Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue's assault on the Latverian Embassy has left Iron Man's future as Sheriff of the Tranquility Gulch Luna colony in doubt. But Tony Stark is trying to ignore that as he does an 'autopsy' on the future Dr Doom's armour, digging out the cosmic energy syphon. He gets a phone call from the UN telling him he's sacked, and giving him 24 hours to leave the Moon. That means he's got 24 hours to use the syphon to destroy all the phlogistone on the Moon by transmuting it to iron.
His research had shown that prolonged exposure to phlogistone would drive people mad and eventually dead. But this super-energy source would inevitably be used in things like everybody's mobile phones. So for the sake of humanity it must be destroyed. But 1 problem is that recent unwise actions indicate that the Moon-metal has already had an effect on Tony himself. Even his conviction that he's the only 1 who can save the situation and no-one else can even be trusted with the truth, because "Tony knows best", is part of his building insanity.
Cora Birch, Tony's biographer, has become disenchanted with Stark and the book she's writing. Tony uses Iron Man boots to land on her hotel balcony and ask her out for dinner. She accepts, but only if he'll then explain what's going on. Tony keeps up a facade, but inside he's losing control of his thoughts.
They go to a restaurant run by Cortex Inc that features meals prepared at your table in a hi-tech way. But Tony doesn't remember how they get there. When Cortex's Lunar Director C Anderson Sixty drops by their table, it turns out Stark has an ulterior motive for his choice of venue.
Sixty was convinced by Stark's digital cleverness in #7 that Eli Warren was behind the destruction of Cortex data on phlogistone. He confuses Tony a bit by congratulating him on making Warren and his New Modernist Army 'disappear'. But that doesn't stop Tony from implementing his plan.
It's Sixty's turn to be put on the back foot when Stark asks him what the C in his name stands for. As paparazzi demand photos, Tony explains that he's just alerted the world that Sixty is actually Colin Sixty, 1 of a group of clones created by AIM. (This is what Iron Man found out in #7.) AIM sold him to Cortex, but Cortex is now denying all knowledge and have sacked him (that's fast!).
Sixty grabs a laser cutter from the hi-tech food paraphernalia, but Tony uses martial arts taught him by Captain America to disarm him. Then he plunges Colin's hand into a bucket of liquid nitrogen (more food tech) - the hand freezes and dies.
Cora is not impressed. She thinks Tony's actions were way over the top. And she's far from mollified when he asserts that the clone wasn't a real human being. She stalks out and tells Tony she doesn't want to see him again. Stark vacillates between righteous anger and fear of what's happening to him.
Stark returns to his comfort zone - engineering. Doom had intended to use the cosmic syphon to absorb all phlogistone's energy into himself. Tony has modified the device so that it will beam the energy harmlessly into space. (He suppresses an urge to aim it at Earth to blackmail the UN.)
But before he can install the cosmic syphon in his Iron Man armour he is attacked by the spider-drones of his deputy Udarnik. Tony had kept his plan secret from the robot because Udarnik desperately wanted the companionship of the humans that the lust for phlogistone brought to the Moon. But now Stark realises that Udarnik wasn't deceived.