Synopsis
Invincible Iron Man #16 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
We learn from Recorder 451's memories that it was witnessing the genocide of a peaceful race by the Skrulls that set him on his path to make a better universe. That path led him to interfere in the birth of Tony Stark, to make him a suitable pilot for the Godkiller. Now that his plan has failed, 451's only redeeming option was to send the giant Godkiller out of this universe, with himself and Stark aboard.
The robotic 451 has now committed suicide, and is deleting his databases (which is a neat trick if you can do it after you're dead). The Godkiller is building up a space-time distortion to exit the universe, with the obligatory countdown clock. Iron Man understandably wants to escape, but only 451 knew the code to get the Godkiller to let him out.
Tony gets his armour's AI PEPPER to fly him and 451's body to where his Armoury is parked in Godkiller's 'mouth'. There the intelligent vehicle/workshop starts to hack its way into 451's system. But PEPPER works out they don't have anywhere near enough time for that.
Stark suddenly has an idea. He flies 451 to Death's Head's ship nearby, and gets that to continue the cyber-invasion. Tony remembers how the robot bounty hunter was evasive (in #9) about where he got his advanced tech from. He now gambles that Death's Head got it from 451 as part of the price for delivering Stark to him. He's right, and 451's own tech is able to extract the required info from 451's brain.
Iron Man with 451's body and the Armoury are able to escape the Godkiller just as it pops out of our ken. And Tony gets PEPPER to contact the Guardians of the Galaxy to pick them up.
3 months later Tony is saying goodbye to the Guardians to return to Earth. It seems he hasn't told them about the 'secret origin' part of his 451 adventure. He flies back home in the Armoury, with the body of 451.
Back on Earth IM's priorities are a pizza, then contacting Pepper Potts. Pepper immediately claims there's a crisis he needs to deal with. When he gets home he finds that the 'crisis' is a hurriedly-arranged birthday party.
After changing out of his armour, Tony meets Pepper's new fiancé Marc. But Stark ducks out of the party to go to the family vault where he searches through lots of old documents. Then he suits up again and flies off to investigate his suspicions about what really happened when his parents let 451 genetically modify him.