In this dire book, an evil baddie called the Mandarin, a Chinese immortal with alien tech and magic on his side, threatens to take over the world. SHIELD approach Iron Man to check him out and see if he's dangerous, which of course he is, but not dangerous enough that Iron Man can't take him down, which of course he does.
There's not much positive to say about this book. I'd never heard of Joe Casey or Eric Canete before picking up this book and it's easy to see why. Casey writes trite dialogue with conceits in the story that grate on the reader. In this book nobody knows Tony Stark is Iron Man which I found particularly pointless given that Iron Man was an interesting series because people knew who he was, adding different perspectives on that particular superhero.
Casey adds a bodyguard sidekick called Happy who doesn't add anything to the story, Jarvis isn't included at all, but maybe most annoying of all were the bad guys. A character who dresses as a scarecrow fights Iron Man and, by unleashing the awesome power of blackbirds (actual blackbirds) he defeats (!) Iron Man. Mandarin himself is like Doctor Strange minus the intrigue but with a Green Lantern-esque magic ring from which he gets all of his power.
Canete's drawings of Iron Man are really poor quality. In several panels he makes Iron Man look like he has spindly, ridiculously thin legs; this isn't from a distance, the perspective is right up close and yet his legs are absurdly thin. In other scenes the suit looks like a set of pyjamas, folded up in a thin briefcase. The entire book felt like a storyboard for a simplistic cartoon for kids, especially as it was coupled with Casey's uninspired story.
So bad guy tries taking over the world with a space laser that targets cities. Yawn. The story is so hackneyed it's amazing it even got published, Marvel's quality control blinked and let this stinker through the net. I didn't know who Joe Casey was before reading this and having read it I won't be reaching for any more of his work anytime soon. "Enter the Mandarin" is the worst Iron Man book I've read and a really poor comic - avoid.