3. The Creeping Doom
Writer: Fred Van Lente
Artist: Ronan Cliquet
Man, what a deep cut. This issue takes us away from the main Iron Man foes, and that makes it the best one so far.
Tony Stark has headed out to the desert to check out some experimental plant research by a Dr. Samuel Smithers. But when he gets there, it looks as though the good doctor has gone quite insane.
More than a little creeped out, Tony and Pepper try to leave, but Smithers decides they must stay. So he knocks out Stark and takes Pepper prisoner as his student. He pretty quickly realizes that attacking Tony Stark might be a bad idea, because Tony Stark employs Iron Man, and Iron Man likes to punch people in the facemeat. So Smithers encloses himself in photosynthetic armor and becomes"¦the Plantman.
I gotta say, I LOVE the Plantman design in this issue. It's creepy, but also really fun to look at. Plus, it really communicates the plant suit as armor rather than just a costume.
There's a little more humor in this one, although I personally don’t feel that the art sells the jokes especially well. But again, on the action front, it's doing an excellent job.
