Anyone reading Invincible Iron Man knows the drill by now. The series has reached its climax point as Tony Stark teams with a group of sworn enemies to take down the Mandarin. It's an effective payoff to years of storytelling and groundwork, but it's also a very slow and methodical payoff. Issue #525 is one more chapter that will entertain readers but leave them wishing there was just a little more meat on these storytelling bones.
This issue is certainly heavier on the action than the last few, as Tony is finally back in an Iron Man armor and on the offensive again. Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca tackle some some memorable battle scenes throughout. Here is where having characters like Living Laser and Blizzard on Tony's team comes in handy. Laser in particular adds a nice visual flourish to the battle scenes so that the book isn't dominated by armored dudes clobbering each other. While Frank D'Armata's coloring has never been a highlight of the series, he does some nice work tackling the various bursts of energy and radiation that dominate these fights.
This issue relegates the Hammer girls to the sidelines, so that only the Stark Resilient and Rhodey subplots remain to offset Tony's struggle. Those two pieces of the story are all but merged at this point as Fraction builds closer and closer to the big reunion/rescue sequence. A brief appearance by a couple of super-teams from the book's past only heightens the idea that Fraction is pushing towards the finish line. More loose ends are coming together and the stakes are growing higher. It seems that the cover image of Mandarin crushing the world in his grip is more literal than it seems. So even if the general sense of plot progression remains a bit sluggish from month to month. Fraction is delivering a worthy finale to his multi-year run.
Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and IGN Movies. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following Jesse on Twitter, or on IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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