Invincible Iron Man #596
Feb. 2nd, 2018 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nomadicwriter posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
doomfansThe issue opens with the Stark Enterprises folks repossessing Riri's Iron Man stuff, though of course she has backups.
Back in Doom's French Riviera villa, Doom fights back against the Hood's team using dark magic. He almost mind-controls Hood into shooting himself, but the Corruptor gets close enough to lay a hand on Doom's bare skin, allowing him to unleash his power of overriding people's inhibitions. Doom responds with an old-school villainous, "Leave me, you insipid cretin!" to the Corruptor's amusement. Doom promptly controls the Hood into shooting the Corruptor instead, summons his armour and teleports away. However, he's not exactly happy that he let a bunch of low-level thugs get that close to him in the first place.
Elsewhere, Tony is still hallucinating and has a conversation with his imaginary dad, where he says that what he's done to himself may not have been a good or moral idea and he doesn't want to make anyone an accessory by asking for help. Meanwhile, his hologram guides MJ and Amanda to the place where he's been hiding. They arrive too late to catch up, but find proof that he's alive. And back home, Riri makes a phone call to tell somebody unknown that she's going to accept their offer, but before she can, Blade randomly shows up and tells her he's got a better one.
...Huh. Well, I've got to be honest, aside from that out-of-nowhere ending, this felt pretty much like a filler issue. Riri's stuff being repossessed, Tony hallucinating and the others searching for him is all stuff we already saw last issue, and Doom's scene is just setup; presumably we're going somewhere with the theme of him not liking how vulnerable his new hero approach has made him and possibly the effects of the Corruptor's touch will further play in, but it's really only vaguely teased here. The fight sequence is also told in a weird way, since things are suddenly being narrated by largely unnecessary captions that we haven't seen used in previous issues. (Kind of gives the impression somebody panicked that it wasn't clear enough, but a tweak or two to the dialogue could have solved that less intrusively.)
So, y'know, not much else to say this time around. The art standards are high as ever, but overall I just get the impression we're treading water to make sure the important stuff doesn't happen until issue #600. Which is still a while away, so it's a tad frustrating, especially given Bendis's Marvel days are numbered and we don't know where his replacement will go with Doom's storyline. (And I'm now getting a bit worried we'll see Doom go villainous for #600, which would be fine as a temporary bump in the road while he struggles to keep to his new path, but not so much if the next writer chooses to make it a permanent reversion to status quo and promptly ditches the reformation storyline.) Let's just hope things move forward a bit more in #597!
Back in Doom's French Riviera villa, Doom fights back against the Hood's team using dark magic. He almost mind-controls Hood into shooting himself, but the Corruptor gets close enough to lay a hand on Doom's bare skin, allowing him to unleash his power of overriding people's inhibitions. Doom responds with an old-school villainous, "Leave me, you insipid cretin!" to the Corruptor's amusement. Doom promptly controls the Hood into shooting the Corruptor instead, summons his armour and teleports away. However, he's not exactly happy that he let a bunch of low-level thugs get that close to him in the first place.
Elsewhere, Tony is still hallucinating and has a conversation with his imaginary dad, where he says that what he's done to himself may not have been a good or moral idea and he doesn't want to make anyone an accessory by asking for help. Meanwhile, his hologram guides MJ and Amanda to the place where he's been hiding. They arrive too late to catch up, but find proof that he's alive. And back home, Riri makes a phone call to tell somebody unknown that she's going to accept their offer, but before she can, Blade randomly shows up and tells her he's got a better one.
...Huh. Well, I've got to be honest, aside from that out-of-nowhere ending, this felt pretty much like a filler issue. Riri's stuff being repossessed, Tony hallucinating and the others searching for him is all stuff we already saw last issue, and Doom's scene is just setup; presumably we're going somewhere with the theme of him not liking how vulnerable his new hero approach has made him and possibly the effects of the Corruptor's touch will further play in, but it's really only vaguely teased here. The fight sequence is also told in a weird way, since things are suddenly being narrated by largely unnecessary captions that we haven't seen used in previous issues. (Kind of gives the impression somebody panicked that it wasn't clear enough, but a tweak or two to the dialogue could have solved that less intrusively.)
So, y'know, not much else to say this time around. The art standards are high as ever, but overall I just get the impression we're treading water to make sure the important stuff doesn't happen until issue #600. Which is still a while away, so it's a tad frustrating, especially given Bendis's Marvel days are numbered and we don't know where his replacement will go with Doom's storyline. (And I'm now getting a bit worried we'll see Doom go villainous for #600, which would be fine as a temporary bump in the road while he struggles to keep to his new path, but not so much if the next writer chooses to make it a permanent reversion to status quo and promptly ditches the reformation storyline.) Let's just hope things move forward a bit more in #597!
