Warning! Spoilers for Iron Man #10 ahead!
Iron Man has lived in all sorts of grand and strange houses, but his new home has some giant pests that make Attack on Titan’s eponymous titans seem like kids’ stuff. Instead of giant men, Iron Man has something that poses a familiar threat—giant robots.
In recent issues of Iron Man, Tony Stark has been marooned on an alien planet. Plucked from his normal, superhero life, and still reeling from a neck injury from his fight with Korvac, Tony finds himself transported to an alien planet—and he’s not alone. The planet is inhabited by a community of people who have all been stranded on the planet without explanation and with no way of ever getting home. The new refugees have, astonishingly, built a community and a home for themselves, sharing amongst themselves and with their newest arrival, Iron Man. Led by a benevolent and retired Kree colonel named Yar, and, bizarrely, Stilt-Man, the community mostly enjoys a sense of peace and harmony. Mostly.
In Iron Man #10, by Christopher Cantwell, Cafu, and Frank d’Armata, Tony decides to explore his new home and discovers the broken and abandoned bodies of giant robots scattered across the landscape—Ultimos, with power still in them to juice up Tony’s suit. Yar declares them “quite a quandary” and fellow community member Colin Richard, aka Avro-X, theorizes that this is the Ultimo home world, with the massive machine being what ultimately killed the planet’s previous inhabitants. The Ultimos aren’t all broken, however, which is a fact Tony learns the hard way when the massive robots start attacking his new town, smashing buildings and, horrifyingly, eating the community’s citizens. Tony enters the fray to defend his new community—one which he is reluctantly beginning to enjoy and appreciate—angling with the machines as they stomp through the town. The fight quickly turns nasty when one Ultimo scoops up Yar in a giant metal fist and bites down on Yar in a spray of blood that would have any Attack on Titan fan cringing in sympathy.
Attack on Titan has been a massive hit since arriving in the United States. The story follows a world where humanity is waging a war against giant humanoid creatures called Titans, who attack and eat people. Considering the popularity of both manga and anime, it’s not unlikely that Marvel were inspired to use their own giant humanoid creature to attack and eat Iron Man’s new make-do community as well.
With their leader down for the count, Tony agrees to join Colin Richard and others to help defend the town. Throughout the comic, Tony expresses skepticism as to why any of the refugees would want to stay on the planet, and why no one was attempting to find a way back to their former lives and homes. After Yar’s gruesome death, Tony abandons his desire to escape and accepts this Attack on Titan-esque community as one that could be a positive and healing experience—if it weren’t for the man-eating robots randomly attacking the community. But, what’s a big, man-eating robot against Iron Man?