Iron Man 8, Nova 3

Iron Man 8
Gillen (w) and Land and Leisten (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Tony Stark, now fighting Death's Head in the Voldi gladiatorial arena to clear himself of charges brought against him after he killed their god, the Phoenix, has run into a bit of trouble. The rules of the contest are that you have to fight naturally, so no technology for Tony. However, Death's Head is the Voldi's ringer; his "natural" is still pretty much a giant robot, only one who isn't allowed to use rocket launchers and flamethrowers. While Tony gets pummeled by him, the mysterious robotic watcher 451, who had orchestrated the plan for Tony to use the trial-by-combat clause hidden away in Voldi law, finds the Iron Man suit and sends it, with PEPPER, to Tony. However, 451 has his own designs, stealing a cloaking device ship called "the Heart" that the Voldi had in their protection. As PEPPER meets up with Tony and he takes off out of the arena, tailed by drones who now charge him as guilty for fleeing, the Celestials show up at the Voldi's home and destroy the whole thing. Tony tries to turn around and go back, but he is contacted by 451, who tells him it's too late. 451 reveals that this was the plan all along, for him to steal the Heart, which would result in the genocide of the Voldi but which would also allow him to save far more people than were lost, if we're believing him at this point. Tony is furious and knows that he's complicit in this. He vows to make 451 pay.
It's another strong issue from Gillen as the newest Iron Man iteration pushes on. Putting him in space continues to be a solid idea, as it puts Tony on new ground where he doesn't know the answer to everything and he can't be charged with understanding the ways certain cultures work. There would have been no way for him to know that the Voldis were using the Heart to protect themselves from the Celestials, nor even that the Heart was valuable. In this strange and foreign land, all he knows is that he's the enemy, so when 451 extends a friendly hand it's hard not to take it. Should he have been a little more suspicious of 451? Maybe. But if he didn't get 451's advice, he likely would have died anyway and 451 could have still gotten the Heart and destroyed the Voldi. Still, putting Tony out of his comfort zone pays off. The writing continues to be pretty fresh and snappy, alternating between fun and serious seamlessly as it needs to. Gillen is one of the best in the business at the emotional turn-on-a-dime kind of writing. It has the kind of Dr. Who feel, in that Tony can be laughing and enjoying himself and quipping and snarking one minute, then you can see the anger or the sadness build up in him. It's well done and it's a good personality for Tony, who is often (especially with Robert Downey Jr.'s somewhat re-invented Stark) hiding a bunch of emotions under a facade of humor. Strong series, excited to see where it goes next with two arcs down and one story just beginning.

Nova 3
Loeb (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

The story continues as Sam Alexander has a very one-sided conversation with the Watcher about what's happening. The Watcher doesn't respond, but points off in the distance. Sam can't see anything, so Watcher shows what it is he's looking at through his own eyes. It's a fleet of ships heading towards Earth. Sam has no idea what to do with this information and so returns home. At home, Rocket Raccoon and Gamora show up again to Sam's displeasure, but he learns some valuable information, as do they. He tells them about the fleet heading that way and they tell him that he's going to have to go to war. They also tell him that his father was the one who sent the helmet back with Rocket, though they don't tell what happened to his father, exactly. Furthermore, they claim that Richard Rider (the other Nova in Marvel) has sacrificed himself. When they learn that he saw the fleet, they determine that he's not going to actually be in the war (at least immediately) but that he'll be a scout instead. The Nova armor will allow him to space jump to where the fleet is and he'll be able to watch their movements and report how many ships there are. There's a brief training section wherein Sam gets beat about by Rocket and Gamora for a while before he learns about this enemy. It's the Chitauri, famous from last year's The Avengers. Fair, whatever. I think they'd only really appeared in the Ultimates universe as a sort of Skrull offshoot before the movie. If we're going to bring Coulson into regular Marvel continuity, we might as well bring the Chitauri as well. Rocket reveals that the Chitauri are a warrior race who only seeks destruction. They intend to destroy Earth because Earth is a constant pain in every intergalactic warrior race's neck. Whenever some kind of war starts, it's someone from Earth who manages to stop it. It's a bit of a funny, if true, explanation of why the Chitauri hate Earth and feels, though I might be reading into it too much, like it's Marvel poking fun at itself a bit. The idea that someone from Earth always stops these giant plans, a kind of ridiculous idea when it's boiled down, isn't any less true anywhere in Marvel. Anyway, Sam eventually space jumps to where they are (he speculates Jupiter) but he lands directly in front of them, which is not a great place for a scout. The Chitauri fire on him as the issue ends.
I think this book has an interesting place to go but I'm not sure how successfully it will get there. I personally have not really felt an attachment to Sam, whose only real redeeming qualities in the first few issues were that he loved and took care of his dad and family. Even that, though, is tinged with the teenage angst of being angry with his family. This is still only issue three so be sure that there is PLENTY of time for more nice qualities to come out about Sam, but at the moment I'm not feeling particularly concerned about him, which is a problem since the next issue will likely focus on him being in peril. Also, though Rocket and Gamora have appeared in the last two issues (appeared in all three, but had actual lines in the last two), neither has felt particularly defined in the context of this series. Rocket is angry and Gamora...sometimes has lines? I don't know, she hasn't really had much to do. A lot of plot has happened so there hasn't been a ton of time for character development and, like I said, we're only three issues into the series. These are concerns that require some attention all the same, so we'll have to see more movement on those fronts before falling in with this book.