Synopsis
Tony Stark has been allied with the X-Men against Orchis and his own foe Feilong. His part of the conflict culminated in a battle in #16-18 between Iron Man in his new mysterium-based Model 72 armour and his giant Sentinel Buster against Feilong in his War Machine Sentinel armour and his army of Iron Sentinels. With the help of Magneto Tony won.
But much earlier Feilong and Orchis framed Tony's pal James Rhodes for murder. Tony sent villains Living Laser and Sandman to watch over him in jail, along with his miniaturised original War Machine armour. Last issue the 3 broke jail.
Now we catch up with War Machine entering the Bar With No Name in New York, infamous watering hole for supervillains (and some not-so-super ones). The clientele are watching J Jonah Jameson complaining on TV that no superheroes are stepping up to the mark to fight Orchis who are slaughtering mutants. Rhino is complaining to Turk that some of his best buds are evil mutants. Then WM steps in and asks them to join the war. He steps out of his armour to lower his threat level and suggests that when Orchis has finished with the mutants they'll be coming after the rest of the super-community. Turk says they only fight for money, and they know Stark is broke (since he spent all his money buying up dangerous super-weapons in his previous series). Rhodey tells them that he has the keys to the cache of those weapons and he can hand them out. And he has Laser and Sandman to vouch that the deal is legit. And the villains are in. At this point Jim notices that the armour has automatically cut his hair for him, but has given him the look he had when he wore it (for us that's early 90's).
We see WM leading his armed troops into battle against Iron Sentinels. Sandman asks where Iron Man is, and Rhodey has to admit he doesn't know. For this battle scene we get Tony Stark's narration back, taken supposedly from the autobiography he will have written after the series ends. It reminds us that Feilong stole the Iron Man tech to create these Sentinels (after he took over Stark Unlimited which Tony had given up control of in the previous series).
Then it lets us know that IM is currently fighting Orchis in Los Angeles. As we learned last issue the AIs in Orchis have taken over, and apparently MODOK has turned all Orchis soldiers into monsters who are now terrorising humans. Stark stops 1 of them from attacking 2 bikini-clad femmes who are recording for the Internet on their phone on a stand. He tells the pair to run but they insist on stopping for their phone setup and have to fight the monster for it. Tony gets distracted by a message from Vision welcoming him back (he's been out of contact for the last 3 issues). He has to save the women again by hitting the monster with their phone. Which they are very unhappy about.
Vision then alerts him to an attack by 2 Sentinels on the nearby San Onofre nuclear plant, decomissioned but still containing nuclear material. He takes 1 down with missiles and the other by knocking its head off. Then he learns of villains using weapons from his cache and zooms off to NY to investigate. He sees Stilt-Man firing ray guns, the Bar waitress controlling a Spider-Slayer robot (the original that Jameson used against Spider-Man which displayed his face), someone (I think it's Living Laser) riding Hawkeye's Sky-Cycle) and Sandman just being Sandman, fighting Sentinels and monsters.
Iron Man lands in front of War Machine and the 2 men step out of their armours to talk man-to-man. After banter about his old hairstyle and Rhodey responding that in the same situation Tony would have wound up with a mullet, they discuss Jim being left to languish in prison. Tony claims that he didn't have it easy either, but Jim points to a newspaper headline lying on the road about him and Emma Frost enjoying themselves. Tony offers Jim a free shot as long as it's not in the face, but that's where Rhodey punches him.
They armour back up again and WM says he's planning to go to California and start up a new team of reformed villains. And the autobiography-over lets us know that IM will join him (in the next IM series?). And the battle continues.
Later when the war is over Tony meets up with his fake-wife Emma Frost. He's leaving the now-boarded-up Hellfire Club (where he'd been based for the last half of this series) bringing his temporary grey Mark Nil armour in a briefcase. Apparently all the top dogs of Orchis have been killed or captured, but the organisation is still around. Emma remarks that Magneto left Feilong with Iron Man for him to deal with (last issue). We get a flashback revealing what he did with him, which was bury him alive in a coffin (possibly his enhanced body can survive forever).