Summary
As Iron Man reveals he has a recurring nightmare of facing one specific villain, Tony Stark fans learn the foe he fears on the deepest level. However, far from Thanos, Ultron, or Obadiah Stane, Tony’s terror centers on a villain he’s never faced in the MCU – even though they’ve starred in a similar number of movies.
Tony’s nightmare is exposed in a preview of Invincible Iron Man #14, where fans see him stressing ahead of his big attack on Orchis beside the X-Men. Tony has plans for powerful new Mysterium Armor, but he’s still haunted by the possibility it won’t be enough. Surprisingly, that anxiety expresses itself in a nocturnal beatdown from Magneto.
Interestingly, Tony admits that he frequently has this same dream – one in which Magneto never talks, but instead destroys his armor, turns it into a spear, and runs him through. Tony admits that the dream is really about “failing to save everyone I could have,” though he also drops the fascinating reveal that when he dreams, he dreams as Iron Man – not Tony Stark.
Invincible Iron Man #14
Writer: Gerry Duggan Artist: Andrea Di Vito Colorist: Bryan Valenza Letterer: Joe Caramagna Cover Artist: Kael Ngu
Iron Man Has a Recurring Nightmare of Fighting Magneto
The X-Men’s Nemesis Is Tony Stark’s Worst-Case Scenario
While Magneto isn’t one of Iron Man’s most frequent enemies, it makes sense that Tony would fear him. Magneto is an Omega-level mutant with the ability to control magnetic fields. He’s used this power to do some truly mind-blowing things – like keep his blood pumping after his heart was torn out and even open a wormhole – but his basic powerset makes him able to disassemble Tony’s traditional armor with a thought. This explains why – despite all the cosmic or deeply personal villains he’s faced – Tony’s nightmares choose Magneto to embody his impotence and failure: his powers inherently allow him to strip away the symbol of Tony’s genius and power.
Iron Man’s nightmares are likely made worse by knowing what happened when Wolverine crossed Magneto. In Fabian Nicieza and Andy Kubert’s X-Men #25, Magneto tore the adamantium from Wolverine’s bones. The torturous process became one of Marvel’s most intense defeats, and showcased the dual threats of Magneto’s sheer power and the fine control he has over his abilities.
Iron Man Takes on the 1 Mutant Who’s a Bigger Threat to His Armor Than Magneto
As Iron Man takes on a major X-Men hero he can’t beat, fans are learning that compared to this threat, Magneto is a walk in the park.
AVX’s Battle Proved Tony Has a Dedicated Anti-Magneto Arsenal
Of course, when the two actually fight, Tony isn’t usually so powerless. Iron Man and Magneto have fought several times, and Tony always has an array of gadgets to even the playing field. Their most famous bout took place in AVX: Vs #1‘s ‘The Invincible Iron Man vs. Magneto’ (from Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert.) There, Tony reveals a suit constructed of carbon nanotubes, which are immune to Magneto’s control. He also deploys a swarm of 2,000,000 magnet-drones to baffle Magneto’s powers, then lays into him by channeling energy from Jupiter’s magnetic field to even the playing field. Of course, even then Magneto is no pushover, and constructs his own armor on the fly to fight back.
This fight – coupled with the reveal of Tony’s nightmares – highlights that fear is a major factor in Iron Man’s genius. Tony has called himself the ultimate futurist, putting immense faith in his ability to look at current trends and predict problems and opportunities which are likely to arise in the future. Of course, a short way of saying that is that he obsesses over the tiniest chance of a threatuntil he feels he has a solution in place.
However, this sense of fear can also push Tony into villainous actions. Suits like his Thorbuster armor came from a similar place of worrying he didn’t have any way to stop Thor if he went evil – a hypothetical that Iron Man’s obsession turned into a reason to target his friend’s weaknesses. Likewise, stories such as Civil War see Tony desperately trying to control for threats he doesn’t yet know how to beat – threats which might actually be made more likely by his efforts to head them off. Even in the MCU, Ultron was a result of Tony’s paranoia about Thanos, and his desire to build “a suit of armor around the world.” Likewise, recent comics have seen his designs for Stark Sentinels stolen and turned against the X-Men – weapons he didn’t actually need, now deployed against his friends and allies.
Iron Man Confirms Magneto’s Upcoming Resurrection Will Be a Game-Changer
An Iron Man/Magneto Team-Up Is on the Cards
An interesting detail that’s easy to miss is that as Tony notes down his recurring nightmare in his autobiography, he admits the dream “will make me look like a fool by the time you get to the end of this story.” The story currently being told in Invincible Iron Man is Tony working with the X-Men against Orchis, and fans know Magneto will play a major role in how that battle shakes out. The upcoming series Resurrection of Magneto (by Al Ewing and Luciano Vecchio) will see Storm on a quest to bring Magneto back to life after he was killed by Thanos’ grandfather Uranos. Marvel has teased that Magneto will be key to the end of the Krakoan Era, which began in 2019’s X-Men comics and is set to conclude over the beginning of 2024.
If nightmares about Magneto are set to make Tony look stupid, this seemingly confirms that Magneto will play a major role in saving Iron Man (and the rest of the world) from Orchis following his return to life, setting him up as perhaps the most vital hero of the year. What’s for sure is that Tony Stark and Magneto working together will create huge potential for their abilities to combine – Tony might even get a chance to enhance Magneto, rather than figuring out how to beat him. Hopefully, the unfolding X-Men/Orchis war will create the opportunity for Iron Man to fight alongside Magneto, rather than against him.
Invincible Iron Man #14 is coming from Marvel Comics January 17.
Now, they’ll work together. Read More