Iron Man 12
Gillen (w) and Eaglesham (a) and Guru eFX (c)
The secret origin of Tony Stark has almost been completely revealed but there's still the matter of how his father managed to steal 451 from some violent aliens and live. That part of the story involves Howard calling his little team back together, which includes Dum Dum Dugan, Jimmy Woo, Thunderbolt Ross, the Bear, and Nessa the Kitten, and forcing the Greys to give up their search for the alien while also making sure they don't inform anyone else in the universe about the creation of Tony. Howard's team takes out the leadership of the Greys with everyone playing their roles (though the Bear loses her two dogs). 451 tells Howard that it was the only way and that they can just leave the underlings alive, as they won't have any loyalty to anyone now that their boss is dead and that they probably don't know much anyway. Despite this comfort talk, 451 secretly blows up the Greys' ship as it breaks orbit, leaving a recorded message for them that insists he's sorry and that this was a necessity. Howard returns home to find that Maria is having the baby. Back in the present, Tony now needs to understand why all of this has been revealed. 451 relates a war that was held between Celestials and "those who would oppose them" which led to the creation of certain weapons that 451 feels could serve as a universal nuclear deterrent for Earth. For the completion of these weapons, he needed the Heart of the Voldi and a pilot, which he found in Tony. He deems it a happy accident that the creation of Tony ended up leaving him with a penchant for exoskeletons as that's what this new weapon is. He shows the plans to Tony and reveals that this weapon is an exoskeleton five miles tall.
There's a lot of interesting stuff here and a bit of fun stuff seeing Howard's crew again and with Tony talking about Thor as a nuclear deterrent. More importantly, there are a lot of shady details now as 451 approaches his actual goal (having Tony pilot the Godkiller, as it's referred). 451 has revealed all sorts of different new facts to Tony throughout this story, possibly concealing things but never really concealing anything major (unless, of course, he's lying about it all). Suddenly, though, he's not telling who rose up against the Celestials and he's calling it "neat" that Tony has a drive to work with exoskeletons and not "hey I planned that because I found this weapon hundreds of years ago and I created you 30-40 years ago." I'm not saying that's definitely what's happening but I'm not going to not that either. Very fun book.
Red She-Hulk 67
Parker (w) and Pagulayan, Olliffe, and Alves (a) and Major (c)
The phenomenal book that is Red She-Hulk finishes this issue as X-51 and She-Hulk try to convince Betty that their world is real and that she's not dreaming up all of the things she's felt recently, still stuck in the parallel world (deemed 616.1) where she was the only Hulk. General Fortean and his troops have followed the She-Hulks and X-51 through the portal to try to apprehend Betty and have brought all the Hulk dampeners and other toys they've come up with. When She-Hulk gets in the way, they revert her back to Jennifer Walters, who is far less useful in this fight. X-51 saves her, able to justify it through his 616.1 programming by viewing her as a human now. He's able to override his programming again (which dictates that Thor is the biggest superhuman target in this fight) and attack Betty, allowing her to punch him back through the portal, where he breaks through the new programming. Neither he nor She-Hulk (nor Swamp Thing, for that matter) can re-enter the portal, though X-51 is able to shoot through it and they're all able to be viewed in the portal and heard from the other side. X-51 saves Betty by shooting out one of Fortean's men's bot but isn't able to stop them all as Fortean himself descends on Betty. In the 616.1 timeline, though, Fortean and Bruce Banner have an arrangement that this Fortean is inadvertently going against, angering Bruce and making him realize that he's upset with the way things have worked out with Betty. He saves her by shutting down Fortean's armor. Betty sees X-51 and She-Hulk through the portal and realizes that maybe there's more to the dreams she's been having than meets the eye. Bruce tries to convince her to stay but she makes it through the portal, gaining back all of her memories. She turns back to grab Fortean and bring him back into 616 prime, preferring not to pawn him off on that world. Tesla, who had previously networked with X-51 and had been hiding out in his AI, appears to reveal that Eleanor is perfectly fine and leads them to her (a little reluctantly) before offering Betsy a job with his people, which X-51 decides would be nice for her as it's good at hiding wanted people and supplying new adventures and missions at an unhealthy rate. The last panel, a half-page spread, shows the two She-Hulks, X-51, Swamp Thing, and Tesla together as Red promises to build a new team to prepare for the future. The end...?
