Iron Man 25, Captain America 20, Captain Marvel 3

Iron Man 25
Gillen (w) and Ross (a) and Guru eFX (c) and Caramagna (l)

Tony Stark is not happy. However, he's now not happy and also armed in actual iron, ready to tear through some dark elves. Though the elves put on quite a tough front, Tony slaughters them pretty ably. He manages to take back the Lightning ring (he's already taken Incandescence) and then gets to Malekith himself, eventually besting him and taking back the Remaker ring. Malekith flees but Tony isn't satisfied, following him back to his throne. However, there are surprises for everyone when the other Mandarins are revealed, all united to teach Mandarin a thing or two (they are Alec Eiffel, Thomas Wilkins, Colin Anderson Sixty, Unknown [he wields the liar ring], Victor Kohl, and, of course, Mole Man).

Story
Tony wastes no time in taking it to Malekith in a book that really shows off the sort of power that an enraged Tony Stark can have. Of course, Gillen's setting us up for the bigger fight, wherein Tony fights a more organized and more dangerous and less weak-to-iron force, so it's great to see him so strong in this issue, beating up pretty much every dark elf in the realm and taking back three of the four rings Mandarin has (Mandarin reclaims the Spectral ring when he returns to his throne but it needs full recharge time, don't think that we've seen the last of it). And now, perhaps most impressively, all the rings are in the same place for what promises to be an impressive final fight. 5/5

Character
The biggest character stuff comes out of Tony's anger and out of Shevaun's frustration with him as she tries to advise him at every turn to find his way back home and he declines at every turn. There's character in all of that and character in the way Tony fights and the fight intelligence he has even when he's been driven to anger (typically when strong characters are prone to mistakes). It's also a bit of a strange character issue for Malekith, who gets thoroughly beaten but turns to fear a little faster than I'd've expected (unless, of course, this is some weird situation where Malekith wanted to lure the other rings here in which case his plan is tenuous). 4/5

Writing
Gillen clearly relishes writing the dark elves, with their menacing and old-timey threats and their disregard for human emotion. The tone of the book works pretty well as it never really feels, once the fighting starts, like Tony's not in control. He very much dominates the fight, which is, I think, exactly what Gillen needs right now. Still, some of the writing feels a little cut down, which I think is partly done for humor (the abruptness of cutting down some of the Svatalfheimian dialogue) but some of it still comes off as choppy. 4/5

Art
Luke Ross continues to do impressive work with the art here and Guru's colors continue to really shape the tone and the feel of the book. Ross draws excellent people and elves and still manages to make a menacing Iron Man, which is always an impressive thing. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Another Del Mundo cover as Marvel clearly understands what they have in him.

Total Score: 4/5


Captain America 20
Remender (w) and Klein (a) and White (c) and Caramagna (l)

Cap's been mindbubbled and BOY is it depressing. He "wakes up" (guys, I could put quotation marks throughout this whole section and frankly, I'm not above doing that, but I WON'T) in a SHIELD hospital wondering whether or not his ongoing fight is worth it only to find his "family" all around him. This includes Fury and Hill but also Bucky, Falcon, and Jet. Banner and Pym also enter the room to say they went to Dimension Z to make sure there was nothing else that could trigger the virus in Cap and found instead that Ian alive and well and brought him out and that the Sharon who died had been an LMD while the real one went deep undercover. As a parade for Cap rages outside, Cap realizes what's happening and throws himself off the balcony, waking him from the Mindbubble (this was the suicide Jet told him he needed to break out) and putting him directly up against Iron Nail and Mindbubble himself. As Jet arrives and begins to fight Iron Nail,  bounces his shield into Mindbubble's dumb, jerk face and makes him freak out, sprinting off the helicarrier and presumably to his death. However, Steve soon learns he may be too late as Nail reveals that he's pinned the attack on SHIELD on Nrosvekistan and that now the world will watch in horror as SHIELD retaliates with the transformer-like Gungnir, a huge overreaction to any perceived attacks. The world will see SHIELD as the overstepping, incredibly dangerous and unregulated army it is.

