AudioShocker

... an interesting collaboration between Bob Layton and John Romita, Jr.

This 1990 issue falls at the end of Bob Layton's second lengthy run on the title (David Michelinie is, sadly, not involved with this one). And, if I'm not mistaken, this issue marks JRjr's first work on the Iron Man series. So it's like a passing of the torch in a creative respect, since JRjr will go on to draw Armor Wars II as written by John Byrne.

And speaking of Romita, Jr., he's in top form here. The guy has had many different qualities to his style over the years, and I think that Iron Man #256 catches him at one of his peaks. In particular, his faces reach an artistic pinnacle here, finding a balance between his previous work on Uncanny X-Men and his later work on Spider-Man. Rhodey looks especially excellent. In fact, I think JRjr's Rhodey is my favorite visual depiction of the character (out of costume, of course).

As for story in this issue, Tony Stark ventures out to his nearly decimated orbiting space station to attempt a little bit of cleanup. Max Cauwfield of Cauwfield Chemical has designed a way for Tony to fix up the damage that AIM did to the space station earlier in the series, and Tony jumps at the chance to get his station functioning again.

And when I say earlier in the series, I mean 40 issues previous to this tale. That's one slow burn plot element! However long it took to cook to the surface, though, it's gratifying to see a character revisit an old plot element and make good on the dangling plot threads from years before.

Of course, things don't go to plan and Iron Man's journey out to the fringes of Earth's orbit make for a fascinating and introspective solo jaunt. I truly enjoyed the storytelling here, almost as much as I enjoyed Len Kaminski's run on the title.

Speaking of Kaminski, he too will revive the space station plot element at a later date, pitting Shellhead against the Technovore supervillain in Iron Man #294-295. The Technovore is mad science gone wrong, as Cauwfield's organization was performing dangerous experiments in Tony's oribital station and things got a bit out of hand and then there was an accident and... well, let's just say that Technovore is a classic Len Kaminski technology monster and leave it at that.

Point is, Iron Man #256 is sort of like the midway point in a trilogy of spread out tales, ranging from the fight with AIM in Iron Man #215 to this "clean up" in #256 to the eventual battle against Technovore in #294. This excellent story is allow to gestate and build in the background of Tony Stark's life over the course of no less than 80 issues. In my mind, that's an awesome achievement.