Synopsis
Iron Man: Season One #1 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Sometime in the late 90's Tony Stark and his PA Pepper Potts have a brief meeting with Stark Industries staffers Loretta Sims and Neal Van Zandt and SHIELD Director Birch. SHIELD itself is up and running, but SI is building the helicarrier, to be held aloft by Stark repulsor technology. Stark won't admit it but the SHIELD project is the only thing keeping his company in business, now that hard-drinking playboy Tony has taken over from his dead father. The meeting is very short because Stark is boarding his private plane to go sort out SHIELD problems in Chardistan.
SHIELD is having problems there with Stark's repulsor-based airborne land mines, which sometimes don't go off at all, and sometimes go off prematurely. (If Tony had read Pepper's notes on the plane instead of drinking he'd have know that the humidity was degrading the firing mechanisms.) During Stark's visit the base is attacked, and he is injured by one of his own land mines.
Stark is believed dead. But he wakes in a jungle hideout with a piece of shrapnel threatening his heart. He is a prisoner of Muslim extremists Wong Chu and Maouad Khouri. Maouad was Tony's drinking and girl-chasing buddy at MIT, but now he has renounced his decadent Western ways.
His captors want Stark to repair some deflector technology his company sold them back when they were fighting the Soviets. Another captive Prof Hoy Yin Sen will help, and when they're done Yin Sen will be allowed to remove the shrapnel.
The scientists start work. But pain is crippling Stark, and even here he manages to find alcohol to drink 'for medicinal purposes'. They jury-rig a breastplate to manage Tony's condition. Stark get the idea of incorporating deflector tech in the breastplate, hoping to escape.
Wong Chu and Khouri discover what they're doing. Wong Chu shoots, Stark deflects the bullet, which kills Yin Sen. Tony uses the deflector aggressively and kills Wong Chu, and then escapes.
Khouri tells his men that Stark was rescued, and even seems to believe it himself. So when Tony returns completely clad in cobbled together armour, Maouad thinks he's a SHIELD Agent. Stark destroys the base, and seems to be the only one who makes it out.
But later allies of Maouad find him alive but horribly burned and mutilated. Even as they stretcher him off, he orders them to search for any traces of what Stark and Hoy were doing.
Armoured Stark staggers into a village, and stays there helping Ving brew beer (and drinking some of the stock). Meanwhile Khouri has his own armour built, and both useless legs and 1 arm replaced with extensions of the armour. Meanwhile (again) Pepper is trying to hold Tony's company together and keep up the hope that he'll return. She doesn't realise that Birch, Sims and Van Zandt have been siphoning money from the increasing overrun of the SHIELD project budget.
Tony's idyll is interrupted when the tanks of a local warlord invade the village. But his ramshackle armour is enough to stop them. But (again) a UN/charity organisation helicopter turns up, piloted by Jim Rhodes, and Tony can't escape from the 'real' world anymore. But he can prolong his 'holiday' by claiming to be someone called Tom Smith.
After a few drinks with Rhodey in the Chardistan capital, Stark flies home in his armour by magnetising it underneath a passenger jet. He disengages over New York, but is mistaken for a terrorist threat and strafed by fighter planes and the coast guard. Pretending to be damaged he falls into the river, and then walks to shore.
Meanwhile Birch, Sims and Van Zandt have gotten increasingly greedy, and are worried that Potts will suss them out. So they plan for her to have an 'accident'. But everyone is shocked by Tony Stark's sudden reappearance.
Back in Chardistan Maouad Khouri has completed his conversion into an armoured warrior, and run a successful test shooting down helicopters. Now he too is disturbed to hear that Tony Stark is alive. And vows vengeance for what Stark's escape did to him.
In the following weeks the conspirators believe that they can continue to steal money from under drunkard Stark's nose. But they still need to get rid of Pepper. Meanwhile Tony works on a proper version of his armour. And Khouri is brought to America.
The Stark Industries Board, along with Pepper Potts and Jim Rhodes (whom Pepper tracked down), confront Tony over his alcoholism. But they are interrupted by news that an armoured form calling himself Maouad Khouri is attacking the UN Building and shooting down SHIELD jets. Stark recognises the name and the type of armour.
As Director Birch heads into town to take the helm of SHIELD, Stark dons his new improved armour. By now Khouri has worked out that it's Stark in the armour. But Tony's drunken state means that Maouad can still outfight him. Stark winds up in the river again, not by choice this time. But Khouri also exits injured and running out of power.
Back at SI, Tony sees news reports of the fight, half of which he can't even remember. And realises what a weapon of mass destruction he was drunk in charge of. Then he also sees Khouri has appeared again. But this time he's heading for SI. Slowly shaking off his doubts, Stark suits up again.
In the chaos of the attack, Sims and Van Zandt choose the moment to get rid of Potts by 'accidentally' running her over with a car. But armoured Stark saves her, before jetting off to face his foe.
Stark leads Khouri to the hanger housing the SHIELD helicarrier, nearly completed. He remotely triggers its repulsor lifters, raises it up and lets it fall on top of Maouad, crushing him and his armour.
We learn afterwards that Sims and Van Zandt were killed in the attack. And that the news is calling the red and gold saviour Iron Man. Stark uncovers the embezzlement, and has Birch under official investigation. Birch is removed as Director of SHIELD, and Stark recommends Nick Fury as his replacement. He puts Potts and Rhodes in charge of completing the helicarrier. And he goes to an AA meeting.