Story
Guys, I'm not sure I can do this justice. Poor Steve has the absolute worst life. It's super depressing and you know it's happening the whole time and you can only watch as poor Steve slowly figures it out. Iron Nail's plan is an intriguing one as it involves just doing what SHIELD is already so good at doing: overreacting. Iron Nail continues to be an interesting villain as he more or less raises a lot of questions that Steve himself has had over the years but does it in such a way that obviously Steve can't help but fight him. It's a really compelling story and one that perfectly works to Captain America. 5/5

Character
Poor Steve. 5/5

Writing
I'm not sure why Remender enjoys being so mean to Captain America but it's pretty effective. As I said, everyone reading should know that Cap's in his mindbubble but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking. I got a little nervous that maybe Remender would spend the whole time in the mindbubble and nothing else would happen in the issue until the last second reveal that he was there but Remender gave the audience the benefit of the doubt and let us get right back into the story after what seemed like the perfect amount of time. 5/5

Art
Really strong art from Nic Klein here and Dean White's colors are perfect, really relaxing in the mindbubble and then jarringly dark back on the Gungnir. Klein's art really highlights just how sad Steve is. 5/5

Miscellaneous
I DON'T LIKE SEEING STEVE SO SAD, OKAY? That sentiment, though, may perhaps be interpreted differently considering the overall score of this one.

Total Score: 5/5


Captain Marvel 3
DeConnick (w) and D. Lopez (a) and Loughridge (c) and Caramagna (l)

Tic has stolen Captain Marvel's ship (and her cat along with it) and Carol is now worried about where she'll go with it, concerned both for Tic's safety and for her ship's (and her cat's, inexplicably). Fortunately for her, Tic is really concerned with attacking the son of J-Son, so she comes right on back, dropping in and out of hyperdrive (which shows pretty good strategy) and attacking quickly. Carol's pretty sick of it though and stops her as she attacks one of the times. She gets back into the ship, using her helmet to override the ship's commands and let her back in. She and Star-Lord convince Tic that J-Son wouldn't care about the capture of his son and that, likely, the Spartax didn't try to poison her new home planet. Carol returns her to her people and offers her assistance, though quickly realizes that maybe she's out of her depth a bit.

Story
Carol's out in space and, though I worried last issue about her involvement with the Guardians of the Galaxy because I feared it would take the focus too much off of the amazing work DeConnick has done to establish Carol as a great character (particularly now that she's lost her memories), it's shaping up to be a fairly personal story. Obviously we'll get more of Tic and her people but there's a lot happening to let us see more about Carol. She's offered herself to Tic's people in the hopes that she'll be able to assist them but has quickly learned that she's a bit out of her element which will help to establish who she is and how she deals with the sorts of problems she can't punch away. 5/5

Character
Carol's concern for Tic, the girl she hadn't even spoken to until she stole her ship, says a lot about her character, as does her willingness to throw herself into a ship that keeps going in and out of hyperdrive to get her ship back and to help the girl. She also very quickly realizes that the leader of Tic's people sees her as more a hindrance than a help but she's determined to prove her worth and save these people, no matter what it takes. It's about proving worth but it's also very clearly just about wanting to help and that speaks volumes. 5/5

Writing
I think the move to get Carol away from the Guardians, despite the good fit for the team and for her, is a strong move for DeConnick and one she knew she had to make, just as Gillen knew he had to separate Tony from the Guardians in IRON MAN when they teamed up. There's a lot happening in this book and we're getting a sense of some interstellar politics and alien cultures but it never feels overwhelming, which is definitely to the book's credit. 5/5

Art
I still really like David Lopez's art on the interiors of this book and I think that it's particularly well-suited to the kind of calm in this issue after the initial action (the action was pretty strong too but he does emotions and stillness really well too, which is impressive for a comic book artist who knows he'll have to draw so much action. 5/5

Miscellaneous
After really disliking the last cover, I really love this one. What a turnaround!

Total Score: 5/5