Synopsis / Summary / Plot
We begin with a look at an alternate reality version of Iron Man's origin where Tony Stark died and Dr Ho Yinsen escaped to become the armoured fighter for peace, Rescue. With the superhero group the Defenders he has ushered in an era of universal peace, a basic living wage and free healthcare. Humanity is defeating global warming and expanding into space.
This vision is courtesy of Dr Doom who defeated Iron Man with magic last issue. He claims that Iron Man's origin was a magical event, and needed a death to power it - either Yinsen's or Stark's. Tony of course doesn't believe this.
What he does know is that the real Dr Doom is on Earth at the moment, so he reasons that this Doom is from the future. (Although why he couldn't just be from an alternate timeline I don't know.) Doom admits he's right.
The Latverian monarch claims that there will come a "day of the Demiurge" when magic will completely change to a form that Doom isn't fluent in. But it was Doom's magic that kept his little kingdom viable, and it falls apart. To resolve the problem he turned to science instead, and his time-travel apparatus.
He remembered this time of the phlogistone-rush on the Moon, and how he'd let that immense power source slip through his fingers because he was too busy elsehwere and only sent Doombots. So he's come back in time and hid among the 'bots - intending to forge a new future. He plans to use cosmic alchemy to absorb the phlogistone into himself and become a god.
Future Doom has stripped Stark of his armour and access to his computers and machines. He has him now in a mystic realm held by tentacles. But now it's Tony's turn to speak, and he argues that all this is illusiom, and they are really still in Tranquility Gulch, the town on the Moon. And Doom could be doing all this with science not magic. He sows doubt in Doom's confidence, and breaks the illusion.
The Iron Man armour immediately reforms around its master, and the fight is on.