“Yesterday’s” Comic> Iron Man vol 3 #57

This may be the worst armor design yet.

Iron Man volume 3 #57

Marvel Comics (September, 2002)

“Sympathy For The Devil” part 2

WRITER: Mike Grell

PENCILER: Michael Ryan

INKER: Sean Parsons

COLORIST: Arsia Rozegar

LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Marc Sumerak & Andy Schmidt

EDITOR: Tom Brevoort

Tony’s fantasy is interrupted when Rumiko unplugs him, since he’s been in recharge for about an hour. It’s Ty, finding a way to hook Dreamvision to the power grid to infect Tony again. Iron Man heads to Viastone to confront Ty only to find he’s hitting Iron Man with a mix of illusions and reality, even turning the building into something out of Ghostbusters. This is bad news for Rumiko when she arrives, trapped in the elevator but is it another trick or is she really plummeting to her doom while Iron Man fights not-RoboCop 2?

What they got right: Okay, so I can take back one comment from the previous issue in that the recharge wasn’t a painful experience, but in my defense it didn’t look like a cliffhanger, despite being part one of three. Still credit where it’s due. Ty’s also behind the Pepper fantasy. The design of the Dreamvisioned Viastone building is fittingly creepy. The science may be dodgy but that’s nothing new for superhero comics.

What they got wrong: I can’t think of anything off-hand. It’s rare I get to do that.

Recommendation: Outside of dropping Tony’s secret identity and continuing to harp on a Tony/Pepper connection this fixes the problems I had with the previous issue (outside of why Rumiko is back so easily but I can overlook that). This might be one to check out if the finale holds up.