Captain America 21, Black Widow 7, Iron Man 27

Captain America 21
Remender (w) and Klein (a) and White (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Gungnir has fully deployed, turning into a giant robot over the small country of Nrosvekistan in Iron Nail's attempt to show SHIELD and America tyrannically and devastatingly eliminating an underpowered enemy. With Mindbubble out of play, the SHIELD agents onboard have started to wake up, though they're groggy from their time mindbubbled. Captain America continues to fight Iron Nail and manages to stall him a bit, enough for Maria Hill to tell him that he needs to destroy the Gungnir's power core. Cap races down, pursued by the Iron Nail, and weak and injured, manages to make one last throw to send his shield caroming into the power core and shutting down the Gungnir. Iron Nail manages to get some of his weapons into Cap, draining him of his life force and aging him incredibly before Falcon arrives to save him, though it affords the Nail a chance set the Gungnir to destroy, hoping to take everyone down with him. Falcon pulls Cap out as Ran Shen is engulfed in flames but  it may be too late for Steve, who recovers in a hospital bed old and frail.

There's a lot of strong character work in this book as Steve pulls himself together for a final attempt at shutting down the Gungnir. He yells at himself for letting this all happen on his watch, for not seeing that Nuke was clearly a part of a bigger scheme, and for losing himself in thoughts about Dimension Z when it was already past, that he would mourn his past while he lost his present. Poor Steve is just about the only guy whose gone through that sort of thing TWICE and now he's here and upset with himself for being sad about it. He remembers his role as the super soldier, as Captain America, the guy who gets the privilege of wearing the uniform, as he continues to push himself and continues to stand. It's meaningful and hopeful and restorative right up until the moment when Iron Nail ages him up (hard to say if it's aging him up or extracting the super soldier serum from him, all possible, though I don't know that the latter would age him so incredibly). It's a strong finish to the Iron Nail's arc and it's certainly going to leave plenty of story pieces to pick up as we move forward.

Total Score: 5/5


Black Widow 7
Edmondson (w) and Noto (a and c) and Cowles (l)

Black Widow's new target, a group of cyberterrorists, are making a buy in San Francisco, new home to former lover and ally Daredevil. Natasha remembers her days with Daredevil in San Francisco, where she walked the line between contract killer and hero and where he could read her like everyone else. She takes out the seller and poses as him to try to make the drop but she's found out quickly and ends up in a rooftop chase with a sniper who tried to take her out. She catches up with him and holds him at gunpoint, trying to get more information out of him but he doesn't know enough. Before anything else comes of it, Daredevil appears and intercedes, telling Natasha that he'll make sure the authorities take the sniper. He tells her to leave San Francisco as he cannot read her heartbeat any more, meaning he doesn't know if he can trust her and his job is to protect the city.

As Isaiah hopes for Natasha to make some friends, Natasha finds that maybe she's lost one of her oldest. It's a poignant and meaningful story and rather heartbreaking. It's the first time we've seen Natasha as she's viewed in the superhero community and the first time we've seen her in this series outside of her own bubble, where we know what she's doing and we root for her because she's our protagonist. Now Daredevil steps in and tells us that maybe Natasha's role isn't so sacred. There's a flashback to kick this one off as Natasha, years ago in San Francisco, lies to Matt about a job she's just done and he tries to get her to reconsider her jobs. Juxtaposed with this story where Matt can't afford to give her the benefit of the doubt, it's a little painful to watch. It also pretty starkly gives us the contrast between the Natasha of then (someone trying to shelve her killer past) to now (someone trying to atone for sins but unafraid to kill, which puts her at odds with so many heroes, including Daredevil). On top of ALL OF THAT, we get a bit more on Isaiah, a former mob man who somehow got himself and his sister out and believes himself indebted to Natasha, despite his sister's protests. Really excellent writing in this one and some of the best character work I've seen a single issue do. Oh, and Phil Noto is still on this book so it continues to be outstanding art.

Total Score: 5/5


Iron Man 27
Gillen (w) and C. Richards and J. Bennett (p) and Hanna (i) and Guru eFX (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Stark brothers have made their own ring and know at least some of the plans of the current Mandarins. All they need is someone who has interfaced with these rings to put their plan of taking down the Mandarins in action. That, of course, leads them to Abigail Burns, the Red Peril (I want everyone to know, right here and now, that I almost called her "Abigail Brand, the Red Fury" but DIDN'T EVEN STUMBLE because I knew how wrong that was and instantly course corrected both words. I wish I could also say I didn't look it up afterwards to be sure but I'm not that self-secure), who needs convincing but agrees when she learns that Nazi Alec Eiffel is one of the ring-bearers and she wants to stomp a Nazi. With her help, the Starks manage to find and take down the Mandarins pretty handily, except for the so-far-unrevealed Liar, who reveals himself to be Marc Kumar, PR person for Stark and fiancee to Pepper Potts (who can't have anything nice). Oh, and speaking of Pepper Potts, Marc has her hostage and forces Tony to a standstill.

There's a lot happening here to explain the rings and the Starks' methods for bringing them down and Iron Metropolitan (which is a full battlesuit and which is activated to stop Mole Man and his pals) which rather slows this issue down. It's a lot of exposition and a lot of soft science from all angles (we have to talk about the rings, about the plans that each known Mandarin has, about the way to stop them, about tech vs. magic, etc.) but I don't know that there's a better way to do this. I think if you stretch this issue out into two it doesn't work and I think if you sprinkle this sort of exposition across books, you forget the relevant parts by the time we reach the showdown. Gillen has sprinkled in some of this information already but it really is a bit of an information dump here (which is rare from Gillen) and it's a little hard to get through at times. Not a bad book by any stretch but certainly not as impressive as I'd like from this typically top-notch book.

Total Score: 3/5