Invincible Iron Man #9
Funtime, Inc.
So for some reason, between the last issue and now, Tony has become a fatter mexicanier version of himself. And he's also sitting in a chair hooked up to some kind of octopus contraption with a big light above his head. It's like part Emperor Palpatine's throne and part something from a sci-fi movie where someone will end up mind controlled or electrocuted. To make this even stranger he's wearing a shiny gold version of Pepper's suit from the previous issue, sans the knee pads. I think this might be his under armor but... I don't know anymore. Maybe he just likes to walk around in shiny gold body suits. At any rate, Tony gives us a monologue to update us on what's going on and backtrack a little for those playing the home game as he's explaining to Pepper and Maria.
Tony: "Undergoing the Extremis procedure remade my body from the inside out. Long story short, my body was turned into a kind of computer designed to interface with the Iron Man. There was no longer a division between me and the suit. My brain... evolved, I guess, into a kind of hard drive. There's all kinds of stuff on that hard drive that Norman Osborn wants or would what, if he knew it existed. Howtos for the Iron man, for Extremis, for repulsor tech... every file Stark Industries ever digitized, dating back to my father's patents. The personnel files for every SHIELD agent regardless of their cover, since the agency's inception... the Superhuman Registration Database is just the tip of the iceberg."
Tony then explains this, I'm only writing it all out because he explains his throne and this is important to the story arc..
Tony: "These repulsor-powered terminal stations allow me to access my brain directly. Starkdrive 000. I can treat it like any other external drive a computer might have. Which is how we're going to erase it. And my brain is the sole copy. During the Skrull invasion they waged war on Stark tech and infected the entire dataspine with a virus. But it couldn't get in my head to wipe the data--now it's on us to take care of it."
Pepper: Tony, you're talking about your brain, not a damn ipod that's on the fritz-- what do you mean "wipe your data," exactly? What does that mean for you?"
Tony: "Exactly what it sounds like. We're going to upload a kind of program into my cerebellum--into what you'd understand as my cerebellum--and as long as I'm hooked into a terminal like this, it'll basically erase the entirety of my head." That sounds strange since, well... it's really not going to make his actual head disappear. But I'm willing to chalk that up to him meaning his brain. "It's the biological equivalent of zeroing out my brain cells. The good news is that everything--every state secret, every plan, everything Osborn wants will be obliterated. The bad news is, I will be too. Memory, personality, all of it. Even my neural pathways and reflexes will be blanked. Wiping it all away until--well, quite
frankly--brain death. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice." Told you it'd come back.
So in non-Tony speak: This machine deletes his brain. Maria and Pepper are not even remotely amused by Tony's thumbs up on this situation. Nor would I be really, because this sounds like not such a good idea. But that's Stark for you, always doing crazy things... TO THE EXTREME! Some day Tony will learn that there are more rational ways to handle situations, but then again he won't be Tony when he does. My biggest question is after World's Most Wanted will the story become about Pepper feeding a mostly brain dead Tony while he claps his hands and says "I'm Iron Man!" and she says "Yes you are... okay now open up for the airplane."?
At this point Maria Hill now voices her opinion that this is a horrible plan. One of the few things Maria and the general population of Marvel fans will agree on, ever. She tells him that he's the smart guy on the team and he can't just turn his brain into mush. Tony tells her to back the fuck off, and requests back up from Super Potts. Problem is that Pepper sorta kinda agrees with Maria, Stark's actions basically amounting to glorified suicide.
For some reason, Maria grabs his face to reason with him, but the way it's drawn sort of makes it look like she's got her thumbs up his nose. That's just... really not necessary and as she does this she reaffirms Pepper's idea that it's not so bad that he needs to go to "catastrophic lengths".
Tony puts on his angry face in the next panel where he sort of looks like Antonio Banderas in a Josh Holloway sauce. He tells her that if Osborn gets his hands on Tony he will essentially be able to rule the world. Since no one really wants that, this argument is supposed to back up his Plan O Crazypants. So, Maria, also a student of the Rational School for Rational Thinking and Rational Plans, decides he should just blow his brains out...
These two should never be in charge of the fate of the other... seriously.
She offers her gun. Pepper is shocked and appalled and the only person using a brain in this room... Tony's only reason for declining the gun is the following:
Tony: "Because sometimes bullets do weird things. And it might not destroy the part of my mind where the data is stored."
