It's a the best of times of times and the worst of times for Tony Stark right now.  On one hand, the son of his greatest nemesis has come to kill him, his best gal pal is fighting for her life, and his hands are seemingly tied as far as stopping the wave of terror goes.  On the other hand, he's never been as to the forefront of the public consciousness, his movie is one of the better ones in recent comic movie history, and Matt Fraction and Salvator Larroca continue to make a very solid, very good series that's becoming the new A-book for everybody's favorite Shellhead.  After the shellacking Tony Stark has taken in the wake of Civil War, Fraction has managed to finally give me what I want: a well-balanced Iron Man that neither acts vilely without thought nor curls up in the corner feeling sorry for himself about all the things he's done. 

The book starts right as the last left off as Tony manages to get his suit on before the human repulsor bombs go off with Ezekiel Stane laughs heartily at him while the little sociopath blazes on fire.  However, Pepper is caught by the falling architecture outside and is put in critical condition. with shrapnel littered throughout the inside of her body.  Naturally, this mirrors the condition Tony suffered from in the beginnings of his career as Iron Man.  As such, Tony decides to give Pepper a similar device that he had (fairly similar looking to the movie's arc reactor) to keep her alive.  You can really see both the care Tony has for Pepper and the trappings of his ideals of manmade evolution in bringing machines to the biology of a now second friend (after Rhodey).  You can see here both the consummate humanitarian and hero in wanting to keep those he loves alive and well as well as the cold and calculating futurist that's willing to merge them with inhuman robotics to met those ends.  It's a subtle yet striking characterization that I think Fraction does well here to showcase both the Iron and Man together.

On the other side of this plot, we have Zeke Stane who's recovering a lot more quickly from the explosion.  Now bald due to his hair burning off, Zeke now looks more like his late Machivellian father than ever.  We also begin to truly see the true merging of man and machine Zeke was created within himself as he repulsor rays a hospital without any repulsors.  However, the merging is incomplete as he's also decided upon himself to build a new suit to keep his skin from burning off during the massive heat brought on by his attacks.  Little by little, Stane is slipping more and more into a spitting image of his crazy ol' dad yet his ingenuity and off-the-grid gameplan continue to make him a truly scary villain for Stark.

Speaking of Stark, we get to see the Golden Avenger square off with the Chinese-backed Raiders in Taipei.  Rather than man-run robotic suits, the Raiders are literally remote drones controlled by federally employed overweight video game fanatics.  The idea that a villain could call his partner "noob" is just too funny not to like.  Naturally, Stark makes short work of the three drones, but the scene itself is just very entertaining and very much a continuation of the them of dealing with a new age of warfare that this book is very steeped in.

All things considered, I enjoyed this issue a great deal.  I like the comparison of Tony/Pepper to Stane/Sasha that Fraction has set up.  I like the characterization of Tony as equal parts scientist, soldier, and superhero.  I like Stane as a new breed of adversary yet still with some of the trappings of a classic villain.  I like that Larroca is really starting to settle into the groove with much more consistent faces.  The book is just very solid and tight right now.  If you enjoyed the movie and want more Iron Man, I'd suggest this book.