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Iron Man Vol 7 1

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Quote1 I've spent way longer than I want in the hospital. And I've neglected my company--my father's legacy, not just mine--for too long playing super hero. Justine's wrong. She's about to learn that Roxxon and A.I.M. are seriously under-capitalized. So she beat me in a fight. First time for everything. Last time for everything. She said this isn't another armor war. She doesn't know how right she is about that. All their wealth--everything they have--is about to burn. This is--The Stark-Roxxon War. Quote2
—Tony Stark

Appearing in "The Stark-Roxxon War - Part One: Capital Strike"

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Synopsis for "The Stark-Roxxon War - Part One: Capital Strike"

In Upstate New York, Stark Unlimited union workers are threatened by two B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.s from Roxxon enforcing a factory lockout. Iron Man swoops in to confront the B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.s and blasts the factory gates open, declaring that he didn't approve the lockout. Wearing the Bleeding Edge Armor, Tony muses that the Mysterium Armor was overkill for a routine check-in. After driving away the Roxxon forces, Tony retracts his armor and speaks with the union leader, Ramon Vicente, as they walk through the factory floor. Although the factory stopped manufacturing Stark Sentinels following Feilong's defeat, they shifted to artillery shells, which Tony also wants to phase out. Vicente explains that the workers are organizing because they feel like an afterthought with no say in what they produce. Suiting back up, Tony agrees to recognize the union and include its demands in the contract. He takes off into the sky but is caught off guard when his armor suddenly shuts down, causing him to plummet to the ground and crash back into the factory, losing consciousness.

Many weeks later, Tony is bedridden in a hospital. He gradually rehabilitates from his injuries, bandaged and gaunt as he relearns to walk and exercises on a stationary bike. Stark ponders his fall, as diagnostics show no armor issues. While reviewing a holographic projection of his suits, Tony runs a global update on every armor that isn't offline or packed away. Reminded of a meeting with the Board of Directors by his AI assistant, Tony flies to the Stark Unlimited HQ in the Model-Prime Armor. Entering the meeting through a window, he's immediately antagonized by Jack Kooning Jr., one of the members of the Feilong-appointed Board; another member being Melinda May. Tony pitches a super hero betting app, promising substantial revenue to shift away from weapons manufacturing. However, he is blindsided when A.I.M.'s Scientist Supreme, Dr. Monica Rappaccini, walks in. In partnership with Roxxon, A.I.M. has made a lucrative offer to acquire Stark Unlimited and keep it as a weapons manufacturer. Tony refuses, but Kooning Jr. sneeringly reminds him that the Board will vote on it. Moreover, regulatory rules freeze the company's business operations once the offer is officially tabled. Stark calls out the Board on their greed, while Rappaccini tauntingly commends his betting app idea as she exits.

Back in his lab, Tony vents his frustration by throwing his exercise bike into a wall. Stripped of his armor except its helmet, Stark lounges in a untidy mattress laid over lab equipment, reviewing documents and assessing the situation. He doomscrolls through social media, eventually engaging with one of the many alt-right inflammatory posts made against him. The poster retaliates by causing an explosion at a nearby laundromat. As Iron Man, Tony rushes to the scene and puts out the fire, but he's ambushed by two supervillains, the Flying Tiger and Tiger Shark, who call themselves the Tiger Pack. Tony is surprised that his armor didn't detect them. The villains attempt to pin him down, but he manages to slam them into the ground. Iron Man finds streaming equipment on-site, and Flying Tiger reveals they were filming the fight for money. The villain lets on that they are working for someone else, and taunts Tony for not using his "magic armor." Leaving the two tied up, Stark flies toward a warehouse in Long Island City where he hid it due to word spreading about it, realizing that his armor's malfunction must have been caused by magic.

Arriving at the unlit warehouse, Tony is ambushed by the same B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.s from the lockout. Iron Man grabs one by the arm and sends a repulsor ray through his body, knocking him down. When he tries to interrogate them, Stark is surprised by someone turning on the lights—it's Justine Hammer. She reveals Roxxon resurrected her to finalize the Stark Unlimited acquisition, orchestrating the lockout and hiring the Tiger Pack to distract Stark during her warehouse raid. Tony attempts to summon his Mysterium Armor, but nothing happens. Justine smugly reveals she has cannibalized it to create her own new Iron Monger Armor, activating it with a brooch on her coat lapel. Iron Man takes flight and rams Justine out of the warehouse, firing repulsors at her to no avail. She grabs Tony and hurls him back against the building, gloating that this isn't any kind of Armor War since Tony has already lost, and that his armors and company will soon be hers. Holding the pain of his cumulative injuries, Tony shapeshifts two repulsor cannons to fire at the Iron Monger. Justine declares that Roxxon and A.I.M. plan to use Stark Unlimited to dominate both the global arms and energy markets. As Tony continues firing while taking flight, the Model-Prime Armor begins to shut down. Justine reveals she was behind the earlier malfunction, explaining that the B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.s uploaded a magically-infused A.I.M. virus to Stark's servers back at the factory, compromising all the armors that received his global update. As her Iron Monger Armor retracts into her brooch, she taunts Tony to learn magic, also warning that she has allied with one of his old Avengers allies. She departs in a limousine, leaving Tony lying in his deactivated suit.

Once again returned from the hospital, Tony is back in his lab, welding a faceplate with a blowtorch. He reflects on how he neglected his company for too long. Psyching himself up, he affirms that Justine has underestimated him, but grants her that this is not another Armor War. He vows that Roxxon and A.I.M. are about to burn, for this is the Stark-Roxxon War.

Solicit Synopsis

A NEW, BRUTAL ERA BEGINS!

