Journey into Mystery 652, Iron Man 258.3

Journey into Mystery 652
K. Immonen (w) and Schiti (a) and Bellaire (c)

For whatever reason, I tend not to clump this book among my favorites. Part of that I would have to attribute to the fact that I have so many books I'm a bit in love with right now. The other part might be that it hasn't really blown me away in any issue so far. It could still have something to do with the fact that my mind tends to seize up a little around Asgard stuff; there's a lot of history there and I don't know huge swaths of it, even considering how much I do know and that frustrates me. However, when we get right down to it, I love this book because of the way Immonen treats Sif. Immonen clearly has a perfect picture of the way she wants her main character to be presented and the way that Sif deserves to be presented. She's still undeniably Asgardian but she is her own Asgardian. She still has all the same warrior tendencies and the same bafflement at Earth qualities but she has such a clearly defined voice aside from all of those rather defined traits. If you're looking for a book with an interesting character and a good place to read character, you could do far worse than this one. As that is something I'm usually looking for, I tend to enjoy this book throughout then forget about it when I'm choosing favorites. So it goes.

Gaea, one of the Asgardia all-mothers, has taken ill and no one knows what to do about it. She's, as you might assume, the all-mother tied to nature so the Asgardians are particularly nervous about what this could mean. They also have no idea how to heal her. Sif goes to Broxton to talk to Jane Foster and see if humans have any sort of thoughts on this and Jane recommends quarantining and observing Gaea and her garden. Tony Stark offers an asteroid that he has marked as a place where they could quarantine her. Sif volunteers to take care of it and watch her out there but, when they get there, they get a call from Beta Ray Bill asking them to quickly evacuate the base because he and his ship Skuttlebutt are in pursuit of a ship that's set to crash on the asteroid, a ship that is being driven by Bill's ex-girlfriend. There's a lot of fun dialogue throughout the issue and Sif and Bill's relationship is already looking like a fun one, so it'll be good to see their interplay throughout the arc. Just a really fun book with a very strong central character.

Iron Man 258.3
Michelinie (w) and Ross and Layton (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Entity is planning to kill both Iron Man and Justin Hammer, as Tony figured out last issue, so Iron Man goes to warn and protect Hammer of the impending attack. He gets there and is attacked by Hammer's defenses before being able to relay the message. As Hammer disengages his own attack, Entity sends in a squad of SHIELD Mandroids that he's hacked and a squad of Dreadnoughts to kill the pair. Iron Man is able to hold them all off long enough for Hammer to use his emergency escape ship to launch off to his space satellite. With Hammer clear of his island, Tony blows the whole place up to disable the Mandroids and Dreadnoughts. As they regroup, Tony heads for the satellite. His suit, though, isn't particularly made for space travel and he finds himself running low on oxygen as he reaches Hammer, who decides not to open the door for him, preferring to rid the world of Iron Man while he has the chance. Meanwhile, Rhodey has been trapped in Stark's underground computer base by the Entity and looks for a way out. He finds a new suit that looks like the War Machine suit (I don't know where exactly this series falls in continuity as it pertains to Rhodey and War Machine) which he determines isn't connected to the computer system, so it's free of Entity's influence. However, the last time Rhodey was in a suit was a pretty traumatic experience so he has to will himself into the suit, which he does to escape and try to help Tony.

Big ol' fight scenes permeate through this issue but not a ton else. There's not a giant focus on advancing the plot behind the fact that now Hammer seems to know Entity is after him and Rhodey is in a suit and on his way to help Tony. By and large, though, the issue spends its time with explosions and Tony narrating how he's going to defeat his various foes. Makes it a little tricky to delve into the plot and the characters when there isn't much to say. Oh well. Next issue is prime for some plot to happen, I suppose.