We left off ‘Iron Man’ #13 with Tony having barely gotten away from 451 from an interruption by Death’s Head. The issue ends with Tony alone, his armor about to be tracked by 451 and Death’s Head, and The Godkiller flying aimlessly through space.

I’m kind of glad that ‘The Secret Origin of Tony Stark’ is coming to an end. I won’t lie as much as I love Death’s Head and the new take on Iron Man, I’m starting to lose hope that we’ll see an ending that made the journey worthwhile. Of course, as I say that I remember that the story began with a twist and might just end with one as well? One can only hope.

This issue instantly begins with Stark turning off his P.E.P.P.E.R. AI in order to prevent 451 from controlling his suit. With limited controls, he has to ditch his helmet to apparently pilot this model.

As he looks for a way to get out of the mess he finds himself in, 451 has a problem of his own. With extremely limited ability to control The Godkiller, he has no way to track Tony down. Or does he? He did just hack Death’s Head into submission, who happens to be a bounty hunter and puts him on the case.

Hacked or not, Death’s Head is not happy about the situation he finds himself in. When he tracks down Tony, he finds interesting ways to help him. He mentioned that he was able to track him down by following his armory which he had set to go home to it’s master. Now Tony has weapons somewhere nearby at his disposal, so when Tony finds a way to knock Death’s Head down, he is able to convince his systems that he has to hold onto 451 “for his protection” while they are falling down a giant few miles long shaft.

This buys Tony enough time to get some space in between him and his pursuers. With Death’s Head falling, 451 separates himself and continues the pursuit. Only he now has the same problem he initially did with no solution – he has to track down Tony Stark.

451 again thinks outside of the box and instead of tracking him down convinces The Godkiller to change course and has it set to ram straight through a populated planet. He knows Tony wouldn’t let so many innocent die and eagerly awaits for him to show up and plugin to change course.

To his surprise, they fly through that planet killing millions.

Did Tony really just let this happen? No, he didn’t. He actually did give up and plug himself into The Godkiller (which would have lobotomized him and turned him into a giant steering wheel had this worked) and nothing happened. While he may be genetically programmed to sync to the giant war machine, it just didn’t work.

451 doesn’t know this, though, and has another play up his sleeve. He turns The Godkiller towards a new destination – Earth.

While it looks as if we might finally be on the way home for Mr. Stark, I feel that events in space haven’t been quite wrapped up yet. How he gets along with the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ as well as a scene from ‘The Avengers’ where he sees a dead cosmic entity (I won’t spoil who for those who haven’t read it) hasn’t been addressed yet.

Of course, both of these may get fully covered in ‘Guardians’ so I suppose we’re going to have to wait and read to find out!

Final Score:

atoms_3.5

IRON MAN #14
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Greg Land