The Good
Far and away, my favorite thing about this issue was the Mandarin. Without giving away any spoilers, the Mandarin goes into how he came across his rings, and whether or not the story is actually true, it's still really cool. It's a nice little break with everything else is going on in this story and I am sure readers like knowing a bit of back story about the Mandarin, since there's a lot of people that have jumped onto this book since the Iron Man films came out.
The other section of this story revolves around the Detroit Steel Corps and Iron Man's rogues gathering materials for the Mandarin. This book features a great cast of characters, and I love seeing his rogues working together for Tony's arch-nemesis. On the flip side, I've come to love Pepper Potts as Rescue, and while there's been a few complaints about James Rhodes as Iron Man, mainly with his costume, I really like it. It's not the normal Stark Iron Man armor, which separates possible ties (as the public sees it) with Stark Industries.
Solid ending to this issue after a few twists and turns. One thing writer Matt Fraction has done a fantastic job on with this book is not only keeping the individual issues exciting, but his reveal pages leave fans wanting so much more. He really does a great job at hooking the reader in and keeping them on the book.
Once again, like every issue, the highlight of this book, for me at least, is the art of Salvador Larroca and the colors of Frank D'Armata. The art is beautiful, dynamic, and works well both as a comic full of action as well as a talking head book, which is rare to see.
The Bad
My only problem with this issue was the portion featuring Iron Man, the Detroit Steel Corps, and Rescue. While I enjoyed it, I found the Tony Stark/Mandarin part of this issue so much more intriguing that the actual Iron Man fight scenes, so I was a bit put off during the fight scenes here.
The Verdict
Overall, the past two stories have been a 5/5 for me. This one hit a little bit of a slump with me because I found the Mandarin/Tony Stark scenes so much more intriguing, but it was still a great book. We got to see a great possibly updated history of the Mandarin as well as what Tony Stark's real plans are. I loved the art and writing on this book, as always.
Overall, I highly recommend this issue.
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