Sigh...It's Almost Over.
Tony faces off against a mystical Assassin and Pepper finds herself at the mercy of the Grey Gargoyle.
The Good
Dope cover.
Really enjoyed Larroca's in this issue especially during the Detroit Steel corps/Pepper/Grey Gargoyle bits. I found the little touches like giving Sasha Hammer imperfect teeth to be refreshing.
The interaction between Sasha and Pepper was great and their scenes were appropriately action packed.
The Grey Gargoyle showing some sentience in this issue was nice, beyond tired of the Worthy spouting gibberish.
Well if you were worried we were going to have a sit through an inferior version of "Demon in a Bottle" worry no more. Tony's back on the wagon.
I really enjoyed the interaction with Tony and Odin towards the end of the issue.
The Bad
I just haven't been enjoying the stuff with Tony in Asgard, which is a shame because it had so much potential.
The dwarfs are back, I hates them dwarfs!!!
Normally Fraction nails Tony's internal voice, but here his depiction of his thoughts really left me cold. I really hope this is the end of Tony's "woe is me!" whining. But with shattered heroes looming I'm sure this characterization may stick for a while.
The battle between Tony and the mud monster (?) was very anticlimactic and felt like padding.
The Verdict
Like last issue I enjoyed about half of this issue and the half I enjoyed didn't feature the main character. That's definitely a problem, people. I can't wait for Tony to get out of Asgard and Fraction to get his touch back on this series. Hopefully he's get back in proper form after all this event stuff somewhat subsides. He really needs to get his focus back on doing what made his run so great and fun to read in the beginning. All things considered this is a solid issue of Iron Man and worth checking out, but nothing I'd recommend for those who aren't already reading the series.