Synopsis / Summary / Plot
A flashback to 1862 shows us why Tony Stark renounced guns and turned to drink. He's having a picnic with a female companion overlooking a Civil War battle. He fully expects that when the South are shown what his Gatling-Gun-like invention can do they will surrender. But to his horror the North just use the guns to mow down their enemy.
Now in 1872 he's lying drunk on the floor of his office in Timely. Dr Bruce Banner watches as 4 gunslingers walk into town to confront Sheriff Steve Rogers. And reporter Ben Urich types up what's happening - a story that he'll probably never print.
The villains are versions of Dr Octopus, Elektra and Grizzly led by Bullseye. They've been sent by Governor Roxxon to sort out the trouble over his silver mine and it's dam. They 1st call in on Mayor Wilson Fisk, who isn't pleased with the challenge to his authority but grudgingly agrees to them killing the Sheriff and his Indian prisoner Red Wolf who tried to blow up the dam that is stealing water from his people.
Rogers is determined to get Red Wolf a fair trial. Natasha Barnes isn't happy about this because she believes her husband Bucky, Steve's deputy, was killed by Indians. But the Sheriff says that was a cover up - Bucky was actually trying to stop a lynching organised by Fisk's men. However Steve's plan develops a snag when Judge Nelson abruptly leaves town.
Bullseye (here using the name Lester) and Otto Octavius confront Rogers and Red Wolf in the street, while Elektra and Grizzly go down side alleys in flanking movements. The Sheriff pushes RW down another alley, unshackles his ankles and tells him to run. Rogers exchanges a few shots with the 2 gunmen, then ducks back in the alley and squirms under the raised sidewalk planning to get behind them.
The Indian only gets to the end of the alley before he runs into Elektra. His wrists are still chained but he uses the chain to catch her thrown sai. Then he uses both sai and chain to block her sword blows until he downs her with a punch to the gut.
Red Wolf hesitates to kill her, and then has to run as Lester and Otto shoot at him. Octavius uses 8 guns at once - 2 in his hands and the other 6 on short mechanical arms. Of course all the shots miss, and they leave Elektra chasing after her prey.
Then the Sheriff pops up and hits Bullseye in the back of the head with a gun butt. Octavius threatens him but Rogers takes him out with a bullet in the brain. Steve makes Lester drop his gun, and discard the 1 inside his jacket. Then he calls out Mayor Fisk, and asks the people of Timely to back him in reclaiming their town.
But he's distracted when he sees Red Wolf in a pigpen facing Elektra and Grizzly (who's a mountain man wearing a bear's head as a hat). He wounds Grizzly, and RW knocks Elektra down again. But Lester had another gun up his sleeve, and shoots Steve through the star on his chest.
Tony Stark has woken up and seen most of this. Enraged he picks up a gun for the 1st time in 10 years and charges out firing at Bullseye. All his shots go wild. But Natasha and other women of the town hustle him back inside before amused Lester can return fire.
Dr Banner tries to help the nearly-dead Sheriff. But Fisk picks the body up and throws it into the pigpen, where the pigs finish him off.
Bullseye collects Elektra and Grizzly, but Red Wolf has disappeared. Natasha leans out of a window to say he went thataway, and the 3 enforcers leave the town in the capable hands of Mayor Fisk. But Natasha is really hiding RW in her room.
An old Indian approaches Stark's place with its fortune-telling Vision automaton outside. Tony rouses himself from the bottle long enough to tell him that the Vision is broken. But the old man puts a coin in the slot anyway. The automaton springs to life, but the Indian leaves the printed fortune for Stark.
Tony reads it and laughs. He enters his workroom and smashes his drink bottle. As the issue ends we see him hammering metal. And Ben Urich decides to publish and be damned.