The past year of Tony Stark’s life has redefined the term “strange bedfellows.” Beyond his sham marriage to Emma Frost (which may have grown into something real) Tony embraced a new role as the Black King of a new Hellfire Club. However, Invincible Iron Man #17 sees Tony forging his most likely alliance yet.
Written by Gerry Duggan, with art by Patch Zircher, Invincible Iron Man #17 finds Tony Stark in dire straits. The good news is his plan to counter the enhanced Sentinels of Orchis with a giant mecha was largely successful. The bad news is that the Mark 73 Sentinel Buster ran out of power far faster than anticipated, with the Sentinel army not wholly defeated.
This left Iron Man to fight his way out of a swiftly malfunctioning maze of metal. Even without a concussion, which was causing him to hallucinate, this would have been a daunting task. Not helping matters was the fact that Tony’s rival Feilong, who stole his company and his technology to build the new Sentinels, was also trapped in the giant mecha with him.
The final complication was the revelation that the artificial intelligences managing Orchis had betrayed their human creators. Now the humans who founded Orchis are in as much danger as the Mutants and their allies. Thankfully, help arrived in the form of a most unlikely savior.
Iron Man Teams Up With Magneto To Save Humanity
The issue ended with Magneto arriving to save Iron Man and fight what remained of the Stark Sentinels. There was some irony in this, given Tony Stark’s recurring nightmares of dying in battle against Magneto. Indeed, one of his hallucinations earlier in the issue had involved a vengeful Magneto killing him.
The arrival of Magneto held another level of irony. Given his past as a terrorist who was indifferent to the deaths of humans so long as Mutants survived, it was unexpected for Magneto to take a hand in saving someone like Iron Man. However, given recent events, it is possible that the Master of Magnetism may have truly reformed into a true hero.
Invincible Iron Man #17 is now available online and in comic shops everywhere.
