Iron Man’s main series doesn’t get a new #1 with the launch of Heroic Age, and that’s a good thing. Matt Fraction is constructing an intricate world that doesn’t need rebooting.
These issues have Tony Stark and his friends trying to rebuild after the last arc, while Justine Hammer tries to supplant him as the world’s preeminent munitions manufacturer. And she starts by launching Detroit Steel.
Like Iron Man, Detroit Steel has a human pilot–only this version is remote operated. (I’m tagging DS as a standalone, and also tagging his current pilot, Lieutenant Doug Johnson III…
I’m treating it like a symbiote, because I expect that at some point there may be a different pilot.
Justine Hammer has a new partner in business, her daughter Sasha.
Their pitching to Generals in the U.S. Army who remember how many times her father, Justin Hammer, sold them crappy versions of Iron Man that failed.
Tony, meanwhile, is rebuilding his company (again), and this time will call it Stark Resilient. His first act is to donate his repulsion tech to the world to help solve the global energy crisis–and he’s out of the military business. This of course drives the military right into the hands of Hammer.
Lacking resources of his own, he visits with Reed Richard’s to get his help designing new armor.
He brings his friends into his new company (Bambi Arbogast, Rhodey, etc).
He also agrees that Pepper can continue to be Rescue while serving as his CEO.
This means she gets a new chest repulsor and armor. Unfortunately, their chest units actually repel each other.
So they can’t even kiss!
Tony also makes amends to Thor for his role in the time leading up to Dark Reign, including making Clone Thor, and Thor forgives him.
It takes literally one issue for the Hammers to betray the United States, selling surplus armor (that uses old Stark tech) to Pakistani guerrillas. She also hires a revamped Spymaster.
As part of her promotion of Detroit Steel, which is she selling to the highest bidder, she engineers a terrorist attack in Tokyo and her new Iron Man Wannabe stops it. The terrorists were armed with Stark Industries tech…And Detroit Steel easily defeated it.
Tony smells a rat, and he and War Machine go to investigate–and hit dead ends.
This is a good place to break. We’ll pick up here on next post.