Invincible Iron Man (1998 series) #24

Warbird wakes up after having been knocked out by Iron Man to prevent her from joining him on a mission while drunk. She figures out what happened and is mightily sore, downing some booze and swearing revenge….

And then Ultimo comes to life, wrecking the Stark-Fujikawa research ship and nearly hurling Rumiko Fujikawa and Morgan Stark overboard….

Meanwhile, at the Stark house, Happy Hogan walks in on Tony Stark and Pepper Potts in a kiss and he leaves before they can see him—also leaving before he can see them break down in laughter as there is no longer any attraction between them. It’s then that the enraged Warbird arrives, firing her blasts at Tony. He orders Jocasta to lock down the house (incidentally trapping Happy inside) and dons the Iron Man armor to fly off, leading Warbird far from his home. They fight on the way, Tony realizing she is full blackout drunk. She crashes into a power substation, blacking out half of Seattle but absorbing the electricity and increasing her power….

Back at the ship, Golden-Blade and Sapper escape from their special cages and…start rescuing the crew. The Coast Guard arrives in time to see Ultimo rising from the ocean….

While Warbird is trying to tear Iron Man’s head off, he gets a call from Jocasta that the Coast Guard is reporting that Ultimo is free. At this point, WB kicks IM so hard that he tears through the wing of a passenger plane. As the plane heads toward a crash, Tony appeals to Carol to help him carry the plane to the upcoming airport. On the ground, Carol asks Tony what damaged the jet—and he tells her that she did, causing her to collapse in tears. He hands her over to medics to treat her alcohol poisoning and heads out to sea. There, he comes upon Ultimo firing on Sapper and Golden-Blade as they rescue the crew; the giant swats him out of the air, drops to the bottom of the sea and starts walking. Iron Man confronts Sapper and Golden-Blade but Rumiko intervenes to tell him the two armored “villains” are the good guys. Golden-Blade, who speaks English, tells Iron Man of his partner’s plight. Sapper is from the planet Rajak which was destroyed by Ultimo many years ago; Sapper’s clan was off-planet but Ultimo pursued their ship to the vicinity of Earth where a meteor cluster knocked them both to the ground. The Rajaki ship hit in the future Washington State and the cyborg Sapper was the sole survivor; Golden-Blade was a trapper on the ground who was mortally injured when the ship crashed and Sapper rebuilt him a cyborg body. Iron Man deduces that Ultimo crashed down in China where the Mandarin found him and reprogrammed him some time later. The Rajaki minds had been uploaded and the two had been scavenging for energy so that the clan could be revived. But now, Ultimo has learned the location of the Rajaki base and is heading there to finish them off—and his path will take him through the city of Spokane….

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Story #2

Feel the Rush! (Fast Lane Part 2 of 4)

Writer/Penciler/Inker/Letterer: . Colorist: Paul Mounts.

Synopsis