Infamous Iron Man #4
This issue: Doom shows up on the Helicarrier to ask Maria Hill to have SHIELD stop coming after him, or at least leave Amara out of it. She's not too sympathetic. Then Doom learns that Ben Grimm is in Latveria, and heads off there, where he discovers that the military general he left in charge of turning it into a free country has instead established a corrupt military state. Doom orders him to establish a proper government and fix things. Heading to the castle, he finds a battered-looking Ben Grimm, who tries to tell him Cynthia is there; Doom says he knew as soon as he walked in. He says, "Hello, Mother."
So, yeah, no promised Doom-Cynthia confrontation yet, and really not a lot actually happened in this issue plot-wise when you crunch it down. Still, a few nice moments and interesting implications.
I like the way Doom explains the logic behind his appearing out of nowhere on the Helicarrier: after all, SHIELD would only have panicked and scrambled a team if he did try to alert them in advance that he was coming, so really he's causing everyone less hassle doing it this way. I kind of like this tack that Bendis is taking with 'reformed' Doom that has him acting with a very cold sort of rational logic and appearing completely blind to how others could find any flaw with it; these days he's going for condescendingly patient explanations rather than explosions of anger, but that bone-deep certainty that his way is objectively right definitely hasn't gone anywhere.
The stuff with the Latverian politics is potentially promising too. We learn this issue that Doom didn't just completely disappear on his people, but did make some token effort to get the people to govern themselves; only problem is they don't really have the experience or tools to know how to do that, which could be a setup for an interesting clash between Doom's effort to walk away from his position vs. his responsibility to leave something behind in his place that can function without him. Right now he's apparently resisting his former control-freak tendencies, but if the situation gets worse, how long before he steps in more directly, and how well is he going to restrain the urge to go down the slippery slope of taking over more and more because he sees how to do things 'better'?
All in all, a bit of a setup issue. Art and writing are maintaining the standard so I have no real complaints, but the plot's getting a bit more decompressed as things unspool, and I'd like to see more actually happening next issue. Especially in terms of getting some answers about Cynthia.
So, yeah, no promised Doom-Cynthia confrontation yet, and really not a lot actually happened in this issue plot-wise when you crunch it down. Still, a few nice moments and interesting implications.
I like the way Doom explains the logic behind his appearing out of nowhere on the Helicarrier: after all, SHIELD would only have panicked and scrambled a team if he did try to alert them in advance that he was coming, so really he's causing everyone less hassle doing it this way. I kind of like this tack that Bendis is taking with 'reformed' Doom that has him acting with a very cold sort of rational logic and appearing completely blind to how others could find any flaw with it; these days he's going for condescendingly patient explanations rather than explosions of anger, but that bone-deep certainty that his way is objectively right definitely hasn't gone anywhere.
The stuff with the Latverian politics is potentially promising too. We learn this issue that Doom didn't just completely disappear on his people, but did make some token effort to get the people to govern themselves; only problem is they don't really have the experience or tools to know how to do that, which could be a setup for an interesting clash between Doom's effort to walk away from his position vs. his responsibility to leave something behind in his place that can function without him. Right now he's apparently resisting his former control-freak tendencies, but if the situation gets worse, how long before he steps in more directly, and how well is he going to restrain the urge to go down the slippery slope of taking over more and more because he sees how to do things 'better'?
All in all, a bit of a setup issue. Art and writing are maintaining the standard so I have no real complaints, but the plot's getting a bit more decompressed as things unspool, and I'd like to see more actually happening next issue. Especially in terms of getting some answers about Cynthia.