Issue(s): Iron Man annual #13
Cover Date: 1992
Title: "Destroy!" / "Cold Fire" / "Mrs. A takes a holiday" / "Five minutes"
Credits:
Len Kaminski / John Tomlinson / Richard Ashford / Tom Brevoort & Mike Kanterovich - Writer
Gene Colan / Andrew Currie / Cooper Smith / Chuck Wojtkiewicz - Penciler
Al Williamson / Andrew Currie / Andrew Pepoy / Tim Dzon - Inker
Richard Ashford - Assistant Editor
Nel Yomtov - Editor

Review/plot:
At this point i've completely lost interest in this crossover. Iron Man is still with Darkhawk, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Woman, and they go to an AIM island base. USAgent, who had been assigned to go after the Iron Monger armor, winds up joining them. And so does Rhodey, remotely controlling the Mauler armor.

After the other Avengers and friends clear out the area, Iron Man goes in alone (why? because it's his book, i guess), and winds up facing Kearson DeWitt.

DeWitt reveals that he hates Tony Stark because he thinks that Stark stole plans from his father.

Iron Man just thinks that DeWitt is "off the deep end" and that he'll never be able to convince him that he's wrong. We don't learn if Stark even knew DeWitt's father. Kearson winds up overloading the neural controls in his armored suit, and dies in the explosion.

The other Avengers that were defending Stark Enterprises manage to do so in a scene that is shown on television, with color commentary from the reporter.

The whole Kearson DeWitt thing was bungled in the regular series, so i can see Len Kaminski wanting to provide some sort of explanation for it. But his inclusion just adds to the hodgepodge nature of the overall story here, which just seems very poorly put together.

Back-ups: Iron Man goes to Russia and agrees to destroy the Gremlin's old base for them. He's attacked by a recording of the Gremlin, but manages to destroy the base. Next, Mrs. Arbogast takes a vacation and Stark has to deal with a young temp replacement. Next, he attacks a Hydra base and takes back the remote controlled Iron Man suit that they stole from him.

This is the last year where we have these forced crossovers in the annuals. Next year are the "everybody gets a new character" annuals. And in the future there will continue to be crossovers but they will feel a little more naturally designed instead of like they started with book groupings and then figured out how to shoehorn them into a story together (hey, Darkhawk wears armor and Iron Man wears armor, soooo...).

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is the third and final part of Assault on Armor City. This whole crossover is one of many stories that takes place during Iron Man #283.

References:

• This continues from Avengers West Coast annual #7.

Crossover: Assault on Armor City

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Hey look, Hawk-eye is now left-handed.

This was the only part of this annual crossover I had as a kid and I really liked it because of the Gene Colan art.

I also still like the gag where Darkhawk wants to shout "Avengers Assemble!" and the rest of the team won't let him.

Right - next year we get the battling Bantam!

Now you got me hungry for a bucket 😀

It is interesting that you said at the start of this crossover that Stark assumes that everybody's armor is likely derived from his own designs, yet later on in the crossover he is on the receiving end of that kind of assumption from DeWitt.