Invincible Iron Man is a 2022 comic book series by Marvel Comics, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Juan Frigeri.
In the wake of the Dan Slott and Christopher Cantwell eras of Iron Man, ol' Shellhead has had better days. Tony's gotten out of the big tech game and relinquished his majority stock shares in Stark Industries. He's also downsized his real estate holdings and Hall of Armors to a single brownstone and suit of armor. His fortune has been all but spent acquiring the last of the Stark weapons still scattered across the globe and keeping them out of the wrong hands. Right now, his biggest challenge is trying to figure out how to write his memoirs.
But while Tony Stark may be out of the game, the game is most certainty not done with the Armored Avenger.
His former company and technologies are now in the sights of Feilong, a hostile Chinese industrialist and current thorn in the side of the Mutants of Krakoa.
And there is a new, unknown rival out there — someone with a serious grudge, who can hack Tony's technology, and who is now trying very hard to frame Iron Man for murder...
The first issue was published in December 2022.
Invincible Iron Man (2022) provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: In-universe example. At the Hellfire Gala, Feilog chastises Tony and the Avengers for abandoning the partial terraforming of Mars back during The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman). This ends up being part of the root of his grudge against Tony. Feilong blames Tony for the Mutants terraforming Mars, feeling Tony "betrayed" humanity.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: A variation. Feilong intends to achieve a hostile takeover of Stark Industries and begin mass-manufacturing Sentinels based on the Iron Man technology.
- This trope is also what allows Tony to deduce in issue #2 the campaign being waged against him is probably coming from the corporate sector rather than the villain community. Tony's problems and the ripple effect on Stark Unlimited's stock (even though Tony divested himself of his shares during the Slott era) are all classic corporate techniques for weakening a rival company as a prelude to a hostile takeover. This also isn't the first time someone's tried this approach with Tony either (ex. Obadiah Stane, Justin Hammer, etc.)
- All Your Powers Combined: Issue #18 sees Tony work with Magneto and Feilong to attack Orchis once Nimrod takes control, Magneto powering the Sentinel Buster and Feilong directing them to key Orchis sites.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Riri has taken to using the Mandarin's rings herself for good. Tony is unsettled.
- Batman Gambit:
- The unseen Big Bad impersonates Tony then kidnaps and tortures Living Laser before letting him "escape", knowing that the dimwitted Parks won't question how out-of-character it would be for Tony to do such a thing and instead will go attack the real Tony for revenge. It works.
- In issue #14, Tony's big plan against Feilong finally comes to fruition - Tony recruits Riri and Forge to build a fleet of ships for an Arrakian invasion of Earth with The Mole Firestar letting Orchis known that they're coming with the landing spot being the Austrailian outback, since that's where the X-Men were active at at one time. However, Feilong discovers, as the ships land, there are no mutants onboard and flies into a magnificent panic as he orders all Stark Sentinels there and he goes to confront the ships. The ships? They're actually the components to the Sentinel Buster, which the Mark 73 "Mysterium Armor" was designed to help control.
- Becoming the Mask: After Tony and Emma spend some time posing as a couple to infiltrate Orchis, they are shown sleeping together in #13.
- Blatant Lies: When Tony is caught exploring Krakoa in his new Iron Man armor, he claims to his attacker that he's actually someone else using the Iron Man armor (the lie isn't believed, but it buys time for Tony to kill his foe).
- Breath Weapon: Feilong primarily fires energy beams through his mouth.
- Callback: Feilong's Stark-built Sentinels
will not be the first time the Mutant hunting machines have incorporated Iron Man technology. - Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
- This is how Tony gets Feilong not to kill him at the end of issue #8 and the beginning of issue #9. While Orchis does have plans to go after the Avengers and the rest of the hero community, all their immediate efforts and resources have been focused on Krakoa; they haven't laid the groundwork for the next campaign yet. And while Tony's reputation has seen better days, even Orchis won't be able to PR their way out of killing a founding Avenger (let alone a founding Avenger who's removed his armor and is defenseless). More, killing Iron Man now will only deprive Feilong's ego of the pleasure of bleeding Tony further and dragging his life down into deeper levels of hell. It works.
- Flipped around in the next issue. Iron Man and Emma Frost get Feilong in a position where they can very easily either kill him themselves or brainwash him to try and spill Orchis' secrets to the public (which will probably result in him being assassinated by them before he can die so). While they're tempted to do so just to eliminate him as the nuisance he is, the information he carries, the potential uses he holds as an easily manipulated Unwitting Pawn, and the need to expose the truth behind what happened at the Gala all outstrip any benefit to ganking the guy, so he lives.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Riri uses Pym particles to stop an attacking Stark Sentinel, she and Tony are later shown using these particles to shrink down a new War Machine armor and send it to Rhodey disguised as a medallion.