I will, admittedly, be very excited if this leads to another new series about Red She-Hulk and X-51 working with Tesla though I'd be a little bit nervous that Jeff Parker wouldn't be the writer on it, which would be a shame since he's constructed this book so well and defined the relationship between the two leads so wonderfully. Speaking of Jeff Parker, there are a number of sketches at the back of the issue that he drew for reference for his artists, as an artist himself. It's pretty interesting and it's very cool to see how his vision of the scene changed when in the artist's hands. I'm very sad that the book is over but it ended well, giving us more of what we've come to expect and a nice little final arc for both of our heroes as Red She-Hulk breaks away from the other world and is able to find Eleanor and put Fortean behind her and as X-51 uses the flaws in his programming to his advantage. It's a satisfying ending to a great series that had no right being as fun as it was.
X-Men Legacy 13
Spurrier (w) and Huat and Yeung (a) and Villarrubia (c)
This issue breaks from the normal Legacy format by taking the narrator reins from David and handing them over to MI13's Pete Wisdom. Wisdom has his hands full with a visiting nation's leader (who is racist, homophobic, anti-mutant, etc.) and protests spawned from all of that and more. He also has found that David is visiting London, which has him more anxious than ever. He's been trailing David through the city to try to keep tabs on him. He's kept abreast of David's exploits and has determined that David is only more dangerous right now, as he's gotten the use of his powers back but seems unsure of what he should be doing with them. To boot, he also seems like he's lonely lately, edging closer and closer to team-ups. This makes it even more worrying for Wisdom when he enters a bar he's spotted David going into and stumbles across Chamber, Pixie, Psylocke, Alchemy, Liam Connaughton, and Lila Cheney with David. However, he's assured by them that they have no intent to help David; in fact, they've all come simply to tell him they want no part in a team-up. David is shaken by this, feeling like he's doing the right thing and that he's proved himself and, more importantly, knowing that he needs help for what's to come. Pete goes back out to the streets and runs across a slew of English villains including Warwolves, Dolph, and Plotka. He also susses out Blindfold lurking around and helping him to fight and he starts accusing her of helping David to start all of this. She denies and promises that he isn't doing this, that it's far beyond anything he would do. As more attacks start, she gets less and less confident and Wisdom eventually doubles back to the bar to check in on David, where he finds he is behind everything and, more heinously, is controlling all the people Wisdom found before. David continually says it's not what it seems and that it's all for the best and so on and so forth but Wisdom cannot believe him, choosing instead to blow fire through David's face.
It's a very interesting issue as we've pulled the narration away from David to conceal whatever his true motives are. He claims that he needs everyone to help him and that this really will help everyone so much but he's lonely and doesn't quite understand team-ups so it's hard to view this in a manner that's entirely wholesome, which is pretty true whenever anyone is being mind-controlled, really. We've come to love and trust David throughout the course of the series but it's hard to view this without suspicion and worry about our protagonist. Again, it's a very interesting choice to have Wisdom narrate and to keep David from revealing whatever his plan is and what is happening in his head right now. Wisdom's narration is solid and plays equal parts bitter Brit and dedicated MI13 worker, as he oscillates between his own cynicism and a vast knowledge of the super-powered community and their recent exploits. It works perfectly for the character and gives a good sense of who he is and what matters to him, even as he's acting a little bit less responsible and more goofy over in Gambit, a less responsible and more goofy book. Another great issue for the series.
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