Tony Stark has (once again) lost everything–this time to Obadiah Stane. The Illuminati meet in his absence and discuss how to help him get his company back, but Namor squashes all of it saying that Tony is a strong man and they should allow him the dignity of his own recovery.
I love that. The whole exchange is just a few pages but it’s worth the price of admission to this entire story arc.
The story then turns to homeless Tony, who managed to sneak an old Iron Man suit out when Stane evicted him, and he uses it for a street-level fight against Hangman. He rescues someone from being murdered by Hangman, and that act as a good samaritan leads to … The Pride.
Yes, The Pride. The group of supervillains who are also parents to The Runaways. In addition to Hangman, they also employ Serpent Society.
Tony has to Macguyver weapons from scraps to defend himself.
Eventually he accepts help from his friends (Illuminati+Rhodey) and gets a community of volunteers to help him take over an abandoned factor and, ultimately,
stop the Pride from performing their annual black magic ritual to the Gibborim that they’re always plotting about in the pages of Runaways books.
It’s a satisfying tale told well, and very nice to see The Pride being a force in a book other than Runaways (who aren’t a part of this story arc). At the very end, Stark does a mitzvah for the homeless man he saved from Hangman…
…Which brings me to my only critique. Since when does Tony Stark say things like “you’re making coin” or even the contraction “ain’t”? Is he code switching?
A small comment on an otherwise solid story ending a solid series that could have gone on longer with no complaints from me.