So in other words, if bullets were completely predictable and guaranteed that the data would be destroyed... he'd be all for this idea. Let's all have a golf clap for Tony. Also, if Osborn gets the stuff out of his brain matter that will be bad. Pepper is still not really sure what to do to stop this nutbar behavior, as Tony and Maria continue to inhabit the Land of Crazy Chat. She suggests psychics. Stupid Maria, psychics can't access hard drives, is basically Tony's reply. Tony says this to finally emphasis his point:
Tony: "Look, if Norman gets my head and strip-mines the data out of it, it's over okay? And by it I mean life as we know it. I've made a lot of mistakes and the biggest one was never, ever thinking we'd screw up so bad--that I'd screw up so bad--so as to turn my very life into a liability. I have a plan. Everything's going to be okay. But you guys gotta help me. It takes three people. I can't do it alone."
I know this is supposed to be a good moment, and it is but I can't help the mental image of Osborn with Tony's decapitated head on his desk, digging out the brains like a jack o' lantern.
Tony give an innocent and reassuring yet sly Tonyesque smile and it's on to the next page...
Maria: "You unbelievable, stubborn son of a--"
Pepper: "Maria."
No no, Potts. Let this go. She's got kind of a point here.
Maria: "I'm not going to help Tony Stark kill himself because imaginary bogeymen are coming to steal his thoughts." Okay, LOL Maria. LOL. "I appreciate that you've got a long history of enabling the guy, though, so you go right ahead. In the mean time, you two can go to hell."
Tony's off in La La La I'm deleting my brain land as Maria tries to make a dramatic exit but the door asks her questions and she's stuck in there. Maria Hill is apparently played by Angelina Jolie but only for this one panel. Tony tells her that she needs to enter information: birthday, social security number (Tony's is five right? I learned that in the movie). and whatever her last SHIELD passkey string was. The door now wants to know if she's sober and Tony claims it's an old alarm system to prevent him from trying to play Iron Man while he was schwastey face. It asks her if she's sure then asks her if she wants to execute. He tells her to type y.
And Tony gets a little jolty jolt.
Maria: "...Tony did you just trick me into doing whatever you needed me to do?"
Tony: "Be seeing you, Maria. And be careful."
Pepper looks pretty miserable. It's true what Maria said, she's learned over the years that once Tony gets one of his "genius ideas" there's no
H.A.M.M.E.R. Base - Chelsea Piers
Norman Osborn has broken the windows with his fists of doom, apparently. He's punched two cracked spots and sent some rippling cracks through the rest of the window. Well, that's just... painful and unnecessary, we see by the bleeding fists hanging at his side, the weird creepy blank face he has as he stares out the window. Oh and the blood on the window and his shoes. Is he supposed to be sympathetic in this picture? Am I supposed to care about Osborn? I sure hope not.
Ms. Unfortunately named Hand comes in and tells "Commander" Osborn that the inspection crew is here. He says to wait outside, which I'm not really sure why and then he goes with her to a green room as she explains that they've been doing evaluations of all Stark equipment that was there and checking operating data and it's turning up exactly... nada. Are we surprised? No. And any Stark information can't be obtained without... well we don't really know but Osborn cuts her off by saying he knows the legal hoops to obtaining said data. I assume now, she means warrants. He also wants the whole place recreated exactly at Thunderbolts mountain and wears his sunglasses at night... I guess. He's apparently in love with Stark's work here, because imitation is the highest form of flattery. That's sort of gay Osborn. I sense somewhere, some tiny corner of the internet a fangirl has begun shipping Osborn/Stark.
And he's going to crack Stark in two. Which, you know I'd like to see him try honestly. All of this, I remind you, over spilled champagne.
Some HAMMER toady comes in huffing that all the comms and stuff are still down, which Osborn knows silly pants, but they've found Hill. Osborn wants him to make it messy. Well, what a thing to say. She didn't spill the champagne. Guilt by association?
Georgetown, Washington DC
Speaking of Maria Hill, she's walking down the street to her apartment with her arms full of groceries. Narration tells us that she hasn't been there in about three months because well let's face it, if you work for Tony Stark, you work on his schedule. She's got too many keys. And she lives on the third story because she's a cheapskate and wants to save fifty bucks in exchange for more stairs. I know SHIELD pays better than that.
