Another Nu Iron Man has dropped.

And by the way, this cover - while awesome - is quite misleading. Nothing this spectacular actually happens in this comic.

As always, click the jump for discussion of the positives and negatives...

Positive #1: This issue is blessedly free of nagging. As a matter of fact, in the opening scene, Patsy notices the battered condition of Tony's armor and responds like a caring human being.  Imagine that!

Positive #2: At the end, Korvac breaks Tony's neck -- which is apparently going to lead to an armor-as-literal-life-support plot whose promise activates all my retro Tony feels.

Unfortunately, to get that place, Cantwell has to pretend Tony's an idiot. Seriously: am I supposed to believe my 616 son would walk into a confrontation with an amped-up supervillain with no strategy prepared beyond hitting him with one desperate burst of repulsor power? As Marm and I discussed in our last Iron Man stream, we're talking about a character who'll take notice of an odd little cloud and immediately work out that the baddie he's fighting is being controlled from above by aliens.

Historically, Tony has always run back to his drawing board whenever he's apparently outmatched. So what we should've seen here is a lab sequence -- a scene in which Tony spends several sleepless nights trying to come up with some new gadget to help improve his odds. For eff's sake, even the mediocre Empyre event remembered this Iron Man fundamental.

Additionally, I'm less than impressed (to put it mildly) with how Cantwell writes Tony as a leader. A guy who's built and run several large companies - and in the process inspired the loyalty of most of his ground-level employees - is simply not going to resort to "do what I say" no matter how confident he is that he's right. Even during Civil War - which features Tony at peak "I know what's best" - we still see Tony explaining his rationale for backing the SHRA to friends with whom he is at odds (especially Steve). No: the real Tony Stark, after the missing lab sequence proposed above, would've come to Misty and the others with a clear plan -- and he probably would've been able to convince Patsy to be a willing pawn as well. I'm not saying Tony's beyond being stubborn and/or manipulative -- but he never resorts to that first.

And lastly? The verbal clash between Tony and Korvac here is just -- unsatisfying.

Here's the thing: as this very issue acknowledges, Tony has some experience "running the world" (in a sense) and making decisions for other people without their explicit consent. He's a member of the freakin' Illuminati! But as this issue also acknowledges, he's never had a good time whenever he's arrogated to himself that level of responsibility. And that's why the one good thing about Civil War II was Tony's refusal to arrest people for pre-crime and his overall shift to the anti-authority position; that showed, at least, that he had learned from prior mistakes. 

To make this scene richer - and to show genuine character growth - Cantwell should've used this recent history. He should've had Tony say, definitively, "No, I don't want that power. Every time I get a taste of it, things go wrong. People die. I lose friends. And maybe that's because no one person should be in charge at all -- no matter how smart they are."

Alas, I think I know the reason why we didn't get this moment: Cantwell is convinced - despite all canonical evidence to the contrary - that Tony has this "massive ego" that won't permit him to humble himself and own up to his errors. And that's really a shame.

ETA: Here is the video follow-up with Marm.

On to the next issue!