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IRON MAN vol. 3 #81 (426) |
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(July 2004) "Baptism of
Fire"
-- The Deep End, part 3. Cover
art: Adi Granov. Script:
John Jackson Miller. Art: Philip Tan. The
first few pages of this ish are devoted to the "origin" of the woman
known as "Vitriol."
Looks as if she gained her "powers" via a highly polluted river in
Spain on her 22nd birthday. Cut to the present: Vitriol proceeds to
hammer Iron Man,
her metal-dissolving napalm-like substance dismantling Shellhead's
armor like candle wax! Eventually, IM
and several of his American army colleagues are taken captive. However, General
Singleton arrives (he barely
survives an attack by the "Ishtar-ists") and calls the Pentagon for
the "guy who works at DARPA." He states "This is an Iron
Man kind of problem! We need
somebody with a similar skill set!"
Keep this in mind, folks. Meanwhile, Vitriol lectures a captive Iron
Man on what she's up to, more
or less, as she also further dissolves his armor. An armorless Stark is then
tossed into a holding pen with other captive Americans, but they soon plan their
escape. Looks like they're gonna make it, but ... they're suddenly surrounded by
troops loyal to Vitriol! But then -- these troops are zapped by an energy
blast! Who...?? It looks like a variant of the Iron
Man armor, but the helmet of
the newly arrived "savior" slides back to reveal ... Carl
Walker, aka Force!!
And he's highly pissed off at Tony Stark! Whaaa --??
OK,
looks like I was way off on my guess that the mystery dude was Firebrand.
The question is, why was I so far off? What did Tony Stark do to tick off Walker
(aka Clay Wilson
-- remember?)? The last Iron Fans saw, Walker was deeply indebted to Stark for
rescuing him from the clutches of Justin
Hammer (see IM
#223-224). Stark gave him a
new identity and a job at a Stark subsidiary. Walker even wore several suits of IM
armor in defense of Stark and
Stark Enterprises (the Stealth
Armor in IM
#244 against the Fixer,
and the Classic Red and Gold
Armor in IM
#300 against Ultimo).
Now I'm sure JJ Miller will not let us down in offering a good
explanation to just what ails Walker, given Miller's excellent grasp of IM
history! Miller also excels at history in this ish, offering balanced takes on
American history with regards to Iraq, and detailing just why Vitriol is so
angry. Nicely done! Tan's Iron
Man once again is quite
tasteful, but his average folk are just dismal. Here's hoping a Force-IM
battle will ensue so we don't have to look at Tan's average folk too
much! Error note: The issue is mistakenly numbered 425, just
like last issue.
Hube's
Recommendation: 
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