, Tony states that his heart has been injured multiple times. This is another example of Terry Kavanaugh’s shitty writing and bad research. Tony only sustained the one heart injury in Tales of Suspense #39 at this point. He later got a transplant in Iron Man #19 to remove the shrapnel and replace the damaged parts of his heart. From then on, Tony did have a weak heart that was prone to complications if he put himself under strain. This eventually faded with time. One could assume that Tony’s mistaken recollection is due to the fact that his mind has been fucked with by Immortus.
The Starcore satellite is actually being used to hide a temporal weapon that will figure prominently in The Crossing as it is part of “Kang’s” scheme. See Force Works #20 and War Machine #23.
Since their first appearances in Tales of Suspense #45, Pepper and Happy were caught in a love triangle that Tony was a part of. Although Tony competed with Happy for Pepper’s love, Tony’s double-life as Iron Man drove a wedge, allowing Happy to win out in the end. He and Pepper later got married in Tales of Suspense #91.
Tony references how he was shot in the spine and how it took a long time to recover. That’s putting it lightly. He was shot in Iron Man #242 putting him in a wheelchair. His spine was repaired by an experimental bio-chip in issue #248 but that was hacked, ruining his central nervous system to the point where he had to be cryogenically frozen in issue #284. Tony was eventually cured in issue #288 but needed rehab until issue #300.
Tony and Bethany previously had a romance that lasted from Iron Man #117 to 153.
When Tony first formed the team, he put the Scarlet Witch in charge circa Force Works #1. Although being a founding member, Iron Man has frequently been absent and when he has been present has undermined Wanda’s authority.