Synopsis / Summary / Plot
We begin with a look at what's happening at Stark Industries. CEO Eric Lynch from the previous series is back. Then he tried to take control of the company because Tony Stark was pretending to be dead. Now he's making the same move because Stark is in a coma since Civil War II. And this time he's not going to let the AI Friday and Mary Jane Watson stop him.
But this time they have another card to play. In this circumstance Tony's living will takes effect. And he changed it after he found his birth mother (in International Iron Man). She now has power of attorney and so she runs the company.
They take Lynch to meet Amanda Armstrong in Stark's private lab - which even Lynch doesn't have access to. They find he playing her guitar and singing. Lynch feels he recognises her. And when she reveals her stage name Amanda Strong he's starstruck because he's a big fan. She shoos him out with a mixture of friendliness and firmness.
But when he's gone she tells Friday to keep on running the place. And she tells Mary Jane that they're going find someone to take on the role of Iron Man. But the other 2 inform her that Tony already had a protégé Riri Williams. She built her own armour, and Tony sent her an AI version of himself to help.
In Chicago Riri is putting the finishing touches to a sleeker red & gold armour to replace her bulky grey version. She tells AI Tony that she's having trouble coming up with a superhero name. She rejects as sexist anything that indicates a female version of the original, including the AI's suggestion Fe-Male (Fe being the chemical symbol for iron).
Tony then realises that she has no friends to bounce ideas off, not since Natalie Washington died. As they continue the conversation we see Riri flying around in the armour and fighting villains. He says its not healthy to have no friends, and that she mustn't have survivor's guilt over the shooting of her friend and father. And he wonders if the armour is a way of protecting herself from the cruel random world.
When Riri mentions that the 2 were shot through the heart the AI comes up with Ironheart as a name. While she's mulling that idea over they are joined by Pepper Potts in her Rescue armour, who's been following them undetected.
Pepper is disturbed to see the AI hologram of Tony Stark. She won't tell Riri why she and Tony fell out, except that it was very personal. But she tries to warn her off becoming a superhero. Although she's impressed when Riri stands up to her.
Then 1 of the dangers Pepper warned of happens as an 'old' Iron Man foe strikes. Their armours break into pieces and fly off them to reform as bulkier armour around another figure. Accompanied by sword-wielding techno-ninjas.