IRON MAN VOL.3 #2

NOTE: The characters list contains ONLY characters who speak - since the big guest-star screwups in
Avengers: Disassembled, the rule seems to be "If they don't speak, it probably isn't them, and if they speak
in a way that seems out-of-character, screw you!"

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge		 "Hidden Assets"
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciler: Sean Chen
Inks: Eric Cannon, Sean Parsons & Al Milgrom
Colours: LIQUID!
Letters: RS/Comicraft/DL
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Harras

Mar 1998

Summary:
While Pepper Potts is on the phone to a prospective client, Happy Hogan enters. It seems Stark has employed them both, seemingly unaware that the formerly-married couple separated while he was away. We then see Stark skiing in the Alps as Countess Stephanie De La Rosa watches. It seems the Countess has hired Stark to straighten out some irregularities in the accounts of the company she inherited from her late husband, and Stark intends to do just that... as the Invincible Iron Man!

Iron Man discovers a hidden manufacturing facility and takes a look inside, where he is attacked. He tries to leave, but he is pursued. He causes an avalanche to bury his pursuers and heads off to a chalet. The next morning, he begins to talk to Stephanie, who makes small talk. Then, he confronts her, and asks her what is going on. She feigns ignorance, but then two hired goons standing behind her pull out guns, ready to kill Steph and Stark. He figures out she didn't want Stark with her, she wanted Iron Man. Stark activates two hidden explosives by remote, which distracts the goons, giving him time to knock them out. He runs off and becomes Iron Man. He is attacked by the people from the day before.

Elsewhere, a woman tells a shadowed man that a company in Switzerland was breached by Iron Man, but that their client files are secure. The man is not happy.

The chalet is blown up by forces unseen, presumably killing the Countess. Iron Man is then attacked by Dreadnoughts (killer robots first manufactured by HYDRA but also used by other organisations) and the Dreadnoughts threaten to kill him - and the men attacking him!

Characters:
De La Spirosa, Countess Stephanie
"Dieter"
"Dreadnoughts"
Hogan, Happy
"Marcello"
Potts, Pepper
"Siege Engineers"
"Socrates"
Stark, Tony / Iron Man

Review:
Great, great, great. What's going on? Who sent the Dreadnoughts? Who are the men, these 'Siege Engineers', that are attacking Iron Man? Who was the shadowy figure? I must know, I must!

The art, just as in #1, was great. The mechs look like mechs and the men look like men and the women look realistically feminine - no legs that go up to their armpits.

Irom Man Vol.3 #2 follows on quite logically from #1. Where #1 provided a good catch-up for new readers as well as a great new direction for longtime fans, #2 did well as far as setting up a new, mysterious plot. 9/10

-- Adrian J. Watts
bella1@netspace.net.au