Synopsis: Overwhelmed by the Dreadnoughts,
Iron Man is able to lead the robots into battle with the Siege Engineers, and leaves to investigate the ruins of Stephanie’s chalet. He finds Stephanie and her butler alive and flies them to safety, then returns to the site of the battle to find it deserted. Tony contacts Pepper, to get her help in identifying the handiwork behind the Siege Engineers' facemasks. Stephanie later confides her business troubles to Tony. After her husband’s death, his friend Andreas Kapelos tried to strong arm the manufacturing company from her, and slowly began taking control of it. Tony learns from Pepper that the Siege Engineers' facemask is connected to the Arms Merchant. He calls for a tv interview to reveal how close he is to bringing down the Merchant and exposing his client list. The Dreadnoughts attack Iron Man that night. He overloads their heat centres, and leads them to Kapelos, in Stephanie’s facility. He blackmails Kapelos for info on his clients, receiving it in return for leading the Dreadnoughts away and calling the police. Tony does so, as the robots follow him into the mountains and explode. Later, Tony rekindles his romance with Stephanie, while worrying about the major project Kapelos was working on for an unknown client.
The Subplots: More troubled comments are exchanged between Happy and Pepper, although their divorce isn’t outright mentioned. Happy later takes Doreen, a woman delivering supplies to Stark Solutions, out for dinner. She then contacts a mysterious informant with her insider knowledge of the company; Last issue’s shadowed figure, employing the Arms Merchant, watches Tony’s interview angrily. He steps considerably out of the shadows, and is clearly the Mandarin. He is also behind the Dreadnoughts; Tony surmises that the Arms Merchant’s biggest client is building a fortress or a space station.
Notes: Stephanie and her butler survived by hiding in the stone-walled wine cellar.
Pepper identifies the Siege Engineers' facemasks from a Daily Bugle photo of the Thunderbolts arresting a flunky of the Arms Merchant in Thunderbolts#3. That was the first appearance of he and his staff, when they were caught selling weaponry to Don Fortunato.
Thoughts: Busiek wraps up this story, and while it’s a bit clunky in its execution, it’s so slickly done that it’s easy to ignore some of the choppy plotting. For the second issue in a row, Iron Man leaves a fight in the Alps, and goes about his business with Stephanie, and then is drawn back into another battle. This worked fine last issue when the conflict was still building up, but it ruins any sense of urgency created by the opening battle scene (which looks stunning) to have Tony casually chatting with her in the middle of the issue. There had to be some other way for Stephanie to tell Tony her troubles than at a dinner smack in the middle of an action issue. But this isn’t the worst offender – Tony’s tv interview about the Arms Merchant really stunts momentum. It’s such an odd transition and its sole purpose seems to be to alert the Mandarin of Iron Man’s involvement in his scheme. Again, for the sake of the story’s flow, couldn’t there have been a better way to do this?
Still, somehow, Busiek holds the issue together despite the loopy plotting. I think this is mainly accomplished through Tony’s narration. Busiek is overloading this title with it, but it largely works, and here it holds together those choppy scenes. Busiek is really presenting Tony as a tactician in battle. He also has a softer side, but is much edgier than the Tony of #1. It’s Tony’s voice that unites the issue, navigating the readers through the clues of the overarching mystery. Although that mystery, of the Arms Merchant’s client, isn’t too complex, it’s coming together well and there’s a good sense of Tony’s frustrations with the unknown assailant. It’s not the most exciting story so far, but it’s backed by strong art, and there are worthwhile elements to it.
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