- Continuity Nod:
- At the Hellfire Gala, Feilong brings up the pre-Krakoa terraforming of Mars during The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman). He's not impressed that the Avengers kinda gave up on that project.
- While speculating on who could be moving against him with Riri, Tony observes that the modus operandi matches with that of Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer… but also that they're both dead and thus probably not the ones responsible.
- Deadpool congratulates Tony on his engagement to Emma and subsequently offers to give advice on the basis that he was once married himself, which he was back in Duggan's run on Wade's own title.
- Continuity Overlap: Duggan's Iron Man is running in tandem with his concurrent X-Men (2021). In the first issue alone, there's already plenty of connective tissue between the two books, from the 2022 Hellfire Gala to Feilong. It's also been indicated Iron Man will be part of the build towards Fall of X over the course of 2023.
- Crazy-Prepared: Issue #2. Despite divesting himself from Stark Unlimited, Tony rightly anticipated someone would try a hostile takeover sooner or later. He left a contingency in the form of Zhong Wei, an old friend from Tony's very first company who owns enough Stark holdings to serve as living poison pill against a hostile takeover. Unfortunately, the ending reveals the mysterious mastermind has killed Zhong to remove that safeguard.
- Darkest Hour: By issue #9, Tony is in the dumps: Rhodey is in jail and being brutalized despite She-Hulk’s insistence on being protected, Tony’s forced to give up his last armor, though he has it pretty much slagged, and he’s on the verge of falling off the wagon again. Thankfully, Emma Frost is there to catch him with a plan of her own.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: After Riri Williams learns the corruptive dangers of the Mandarins' rings, she and Forge expel them into the wider universe.
- Evil Is Petty:
- While acquiring the Iron Man technology does have its benefits for him and Orchis, Feilong's primary goal for spiting Tony is revenge for "losing" Mars to the Mutants after abandoning it during Hickman's Avengers and ruining his own dreams for the planet.
- His pettiness gets far worse in issue 10 when Tony and Emma piece together that the real reason that Feilong is doing all this and hates mutants so much is pure and simple jealousy. He was the son of two mutants but was born human despite it, and resented his loving parents and mutants as a whole for having powers he could never get naturally. All the evil things he does are nothing but a Psychopathic Manchild's flailing anger at not being blessed by the genetic lottery.
- Feeling Their Age: Something Tony outright acknowledges. Like how his taste in fun has changed from partying to hanging out with friends in their labs. Other folks calling Tony "old man" probably doesn't help either.
- Frame-Up:
- The plot is kicked off when the unseen mastermind blows up Tony's apartment and kills one of his neighbors, making it look as if one of Tony's experiments went out of control. Then they escalate to framing Tony for straight up murder.
- Issue #7: Rhodey is framed for the murder of the Stark Sentinel manufacturing plan supervisor — a murder actually ordered by Feilong. Tony. who'd ensured they'd evacuated all civilians during the assault, realizes what happened and Feilong is being both petty and strategic by removing one of Tony's key allies.
- Green-Eyed Monster: While reading his mind, Tony and Emma discover that Feilong's real motive for hating mutants and helping Orchis is nothing but petty jealousy over the fact that they were born "special" while he wasn't despite being the son of two mutants himself.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Tony's self-esteem is at an all-time low following the events of the previous two runs, and his narration for his memoirs is full of self-loathing.
- He's Back!: Issue #18 has Rhodey finally make his break, donning the Mk-I War Machine Armor that was hidden in the pendant Tony gave him, fights back against the Orchis soldiers trying to kill him, humiliates the racist sheriff and gets Sandman and Living Laser out with him.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Following the Slott-Cantwell runs, Tony has lost his company, most of his fortune, his armors, and even his various bases and homes. He's been reduced to living out in a crappy brownstone apartment and with only a single Iron Man armor to his name. That's before somebody starts waging war on his reputation.
- Insane Troll Logic: Feilong holds Tony responsible for losing Mars to the Mutants. He feels that if the Avengers hadn't abandoned the terraforming efforts during Hickman's Avengers, humanity would've kept control of the planet — and Feilong's grand dreams would never have been destroyed during the first Hellfire Gala.
- Internal Deconstruction: Duggan's run deconstructs the whole premise of Iron Man as a character by essentially asking what a superhero based all around Crimefighting with Cash would do when he runs out of cash.
- Internal Reveal: Those who’ve been reading Immortal X-Men already knew that Kingpin is now White King of the Hellfire Club, but Tony didn’t. At the end of issue 9, he finds out.