She opens the door as she says "Home sweet home" to be met by sight lasers hitting her chest and head. The guys I assume are from HAMMER SWAT division and have been taking wardrobe cues from Wesley Gibson back in Wanted, the comic not the movie. Even after leader of the SWAT tells her to stop, fair warning here, or he'll shoot, Maria decides to make a run for it, like any self-respecting moron would do. She runs, they fire. You were warned Maria. I sense the fans getting a bit excited that perhaps this is the last of Maria, but it's not. She some how manages to not be shot by several men with machine guns she's out maneuvered.
With a fire extinguisher. That's either really badass or proves just how stupid and lame the people who work for HAMMER are. Remember, Maria, these people probably once worked for you and Stark. Good training. She knocks one guy in the face with it, manages to some how get a hold of a hand gun and it's a typical action movie stance with the two of them standing with guns trained on each other. But, he's got back up so in this case, Maria is not going to win. She surrenders, drops the weapon and is going to do this calmly. She puts her hands behind her head...
And is struck in the head with the brunt of a hand gun. Come on guys, Maria's feisty but she was coming willingly. Bad form bad guys, bad form...oh yeah... bad guys. Never mind.
Art is apparently brought to you by Star Wars references because this craft they're using to take Maria in is oddly similar to crafts I've seen in those movies. But then again, since Larroca is probably tracing everything... I'm not surprised.
Maria wakes up on said craft and the guys are talking crap about her, and I think they're reporting to Ms. Hand. Their orders are to pop her. Maybe they aren't talking to Hand. Is that Fifty Cent on the other end of your communicator? Nice. Maria struggles, guy is just following orders right? Hmm.. we've talked about this recently. She kicks the guy in the face and his name is Steve. The pilot said so. Maria uses the chain on her cuffs to take the pilot and the craft down in the ocean. Where she unbelievably swims to safety. Really, I don't believe she survived that. Her hands are apparently no longer bound together. That's important to note.
Back where things are crazy...
Pepper and Tony work on a poorly drawn console, he's still hooked up to his octopus machine that will delete his brain. Pepper notes she's putting in the same questions that Maria was asked by the door when she tried to storm out dramatically. Tony is like, duh. Pepper offers this insight, and I thank her for it because it caused a dear friend of mine to name the machine he uses.
Pepper: "You routed the initiation sequence to gradually auto lobotomize yourself into a security pad. And made it so the only way Hill could leave was by initiating her portion."
I'm going to forgive her unnecessary recap of the previous pages of the comic to say this: Machine is now known as the auto-lobotomy suicide machine!
Tony: "You make it sound really... Machiavellian, but yeah, that's what I did. I set up a few extraordinary procedure protocols... that needed to be triggered by me and you and Hill, big decisions, important decisions."
Then this narration comes in, with a the panel of a scene where dear Tony in one of the more ancient models of the Iron Man slams into a wall and causes some serious damage to said wall, and probably himself. This is hilarious but has some narration that I think is just there to reiterate what a schwastey face booze hound Tony was before AA. It doesn't really seem to have anything to do with this situation really.. but he says:
I've done a lot of dumb things while drunk. Things that, but for the grace of God didn't kill anybody.
Although I'm unsure to why this was brought up, I do like this line. I think it says a lot about Tony's feelings on himself and the behavior he once engaged in during the... drunk years... and most of his life. It's a good insight to the fact that alcoholism is Tony Stark's scarlet letter.
He tells Pepper that he's smart enough to set up decision-execution that is smarter than he is by relying on her. He wanted them to be at his side when he made the decisions because they are the people he trusts most in the world. Pepper excepts this. It's a nice sentiment. Here's the thing, people. I get that you might not like that Tony trusts Maria because of various behaviors she exhibited during the Civil War. But at the end of the day, when the chips are down you have to trust the people that have been loyal to you and are still in your corner. Maria, while her motives might have been somehow questionable, has been steadfast by Tony's side (even if they didn't always agree) since he took over Director of SHIELD. She's proven herself to Stark and as a man who's dealt with politicians he knows that loyalty is a commodity that is hard to come by legitimately.
They keep working. Tony gets another little jolty jolt and Pepper is surprised and a bit upset. And that's the game people. He's done. There were no fireworks because he says they should save them for a celebration.
Pepper: "So... so what comes next? You just wait for your brain to forget to breathe?"
Tony, cups Pepper's cheek and avoids the question with this:
Tony: "Well, good news and bad news. At Long Island there are papers waiting for you to sign. I've abdicated my role as CEO of Stark and I've nominated you to replace me. Congrats, Pep. You're the boss. Now the bad news: Stark is a dying concern. I've ordered the place shut down. You could reverse the decision, I suppose, but you shouldn't. I need you to be there to put her down, Pep."
