Invincible Iron Man #1

[Cable]

Now begins a new run under Gerry Duggan! Anyone else try it and have thoughts on the new direction?

Full Spoilers:

Spoiler: show

Tony Stark is recalling the highs and lows of his career. He has now lost most of his fortune, having spent all of it to take down Source Control. He is down to one remaining suit of Iron Man armor that he tinkers with in the basement of a nondescript townhouse. Something seems to happen to the arc reactor though and his townhouse explodes. Stark survives the blast, but an elderly neighbor named Marielle Marcus is killed. Stark is visited in the hospital by Riri Williams, James Rhodes, and Steve Rogers. Stark insists that the explosion was not an accident but Riri says they found no evidence of any outside involvement. Stark pays for the woman's funeral and then goes to see his lawyer Jennifer Walters. Several people are suing him over the explosion but Jen says she can prove some of them weren't even present in the city at the time. Stark insists on just paying out all of the claims. He says he looked into the reactor and even asked Reed Richards to as well and nothing could be found wrong with it. He sets up his new lab in an abandoned taxi cab depot, hoping nobody else will get hurt if something else goes wrong. He repairs his armor and takes it for a test flight as he considers where to live next. He ends up getting attacked by a mystery armored foe. Iron Man manages to defeat the enemy after a battle across the city. The mystery foe tries to goad him by suggesting Riri Williams will be killed next. Iron Man crushes the foes' arm with no reaction, coming to the conclusion this is just a drone. He prepares to destroy it but hesitates and decides to remove the helmet instead. Inside is a man, Elliot Buoncristiano, who had been kidnapped two days before. He is sedated and intubated and clearly was meant to be Stark's next victim. The armor is filled with explosives and Stark gets the man out just in time before it blows up. Tony goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that night but becomes paranoid that everyone around him is at risk until he can figure out how is targeting him. He leaves the meeting and later finds himself stumbling out of a pub. Some kids film him on their phone as he vomits and falls into a pile of garbage, pleading for some help.

First of all, I have nothing at all bad to say about Frigeri's art. It is all well done.

On the writing side, down-and-out Tony Stark is nothing new but it is fine because it is always fun to see the resourceful Stark build something out of nothing. However I feel Duggan should be embarrassed to be doing drunk Stark all over again. This story has just been done to death. Because of how people can relate to it, addiction is always going to be a powerful storyline. But at least Cantwell had the good sense to use morphine instead on the last run. It is just hard to believe Duggan can do anything with alcoholic Stark that hasn't been done before. We shall see. He still hooks me with the classic but always effective tactic of the mystery villain. "Who is trying to frame Tony Stark?! Read on to find out!" Ok, I guess I will.