Roxxon and AIM team up to take on Stark Unlimited! But they're ready for the old Tony Stark. This one? He's a lot angrier than he used to be. Iron Man is going to war! New armor, old enemies, and unbelievable twists abound in this fresh take on a fury-powered Iron Man from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Spencer Ackerman and groundbreaking artist Julius Ohta!

Notes

  • A trailer was released by Marvel to promote this issue:

Trivia

  • Ramon Vicente is strongly implied to have served in Afghanistan as part of the US Marine Corps. In addition to mentioning having been taught by "the Corps," he expresses that he "got enough of artillery [his] first tour." The very first panel of the issue is a close-up of his hand, and he can be seen wearing a memorial bracelet. The text is small but legible, and it reads, "LCpl Rob Forrest // KIA Afghanistan // 'Ride Out'"
  • One of the suits holographically projected in Tony Stark's laboratory when he is doing an armoy check-up is the Dragon-Slayer Armor, a suit comparatively minor to rest. This is because the suit was designed and drawn by this issue's penciler, Julius Ohta, in Extreme Carnage.
  • One of the ultra-conservative social media users that attack Iron Man in this issue uses the handle "@nomoremutants1488." This is a reference both to the Scarlet Witch's infamous dialogue "No more mutants" from House of M #7 and to Neo-Nazi dogwhistles. "1488" is a Neo-Nazi code number, so its use is meant to convey that the person behind "@nomoremutants1488" is one.
  • The form the Model-Prime Armor takes before being shut down appears to be inspired by Adi Granov's depiction of the armor in his variant cover for Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 3) #1, notably in the shape of the ailerons in forms, which include a motor underneath them.
  • Writer Spencer Ackerman provided further commentary on this issue in a guest appearance in a special Iron Man #1-centric episode of the X-Men-related podcast Cerebro:[1]
    • The specific use of Roxxon's B.E.R.S.E.R.K.E.R.s as union-busters in the opening scene is a gesture of gratitude to writer Al Ewing, who was featuring Roxxon prominently in Immortal Thor, which was releasing at the same time Ackerman launched Iron Man (Vol. 7). According to Ackerman, Ewing went out of his way to come up with a way that allowed him to use Roxxon in Iron Man without stepping on the toes of his plans for Immortal Thor. Ackerman says that if Ewing had rigthfully decided to keep Roxxon exclusive to Immortal Thor, the first three issues of his Iron Man run would have been something else.
    • The Stark Unlimited employee named Steven is a homage to Steven Attewell, a friend of Ackerman and Cerebro's host Connor Goldsmith. His memorial service was helf shortly after Ackerman's pitch for "The Stark-Roxxon War" was approved. As he listened to his family recount his deep love of Marvel comics, it occured to him a way to immortalize Steven in the Marvel Universe.
    • The lockout that Tony shuts down at the beginning of the issue is also called a "capital strike," which is what the title of the issue is named after.
    • The issue opens up with Tony in a factory to stress the fact that he is an inventor who likes fabricating things himself.
    • The subplot featuring the union drive was a way for Ackerman to address his desire to reframe the scope of Stark Unlimited as similar in scale as Roxxon is often portrayed, as a giant overarching conglomerate. Ackerman expressed a desire to see "the people in the factory floor" and not just named employees or high-level scientists.
    • His admiration for Christopher Cantwell's subplot of having Tony become addicted to morphine in his Iron Man run is what prompted Ackerman to have Tony reflecting on it, to show that Tony learned from it. The idea of this scene is also to show Tony valuing his soberty over optimizing his piloting of the Iron Man Armor.
    • The introduction of Jack Kooning Jr. serves both as a nod to Charles and Daniel Knauf's Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. run, and to fill a desire to include more black characters in Iron Man's supporting cast aside from Jim Rhodes and Riri Williams, with Rhodey also having being at the moment in use by Gerry Duggan for West Coast Avengers (Vol. 3).
    • Melinda May's inclusion in this book is inspired by Ackerman's real-life experience with military officers that, after ascending, simply decide that what comes next is "making the kind of money they could have never made while serving." It took him an editor Sarah Brunstad "a couple go arounds" to figure out which character to cast in this role that May fills.
    • Ackerman was surprised that the faux social medial handle ‎"@nomoremutants1488" made it past script revisions.
    • Flying Tiger's social media handle is "@flyingtiger_" and its bio mentions that his previous account was banned. Ackerman specifically included the underscore with the implication that his previous account would have been just "@flyingtiger" without the underscore.
    • Ackerman liked the idea that Tiger Shark has no patience for Flying Tiger, and that Flying Tiger is so into tigers that he doesn't get that a tiger shark is a kind of shark and not a kind of tiger. The name of their duo being Tiger Pack is also meant to convey Flying Tiger's ignorance, since a group of tigers isn't called a pack.
    • The Bleeding Edge and Model-Prime Armor are the two suits that Tony wears in this issue in the place of the Mysterium Armor because Ackerman asked artist Julius Ohta which two suits he liked drawing the most, as a way to indulge him.
    • The final page is evocative of the first Iron Man film specifically because Ackerman's wife really loves that movie. She likes to yell out Obadiah Stane's famous line, "Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave, with a box of scraps!" to Ackerman "whenever [he messes] something up."
    • Tony was already thinking up his new armor while still hospitalized from his bout with Justine.
    • The final scene of this issue was also meant to be showcase Iron Man's legacy.
    • Ackerman really wanted to end with the credits double-page spread because he loves a cold open.

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. ↑ Goldsmith, Connor (October 30, 2024) Bonus Episode: Iron Man #1 (feat. Spencer Ackerman) Cerebro. Retrieved on November 11, 2024.
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