Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Tony Stark has been working for Mandarin under duress, along with many supervillains. But he has recruited Ezekiel Stane, Blizzard, Living Laser and Whirlwind into a revolution. He's secretly upgraded their battle suits, and built himself a new suit of armour (as good as he can make it under the circumstances).
They are now facing all the villains who didn't join them, in civilian dress. Iron Man urges his compatriots to defeat their unarmed enemies non-lethally. Mandarin's soldiers attempt to implement counter-measures, but find that none of their systems work. Mandarin loses his cool, in front of (probably) his daughter Sasha Hammer, and goes to deal with things personally.
After subduing their foes, the 5 split up. Blizzard, Laser and Whirlwind go to the armoury to destroy the other villains' super-suits (previously upgraded by Ezekiel Stane with Stane and Stark tech). Stane is to destroy a giant drill that is important to Mandarin. Iron Man will seek out Mandarin himself, and the 3 Titanomechs Stark has built so far, housing 3 of the alien entities from Mandarin's rings.
James
In #523 Pepper Potts worked out that James Rhodes isn't dead, but is the occupant of the replacement Iron Man suit. She and Bethany Cabe visit Jim's mum in the Navajo Nation. (She's not Native American, but she's been there since War Machine (2009) #6.) Pepper leaves a message for him, even though Mrs Rhodes still maintains he's dead. It turns out he's living there. The message invites him to a meeting on a boat.
The 3 villains gleefully slag the collection of supervillain costumes. Mandarin's guards try to kill them by triggering explosive self-destructs in the targets, but this has been disabled just like Mandarin's other precautions.
Iron Man faces the 3 Titanomechs. They seems to have inherited the abilities of their respective rings. The one called Spin has super-speed and catches IM off guard with a fast side-swipe from a tentacle. Remaker (matter rearranger) seems to have the disintegration beam that Spectral used to have.
Tony isn't doing too well, and calls for help. Zeke's only just penetrated the drill, and is now facing Mandarin. When Iron Man joins him, with the Titanomechs in pursuit.
Pepper and Bethany are holding the meeting on the boat in international waters. Rhodey hasn't arrived yet, but 2 teams that Iron Man recently helped are there:- Triumph Division from the Phillipines and China's The Dynasty. Last issue Resilient's Swarm nanobots located Stark in Mandarin City. But the US government wouldn't allow Pepper to send anyone after him. So now she's recruiting people for an unauthorised rescue.
It's Stark and Stane vs Mandarin. Mandarin has Stane at his mercy, but Iron Man distracts him by pushing a big button on the drill's control panel. The drill shoots a large destructive beam into the ground. And Mandarin claims it's going to blast Earth's core.