Marvel is Blaming Iron Man For The Death of An Avenger
Immortal She-Hulk #1 drops several bombshells about Jennifer Walters, but one of the biggest is that her Civil War II death was Iron Man's fault.
Warning: mild spoilers for The Immortal She-Hulk #1.
While fans love Tony Stark, Iron Man actually isn't that well-liked by many of his fellow Marvel heroes. Having attempted to arrest many of them during the original Civil War storyline and pushed back against Captain Marvel's coalition in Civil War II, his huge ego and need to control other heroes has turned so many of them against him that at one point he had to reboot his brain - erasing months of memories - to rebuild those bridges. Sadly, it turns out that Tony is still so deeply disliked that he managed to literally annoy a fellow Avenger to death.
The revelation comes from The Immortal She-Hulk #1, a one-shot story emerging from Marvel's Empyre event in which it's revealed that - like her cousin Bruce Banner - Jennifer Walters is an immortal Hulk whose powers automatically bring her back from fatal injury. As the narrative unfurls, She-Hulk reveals that what readers had taken to be previous close calls were actual deaths, and she blames one of them on Tony Stark.
The death in question is from the opening of Civil War II. In this event series, a precognitive Inhuman gave the Avengers - and Captain Marvel in particular - the ability to forecast potential crimes and act to stop them coming about. Captain Marvel used her new resources in some questionable ways, while Iron Man banded together the heroes who opposed predictive policing, spurred on by the death of James Rhodes, aka War Machine, who Captain Marvel had led into battle against Thanos - a battle which claimed the lives of both Rhodes and She-Hulk.
The Immortal She-Hulk #1 reveals both She-Hulk's deep suspicion of Tony's motives and the fact that she blames him for her death. Remembering the moment her heart gave out, She-Hulks says:
I remember Tony Stark just... shrieking at Carol Danvers. At my hospital bedside, no less. We'd paid in blood to save the world, but Tony hadn't been consulted, so it didn't count. He was literally arguing we shouldn't have had the warning. I tell myself now it was his grief talking. I have to - I work with him. But the truth is, if I'd been on my feet, I'd have broken his jaw. We'd lost so much to save so many lives, and he didn't care. I was so angry... So angry my heart gave out. To be fair, there was still shrapnel in it from a Thanos-killing missile. I flatlined. They didn't know how to revive me. That was that. You could say Tony Stark's need to always be right got me killed. And not even for the last time.
It's a low-key bombshell that recharacterizes She-Hulk's Civil War II death. Now, when readers return to the series, they won't see She-Hulk managing to fight off death long enough to give Captain Marvel some definitive words of encouragement, but literally someone dying of heart failure out of pure rage at Tony Stark, using her last breath to spit defiance against one of Marvel's top heroes.
She-Hulk has good reason to dislike Stark. Prior to the World War Hulk event, he injected her with SPIN nanites that stole her powers, and as a lawyer she's had some major problems with his legal practices, even tearing her way through his automated defenses to get justice for her client. The Immortal She-Hulk #1 underlines the fact that these two heroes have never really settled their differences while also offering a new angle on the events of Civil War II - a story which seems to generally indicate that Stark is in the right. While far from the most exciting piece of information shared in this issue, it's interesting for fans to see such an uncharitable reading of Tony Stark - one which both reconfigures the idea of Iron Man as the go-to hero in an emergency and explores the complexity of She-Hulk's role in the Marvel Universe.