Iron Man's Celestial judgment takes him back to his origin in AXE: Avengers #1 preview

AXE: Avengers #1 art
AXE: Avengers #1 art (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

The stuff is hitting the fan in AXE: Judgment Day, including in September 21's AXE: Judgment Day #5 in which Captain America... well, that would be spoiling. 

But the action spills over into a series of what Marvel calls three "essential/critical" one-shots over the next month including September 28's AXE: Avengers #1, by main series writer Kieron Gillen and artist Federico Vicentini (with covers by Nick Klein and Salvador Larroca).

AXE: Avengers #1 cover (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

The 40-page special seems to focus on Iron Man/Tony Stark, as he (according to Marvel) has to "enter a suit of armor that could kill us all."

But before that, Iron Man has to deal with the new Celestial he helped create who is judging every sentient being on Earth, and apparently harshly as even the aforementioned Captain America - as pure a soul in the Marvel Universe there is - got the Celestial thumbs down.

'Judging' (sorry) by the following AXE: Avengers #1 preview pages, the Celestial shenanigans are making Iron Man go through some stuff, including some sort of roleplay scenario and/or hallucination going back to this origin and creation of the very first (Mach I) armor.

In the final page of the preview, Stark encounters the long-dead Ho Yinsen, who in every version of the Iron Man origin, which has been updated many times since 1963's original Tales of Suspense #39, is the scientist who helped Tony build the original armor that both saved his life at the time (when they were supposed to be building weapons for their captors) and helped him escape.

Yinsen (as depicted in 2008's Iron Man) sacrifices his life to buy Stark time, but in Tony's vision, Yinsen seems to be questioning his sacrifice and asking if it was worth it.

Of course, that's really the Celestial speaking, but it still has to be a punch to the gut for Iron Man. 

Check out the preview pages and look for AXE: Avengers #1 on September 28, AXE: X-Men on October 5, AXE: Eternals on October 12, and AXE: Judgment Day #6 which wraps up the event's core limited series on October 19.

AXE: Judgment is one-third an X-Men event and readers can follow all the Marvel mutant action with our listing of all the new X-Men comics planned for release in 2022 and beyond.

I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.