Iron Man 252 - Acts of Vengeance

The next Iron Man issue once more sees Iron Man take on a foe whose powers make for a pretty even match but whom he hasn't encountered before. Chemistro had been previously confined to battling Luke Cage in his various identities but now gets greater exposure. There's also a small power enhancement as the Wizard has turned the alchemy gun into wrist blasters, making Chemistro harder to disarm.

Iron Man #252

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

This is in fact the third Chemistro, brother to the first who has reformed and now works for Stark Prosthetics. Unfortunately this leads to a little confusion at times because the story isn't always certain which of the Carr brothers is Curtis and which is Calvin, with the names leaping back and forth. There's element of sibling rivalry to the tale as the younger brother and current Chemistro aims to come out from his brother's shadow by disposing of Iron Man but he's also a mercenary for hire. Indeed such is his business approach that when Iron Man gets angry about the cost of the damage to the compound, Chemistro turns a building into gold as reimbursement. The ability to change the elements in an object is a strange power but given an explanation here of being generated a form of radiation that's never been duplicated. As pseudoscience explanations go, it's far from the worst in the Marvel universe.

Iron Man finds himself battling a foe who can both easily destroy his armour and trap him with a single blast, thus requiring a lot of ingenuity to overcome and defeat the villain. He's helped by the loyalty of those around him, most notably the elder Carr brother and James "Rhodey" Rhodes, showing how far Iron Man is from the obnoxious jerk he has been portrayed as from time to time. There are also some good moments for Tony Stark out of the armour, in one case literally so when the armour is turned to lead and then destroyed with acid, resulting in Tony in just his underwear having to hitch-hike his way back to the office.

Although the action scenes mean the plot is somewhat slight, this is still a pretty solid issue that continues to show the lead character and title in a favourable light whilst finding a credible foe for him to battle. It also does a good job at explaining his absence from the other Avengers during the "Acts of Vengeance" so far.

Iron Man #252 has been reprinted in:

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