With his money gone and everything going wrong, Iron Man is teaming up with the Eternals’ most controversial member Starfox for a mission into space.

Iron Man’s down on his luck at the moment, but he’s still got friends all over, and now he’s enlisting the help of Starfox, the most controversial Eternal, who recently made his MCU debut. As Tony sets off on a space adventure to restore his fortunes and help out the X-Men, Starfox will be along for the ride. How the character will be written is another question, especially after his most recent reinvention.

In the current Invincible Iron Man series, written by Gerry Duggan, Tony Stark has had his fortune and technology stolen away from him by the villainous Feilong, part of the anti-mutant group Orchis.

As such, Tony has teamed up with Emma Frost and the remaining X-Men to get his tech back and make up for what Feilong has done to the mutants. Without his fortune, Tony has also had to call in numerous favors, getting help from Captain America, She-Hulk and the Kingpin, among others. It feels like Tony’s been going down his Avengers member list, and now he’s calling in a favor from an unexpected friend. The preview for Invincible Iron Man #13 (written by Gerry Duggan, illustrated by Juan Frigeri, colored by Bryan Valenza and lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna) has revealed that Tony’s going to the Eternal known as Starfox for help, who apparently owes him a favor.

Starfox Returns to help Iron Man

 

Born Eros, Starfox is the brother of Thanos. He has been an Avenger alongside Iron Man in the past, but is more often a swashbuckling adventurer. Starfox’s unique power is his psionic “love power,” the ability to put nearby people into a state of euphoria and broadly inflict positive emotions to manipulate people. This has made Starfox controversial since his powers can literally override consent, which he hasn’t always been careful about.

Starfox has mostly remained a spacefaring character in recent years, which is why Tony is now seeking him out. In Invincible Iron Man #10 by the same creative team, Emma Frost realizes that Tony’s father, Howard Stark, was investigating mysterium, the absurdly powerful metal mined by mutants from the heaven-esque dimension the White Hot Room. She informs Tony that if they can get off-world, she knows a place where Tony can find enough mysterium to construct his latest invention, a fully mysterium Iron Man suit. Luckily, Tony knows just the adventurous Eternal to assist him.

The Reinvention of Starfox

With the recent MCU debut of Starfox in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, where he was played by Harry Styles, there have been efforts to bring Starfox back to prominence in comics. The best of these is in the Kieron Gillen-written A.X.E. Judgment Day event, especially the one-shot A.X.E.: Starfox #1 written by Gillen, illustrated by Daniele Di Nicuolo, colored by Frank William and lettered by Joe Sabino. What Gillen smartly does is emphasize how concerned Starfox himself is with the potential to abuse his powers, as well as leaning into how this also makes him a masterful empathic diplomat. As Iron Man enlists Starfox for another space adventure, these skills could be very, very useful.