Pepper returns the gesture as a somber looking Antonio Holloway Tony looks about ready to crack. It's a sad moment, despite the horrible art. Stark is shutting down his life's work, his family's company. This time, he's really losing it and there isn't shit he can do about it.
Pepper: "Tony-- is it really that grim?"
Tony: "Pep, we got blown up by Stane and then monsters from outer space made every piece of our technology fail in the middle of an interstellar invasion. And then Norman Osborn saved the world while I clearly did not. It's grim. C'mon, the sooner you sign the papers, the sooner--"
Pepper: "Tony."
Tony: "--Pepper, don't--"
Pepper: "I'm not going to leave until you tell me what you're doing. What about you? What. Comes. Next?"
If the art were better, Tony standing there in the skin tight gold shiny suit would turn me on... that nicely sculpted body is delicious looking as they stand an arms length apart and she holds his hand.
Tony: "If you don't know what I'm doing, you won't have to lie about what I'm doing when Norman Osborn deposes you."
Pepper: "I... I just can't believe this is it."
This next panel might spark some controversy. I like it, personally. Tony and Pepper share a kiss. It's not a make out, it's not a sloppy pin on the wall and fuck you blind kiss. It's a simple, sweet, friendly good-bye kiss. These two have had feelings for each other in the past but I really think that neither of them are interested in rekindling the never quite realized flame here at the end of the world. It's just a simple, good-bye because they may never see each other again.
Tony hugs Pepper, who is literally now fighting the urge to crumble.
Pepper: "Godspeed, Tony Stark."
Tony: "Godspeed, Pepper Potts."
I won't lie to you, I was teary eyed the first time I read that.
Thunderbolts Mountain!
Norman Osborn has a press conference. Awesome. He's introduced by Ms. Hand to talk to the press. Behind him will eventually be mug shot photos of Tony, which I don't know how he obtained considering Tony was never caught by him and hasn't been really, arrested before. Same picture from the cover art. Whatever. This is what happens on the next couple pages. Sadly, it's important so I have to type Osborn word for word after the brief paraphrasing.
Blah blah blah Osborn is a a man of action and he'd rather just take up fisticuffs with Tony and hates talking to the media. He's not in charge of SHIELD and that crap and Ms Hand supposedly found some wonderful memo... blah blah blah he is very boring.
Osborn: We've found what indicated as SHIELD Executive Memo #262. It gives us reason to believe Tony Stark aka Iron Man and his right hand woman Maria Hill, had not just reasonable suspicion but actionable intelligence suggesting the Skrull invasion was imminent. And clearly they did nothing to prevent it or stop it. In fact the executive memo indicates Stark and Hill sought to negotiate... for earth's safety. As you might imagine, getting to the bottom of this is taking some doing, but we have crack HAMMER data forensics trams working around the clock... to determine what Stark and Hill knew and when they knew it. In the meanwhile... I'm making Tony Stark HAMMER's number one priority. I'm asking Tony Stark and Maria Hill to turn themselves in immediately for questioning. In fact, before coming out here to address you I received word that Hill, Stark's current head of security, fled arrest in Georgetown."
Cut to Tony who is working on an old armor while watching this crap play out on the TV.
Obsorn: "So we're considering them both flight risks. Of course, we expected them to flee, but HAMMER believes everyone is innocent until proven guilty."
Tony: "I'll be damned."
Obsorn through the TV: We'll be training every HAMMER Security camera, every CCTV cam at traffic lights and ATMs, every traffic helicopter... soon every eye in the world will be on the lookout for Tony Stark."
LOL Tony, you pwned.
Door opens. Shadow of someone coming in.
Voice: "Tony, it's--"
Tony flips around with repulsor ready to shoot the intruder on his solitude. He blasts at...
Maria Hill.
Tony barks at her about almost incinerating her. She fills him in on where she's been, still cuffed now... (continuity error here, because when she cam out of the water she wasn't) and says that he was right. Tony is always right you silly people. She wants to know what's next. We'll find out, in the next issue Maria, just like you will. For now..
Final page:
Stark on the wall. Osborn on the TV. Pepper Potts sits in Tony's office, signing papers as they are handed to her by three men in suits. She's in tears.
Continued in Invincible Iron Man #10
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