This title was all kinds of low-key amazing under the last creative team. Stuart Moore has big shoes to feel. Let’s see how he does.
Iron Man leads his SHIELD team into the foreign (made-up) country of Kirikhstan to find and neutralized a nuclear terrorist threat.
It turns out that the tech being used by the terrorists was created by some old friends of Tony who were being funded by his own company. Tony gets tempted to drink. After a few missteps he successfully stops the threat.
It’s a fairly by the numbers story, except that the villains hired Paladin(!) who is actually able to hurt Iron Man. There’s an in-story explanation but…Come on.
Nothing here is bad but it’s all just kinda been-there done-that, especially after the great run that preceded this story. Tony is breaking down again, getting close to drinking….
…All the way down to the final, cliched panel where Tony feels sad thinking about all the people who have died because they worked with him.
Hm.
Also, having multiple artists across a single story that is only 4-issues long is never a great thing. It’s distracting.