Synopsis
Invincible Iron Man #11 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Pepper Potts is wearing the Iron Man suit Tony Stark left for her. It includes an onboard computer presence called JARVIS, which tells her the suit is designated 1616, and has been designed specifically for her. It is powered by the implant in her chest. JARVIS is also there to train her in the use of the suit.
Maria Hill breaks into the Stark Industries subsidiary FuturePharm in Austin, Texas looking for the harddrive Tony sent her for. But she finds it deserted except for someone hooked up to pods containing missing children.
Tony has disguised himself as an African-American, and has gone to Los Angeles to visit his friend Henry Hellrung. Henry has just finished leading a prayer meeting. He was Tony's sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. Tony apologises for endangering him by coming here. He has left a very generous donation. Before he leaves he warns Henry that Norman Osborn's HAMMER troops will be paying him a visit. And they do.
We see a flashback to a meeting between Tony, Pepper, Maria, Henry and James Rhodes/War Machine, soon after Stark took the job as Director of SHIELD after Civil War. Tony has set up an email account for their combined use, to be used when all other means of communication are suspect. It should only be used from public terminals. They should all make a habit of checking it every day.
No-one should ever use it to actually send an email. Instead send a blank email to a garbage address, that will be bounced back to the account. The address should start with your initial, and end with the initial of the person you want to contact. Each pair of people will set up an agreed meeting place, and they will meet there 24 hours after the 'message' is sent.
After his interrogation by HAMMER, Hellrung uses this system to meet Rhodey. War Machine then tracks down Tony, which is relatively easy since Stark is no longer using the compromised up-to-date Extremis armour.
Rhodey (like Henry before him) tries to talk Tony into surrendering to Osborn. They both figure that Stark would be safe in custody, but would be killed as a fugitive. But Tony knows Osborn is a dangerous lunatic who won't follow such logic.
Tony wants Rhodey free to act, and not be arrested as Stark's friend. So he suggests they fight to make it look like War Machine is trying to capture Iron Man. HAMMER detects the battle in the skies.
Iron Man orchestrates the battle so that his suit is crippled and he falls into the ocean. But he makes sure to breach War Machine's armour so that Rhodey can't follow him. But Osborn contacts Sub-Mariner and asks him to find Iron Man and kill him.