Writer – Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas
Artist – Michael Bair
Inker – Malcolm Jones III, Grant Miehm
Colours – Gene D’Angelo
Letters – Augustin Mas

The second part of Iron Munro’s origin tale focuses more upon him this time rather than his father, Hugo Danner, who starred almost exclusively in the first chapter. The book finds Iron and his friends in the Young All-Stars heading back to where he grew up and where his mother awaits with the answers that he seeks about where it is he came from. He is full of questions and it is she who holds the knowledge that might set his mind free. So it is that Roy Thomas and Michael Bair delve into the past once again and not only do readers get to see Iron Munro grow up, they get to see the final fate of Hugo Danner, or at least as close as Thomas is willing to get to it. As those who peruse this book might have guessed and as was hinted at in the last issue, Danner does indeed turn out to be Munro’s father which would come about through a one-night affair between his mother and Danner. The two had been childhood sweethearts and had separated long ago knowing it would not work and yet, years later, that love still lingers. So it is that after having though Danner dead from that lightning strike, a ruse to fool the world at large so that Hugo might live a somewhat normal life, he comes back home where he runs into his old flame and so it is that Iron is conceived and Hugo disappears into the world from whence he came, never to be seen of again. As for Iron Munro, Thomas paints his childhood as fairly normal until one day, long after the father he knew had passed, his mother falls into a canyon and that is when his powers kick in for the first time, the thought of his mother in danger enough to flick the switch so to speak. From that moment on, Iron’s life slighly mirrors that of Hugo’s, having to hide his powers and so forth until that day upon the dam where he would rescue a young hero from death and that as they say, is history. Thomas does a fantastic job with the concluding chapter of this tale and Bair makes it come to life in the best of fashions. Weaving his character’s story into that of Philip Wylie’s is a bit of genius and it makes for a grand origin and an even better read.

4 out of 5