- I Told You So: In issue #8, when Tony finds out what happened at the Hellfire Gala, he tells Emma Frost that he warned her that revealing Krakoan technology would cause people to come after them.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Riri goes to the Hellfire Club to deliver Tony her half of their project and meets Hazel Kendall at the door. Not willing to wait she tries to telepathically force her way in, leading her to discover Hazel is Emma Frost who, as far as she knows, is wanted for murder and makes her wonder if Tony is aware he's married to her. After their fight draws the attention of a Stark Sentinel they defeat it together and reconcile afterwards, with Tony admitting that he should have informed her beforehand.
- Loophole Abuse: Played for black comedy in issue #9 when Tony finally surrenders his final Iron Man armor (as Feilong now owns the copyright and IP and got a court order). Thing is, the court order only specifies Tony must surrender the armor; it doesn't specify *how*. Given how petty Feilong is, Tony decides to takes a page out of his rival's playbook. So, Tony surrenders the armor as ordered...by having it crash land through Feilong's lobby window.
- Luxury Prison Suite: Feilong's plans to have Rhodey murdered in prison after framing him for murder backfires hilariously, as Kingpin — who is allied with the mutants — simply arranges for Rhodey to be declared as being under his protection. This turns Rhodey's "prison sentence" into a fairly relaxed affair where he's personally guarded by Living Laser and Sandman and the other prisoners quickly become too terrified of even going near him to try anything, meaning he's arguably safer there than outside.
- Morton's Fork: When Riri Williams unintentionally exposes Emma Frost's mutant status and draws in a Stark Sentinel, although they are able to destroy the Sentinel, to prevent Orchis catching Emma, Stark, Fisk, Emma and Riri are forced to claim that the club was attacked by a mutant, saving them right now but requiring them to further damage the mutants' reputation in the public eye.
- Mythology Gag: While reading Feilong's mind, Emma describes him as "this man… this monster", the title of a classic Fantastic Four issue.
- No-Sell: When testing a sample of mysterium in the form of a simple bar, Stark confirms that, once the metal has been properly prepared, Captain Marvel can't bend it, Doctor Strange can't affect it, and Spider-Man's spider-sense can't detect it.
- Oh, Crap!: Forge says this after a Makluan dragon shows up in front of him and Ironheart demanding the Mandarin's Rings and Ironheart confirms that she's wearing them.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Averted. Iron Man is not impressed that Living Laser is stupid enough to not pick up that kidnapping and torturing Parks for no reason isn't especially in-character for Tony.
- P.O.V. Sequel: The flashback in issue #1 replays the 2022 Hellfire Gala (which Duggan wrote) from Tony's perspective.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Issue #7. Tony and Rhodey succeed in destroying the main Stark Sentinel manufacturing plant. But, it's only the official factory. Feilong has secret sites up and running and making up for the manufacturing disruption — though, Tony's actions did at least ensure Orchis doesn't have the full Stark Sentinel numbers they needed for the Hellfire Gala operation. Worse, Rhodey is captured and framed for the murder of the Factory Supervisor by Feilong.
- Remember the New Guy?: Issue #2. Zhong Wei, who was a board member of Stark's first company and an old friend, despite never having been mentioned or seen before now. Their history is explored and retroactively integrated into Iron Man continuity (circa Armor Wars) during issue #3's flashbacks.
- Ret-Canon: In issue #5, similar film reels to the ones made by Howard Stark in Iron Man 2 are watched by Feilong.
- Reverse Psychology: Why Tony and Emma exclude Feilong from their wedding. They know he wouldn’t care enough to show up but not being invited is too much of a blow to his ego. Sure enough, he crashes the party and walks right into their trap.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Having been a major enemy of the Duggan-era of X-Men, Feilong is now clashing with Tony Stark here in his solo book. Justified, as Duggan co-created Feilong and is still writing X-Men alongside Iron Man.
- Shadow Archetype: Continuing on from his characterization over in X-Men, Feilong is definitely being set up here as the anti-Tony Stark.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham. A variation at the end of issue #2. Tony wants Riri to invoke this Trope and keep her distance from him for the time being. Given the attacks against him, he's naturally worried his supporting cast also have targets on their backs (or will have their own reputations damaged by Tony's problems). So, Tony wants Ironheart to keep her distance — at least until he can figure out who's behind all this and how to counterattack. He does the same with Rhodey in issue #3.
- Unknown Rival: Whoever is masterminding the attacks on Tony and trying to frame him for murder. It's Feilong, who would normally be focused on mutants. Likewise, when Magneto shows up, he freely declares that he has no idea who Feilong even is.
- Worthy Opponent: Feilong has been searching for a worthy nemesis for some time and becomes downright giddy over finally finding one in Iron Man.
