Issue(s): Iron Man #246
Cover Date: Sep 89
Title: "Heavy mettle!"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Script
David Michelinie & Bob Layton - Plot
Bob Layton - Pencils
Herb Trimpe - Inks
David Wohl - Assistant Editor
Howard Mackie - Editor

Review/plot:
This continues the Maggia plotline that was introduced last issue and was also a part of this year's Iron Man annual. Tony is reviewing footage from that issue, trying to figure out if the Atlanteans had anything to do with the Hydra attack or if there are any clues why the Maggia was hunting Hydra. In the end he concludes that there's nothing new to learn...

...but he's still focused on that problem. So when Marcy Pearson comes in to have Tony join her on an important business meeting, he tells her to take it alone.

Tony is then further rattled when his former lawyer Bertram Hindel shows up with his new client, Kathleen Dare, the woman who shot him.

Tony's current lawyer Felix Alverez chases him away with the threat of a restraining order, and Tony goes to relax in Rae LaCosta's pool. He asks Rae to go with him to the funeral of Whitney Frost, the former head of the Maggia who we found out was killed last issue.

At the funeral, some reporters turn out to be Maggia hired goons.

On surprising thing that may have meant to be a clue is that Rae LaCosta is a surprisingly good fighter.

The goons get Tony in their van and try to warn him off investigating the Maggia...

...but as soon as they dump him out of the van, Rhodey picks him up and Tony gets into his Iron Man suit.

Iron Man catches up to the van and subdues the goons.

He then turns them over to the FBI, but that's when we see that something's not quite right.

Tony later goes to his computer expert Abe Zimmer and asks him to create a computer virus that will alert him to any mention of words related to a cure for his paralysis. I guess setting up a Google Alert wouldn't have been good enough.

Then the FBI show up and give Tony a "tip" about where the Maggia might be.

Instead, when he shows up, he finds AIM in "Dread-Busters" designed to fight Dreadnoughts.

Of course, Iron Man isn't a Dreadnought.

After the attack, Iron Man realizes that the government is in on whatever is going on between the Maggia, Hydra, and AIM.

A good continuation of the Maggia plotline. Michelinie & Layton won't see it all to completion, but even what we get, including a fun crossover with the Hulk starting next issue, is enjoyable.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue opens with Tony reviewing footage of the Maggia/Hydra/Atlantean encounter from Iron Man annual #10, and ruling out the idea that the Atlanteans had anything to do with the Maggia plot going on in his own book. Tony also talks about the Sub-Mariner like he's still thought to be dead. So this has to take place after Iron Man annual #10 but before the conclusion of Atlantis Attacks that reveals that Namor is alive after all.

References:

• At the beginning of this issue, Tony reviews self-recorded footage from his battle with the Atlanteans in Iron Man annual #10.
  
• Tony was shot and paralyzed by Kathy Dare in Iron Man #243.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A