You can feed them to the Void. Maybe they even deserve it, but you don't deserve living with it. Listen, Riri. You're not too young to make big-time regrets. 
Appearing in "Here Be Mandarin Rings"
Featured Characters:
- Tony Stark (As Iron Man in a dream)
- Ironheart (Riri Williams)
- Forge
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Dwarves of Nidavellir
- Zlusk (First appearance)
- Numerous unnamed Dwarves
- Orchis
Other Characters:
- Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) (Dream)
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) (Mentioned)
- Hellfire Club (Mentioned)
- Unnamed Makluan
- Avengers (Mentioned)
- X-Men (Mentioned)
- Destiny (Irene Adler) (Referenced)
- Eitri (Statue)
- Thor (Mentioned)
- Falkor (Mentioned)
- Mystique (Raven Darkhölme) (Mentioned)
- Juggernaut (Cain Marko) (Mentioned)
- Jim Rhodes (Mentioned)
- Weapon X (Logan) (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Milky Way
- Solar System
- Earth
- United States of America
- New York
- Australia (Mentioned)
- Earth Orbit
- Mars/Arrako
- Venus (Mentioned)
- Earth
- Solar System
- Nidavellir
- Darkforce Dimension (Referenced)
Items:
- Iron Man Armor Model 8 (Silver Centurion) (Dream) (Destruction)
- Ironheart Armor Model 3
- Mandarin's Rings
- Mysterium
- Iron Man Armor Model 72 (Mentioned in narration)
- Adamantium (On a Sentinel Zero's claws)
Vehicles:
- Mysterium Spaceships (First appearance)
Synopsis for "Here Be Mandarin Rings"
Tony Stark finds himself in a nightmare in which he is suited up as Iron Man in the Silver Centurion Armor. In it, a silent but rageful Magneto uses his powers to tear apart Stark's suit, turn it into a spear, and impale him with it; a manifestation of Tony's remorse for his technology being repurposed for evil. He jolts awake, and looks out the window, observing a patrolling Stark Sentinel flying in the distance. Emma Frost enters Tony's room to console him, and initiates sex with him to put his mind at ease.
In deep space, the Makluan dragon that intercepted Ironheart and Forge gives her a warning for her own sake about the corruption that the Mandarin's rings bring about, and departs. Later, Riri and Forge have arrived at Nidavellir. They are welcomed by the Dwarf forger Zlusk, who informs the duo that their furnaces are inoperable. Skeptically, Zlusk accepts their offer to relight the forges, and guides them inside, where Riri and Forge set out on their task. Many days later, the duo have finished smiting the mysterium into Iron Man-themed spaceships. Zlusk suddenly attacks Riri, having decided with the other Dwarves to keep all the mysterium for themselves and force the secrets of its smiting out of Riri and Forge. The duo fends off the attackers, and Riri prepares to use the Mandarin's rings to exile the Dwarves to the Darkforce Dimension. Forge talks her out of it, and the assailants flee. Riri admits that she is scared of the way the rings are making her act. A little while later, Riri and Forge take the rings to his ship, where its sextant scatters them into space, with hopes it will take them wherever they are needed. Riri laments that she didn't learn anything from them, but Forge suggests that she might have learned something about herself.
Later on, the mysterium ships are relocated to Arakko, making a show of force to Orchis in the process before heading to Earth. At the Bloom, the mutant double-agent Firestar convenes with Feilong and the rest of Orchis' top brasses to disclose Tony's operations and claim that the ships will land on the Australian outback. In retaliation, Feilong plans to have every Sentinel on Earth waiting for them, then force Tony under his thumb. After Feilong leaves the room, Moira MacTaggert and Nimrod agree to kill Stark right away, so they ready to deploy a masked operative made out of a reanimated Wolverine corpse, a Sentinel Zero.
Solicit Synopsis
• Tony Stark needs more than just an armor to defeat Orchis, he needs an army.
• Can Ironheart build one in time?
• Who will answer the call?Notes
- Like most Marvel comic books released on December 2023 and January 2024, this isssue opens with a tribute to Alison Gill, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing & Operations for DC and one of the longest-standing employees of the comic book industry, who retired on July after a 40-years-long career. The tribute consists of a piece drawn by Alan Davis.
- The Makluan dragon warns Ironheart that the Mandarin's rings host the spirits of his brethren. The rings hosting spirits was first established in Invincible Iron Man #522, but they were only described as "long-dead warrior[s] of cosmic legend." This issue clarifies that they were Makluan for the first time.
- When Zlusk mentions that the Furnaces of Nidavellir took so much damage they are inoperable, an editor's note cites "recent issues of Carnage (Vol. 3)." The dialogue is alluding to the events of Carnage (Vol. 3) #9–11, in which Carnage invaded Nidavellir to to forge the All-Blood.
- Forge recalls making a necklace out of mysterium, for "a very discerning woman." He is referring to Emma Frost and he was established to have forged the necklace in Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #10.
- In his narration, Tony Stark explains that the X-Men tricked Orchis into accepting Firestar as one of her own. This happened in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1. During Orchis' attack on Krakoa, Jean Grey used her telepathy to implant in Doctor Stasis's brain fake memories of recruiting Firestar as a double agent for Orchis, so she could serve as a triple agent for the X-Men in reality.
- Firestar claims to have earned he trust of the mutant resistance by taking the credit of freeing the Juggernaut from Mystique. She is referring to the events of X-Men (Vol. 6) #28, in which she liberated the Juggernaut from the Henry Gyrich Center for Behavioral Studies and blamed it on Mystique to keep her cover.
Trivia
- By cover artist Kael Ngu's own admission, this issue's cover is very likely inspired by the poster for the Korean drama Moving, since he was watching the series while working on the artwork.[1]
- The title of this issue's story is a reference to the cartographical phrase "Here Be Dragons", since the Makluan are dragon-like creatures.
- Forge refers to the Makluan dragon that intercepts him and Riri Williams as "that alien Falkor," referencing the character from the the German fantasy novel The Neverending Story and its film adaptations.
See Also
Links and References
References
- ↑ Ngu, Kael (October 22, 2023) Cover art for Invincible Iron Man #14, featuring Forge and Riri. I was .... Archived from the original on October 23, 2023.