Iron Man 251 - Acts of Vengeance

With Iron Man having just finished an adventure against Doctor Doom it's understandable that arranging foes to fight him will be a task taken on by other members of the leading villains, even though we only briefly glimpse one of them here. But even just name-checking the Kingpin and then showing the Wizard is a helpful step away from the over dominance of Doom that we've seen so far. And the villain sent against Iron Man is an interesting choice.

Iron Man #251

Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciler: Herb Trimpe
Inker: Al Milgom
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colourist: Paul Becton
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Wrecker and Iron Man have encountered each before, in Secret Wars, but at the time that was James Rhodes in the armour pretending to be the original Iron Man, whilst now since the events of "Armor Wars" Tony Stark is pretending to be a new Iron Man with the original supposedly having died. Nice and simple it is not. Fortunately no time is wasted in arguing over whether or not they've met before. It's actually a surprise that they haven't as the Wrecker is the sort of foe that would be a natural fit for the series.

This issue is from one of those awkward periods on a title when a creative team moves on and no successor has yet emerged. As a result it's handled by the fill-in team of writer Dwayne McDuffie and artist Herb Trimpe. Trimpe had drawn a few previous issues over the years but this is McDuffie's first work on the series. It's a pretty straightforward issue that first shows some relatively routine business first as Iron Man performs a small scale action (here rescuing a family in a car on a broken bridge) and then as Tony Stark he goes to see over some of his latest projects, here Stark Prosthetics, a special research facility to help the disabled, run by Curtis Carr who was the original Chemistro until he lost his foot. Then the Wrecker attacks.

A large chunk of the issue is given over to the fight but it's somewhat disappointing. The Wrecker is pulling up trees and using them as missiles, but it seems odd that they are strong enough to bring the lab roof down. The fight sees Iron Man struggle on despite damage to his armour, while both Rhodey and Curtis try to help in their own ways - but Curtis's efforts are unsuccessful as the Wizard has already hired his brother. This leaves Iron Man to find a way to take down his foe himself.

This is something of a slight issue, combining some character development with a lengthy action sequence, but really does live up to the "Acts of Vengeance" premise more than many so far by setting up the hero against a credible villain he hasn't fought before. Being by a fill-in team there's no attempt to set up long term developments for the series so this instead serves as a showcase piece for the title and the crossover.

Iron Man #251 has been reprinted in:

• Acts of Vengeance Omnibus (2011)
• Iron Man Epic Collection: Doom (2018)