Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In the Troy orbital platform, geostationary above Troy/Mandarin City, Tony Stark is in communication with brother Arno down below. Arno says that the Remaker ring has wrecked another part of the city, the 12th such Remaker 'bomb' increasing the death toll. He also tells Tony he's started thinking how to find Tony's real parents, since his brother learned he was adopted. But Tony can't deal with that now, while they're hunting for Mandarin's rings.
Tony's PR guy Marc Kumar meets with Abigail Burns in London. It turns out they're old friends, and he tries to persuade her to give up the ring she's got. But the sceptical hard-left journalist is determined to discover Stark's true motives for rebuilding Mandarin City as his futuristic Troy.
Next we see her hovering over that city as Red Peril, bearer of the 7th Ring. In Troy central control Arno, in his iron lung, has detected her and is sending the Trojan Guard drone Iron Man armours after her. And Tony suits up to join them as the real deal. But when he gets there she teleports away (a standard function of all the rings). Unknown to the Starks she's just ported down into the city and switched to civilian garb.
Tony joins Arno in Troy Central, frustrated that they can't track the ring-bearers down. Arno, as usual a glass half-full guy, points out that they've only recently (#20.INH) worked out how to detect the rings in use, and now he was able to tell that Abigail was about to teleport. He's hopeful of detecting where they port to next.
Marc phones in to report his conversation with Burns. He tells them that the investigative reporter intends to investigate what makes the city tick. Arno figures that Red Peril can't be sure they can't locate the fainter teleportation arrival signal, and so she craftily ported from near the city so that the stronger departure signal would mask the nearby arrival. She's in the city! And they can use face recognition software to find her.
Reporter Burns dictates her next article into the (annoyed) ring. She strongly disapproves of Remaker taking lives with his bombs - property destruction she's more than OK with as long as it's Stark's property. But she reluctantly becomes convinced that Troy is what Stark promised. Even down on the street where the poor have been flooding in they have been provide with smart building materials to create the best slums ever. She finally gets round to asking her ring why the Rings want the city destroyed. But we don't get to hear the answer.
Arno has located Burns, and Iron Man goes to get her in stealth armour.
Meanwhile Abigail gets her ring to lead her to where 2 other Mandarins are meeting in the city. 1 is the Exile we saw created in #20.INH by the Nightbringer ring. The other is the bearer of Remaker, who turns out to be a Triad boss we saw Iron Man take Mandarin City from in #19.
Stealthed Iron Man hears Lord Remaker plan to destroy Stark and his control centre with a missile, and then take the city back. Tony warns Arno to evacuate the HQ, including himself. But Arno stays to control the Trojan Guard drones to stop the missile.
Then idealistic Abigail turns into Red Peril to stop the missile launch. The Exile and Lord Remaker go into combat mode to oppose her. And all 3 detect Iron Man's stealth armour. A 2 vs 2 battle ensues. The missile launches and Exile stops Iron Man going after it. The Trojan Guard fail to stop it and it destroys the HQ building.
Just before it hits, Arno trapped in his iron lung initiates a final computer program.