Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Dr Strange arrives home in his Sanctum Sanctorum via a mystic portal having just prevented Tiboro using the Screaming Idol from gaining access to this dimension. He brushes off the attentions of his manservant Wong and says he wants to be alone and undisturbed. He enters an inner room and we find out why - it's a meeting of the Illuminati.
The group keep their existence secret from even their closest family and associates. DrS's spell transported them directly to this chamber masked by the Ward of Zhered-Na. He brought Black Bolt from Attilan on the Moon, and Sub-Mariner from Atlantis beneath the ocean. And Prof X from the flagship of his lover the Shi'Ar Empress Lilandra. (They congratulate him on being able to walk.)
Mr Fantastic called this meeting to discuss the missing member Iron Man. Tony Stark has lost his company to Obadiah Stane and is now broke. He's a drunk living on the street in Los Angeles. Charles Xavier thinks telepathic probing might help him uncover the root of his problem and overcome it. Stephen Strange could use spells to uncover any illegality in Stane's takeover. Reed Richards could hire Tony to look after his patents. But Blackagar Boltagon silently objects. And Namor, as a fellow ruler, thinks he understands and agrees.
He believes Stark wouldn't want help. If he can't beat this himself then he would be no use against the threats that this team was created to face.
We turn to homeless Tony Stark on a bench in LA with only a golf bag and clubs to keep him company. There's no other pedestrian on the street except a fellow bum who rants about supervillains(?) from the future who are meddling with his mind to stop him inventing things to defeat them. He sees Tony as a fellow intelligent designer.
Stark remembers a final meeting with Stane where he was thrown out of his own office. Obadiah 'graciously' allowed Tony to take the golf set that he said belonged to his father.
Now we see him look in a liquor store window. But pass on.
Then he sees the bum down a side alley being hung from a fire escape by a costumed guy with a scythe. He decides to intervene and pushes a button on the 'golf bag'. Which opens up to reveal the components of a really old suit of Iron Man armour.
A quick repulsor blast severs the rope that is hanging his 'friend'. Then Iron Man confronts the villain, who calls himself The Hangman and says it's his holy mission to clean up the city. An electromagnet disarms the foe of his scythe. But then Tony's jet boots run out of fuel and he lands in a dumpster. Hangman moves in for the kill, but an iron fist knocks him out.
Shellhead offers to take the victim to hospital but he doesn't want that. He just asks for someone name Tamara. Stark checks his pockets and finds a wallet with a driver license in the name Tyree Robinson, and a home address in the Imperio suburb. With no working boot jets he resorts to his built-in roller skates to take them there. And surveillance cameras clock his movements.
Tamara is home, and she turns out to be Tyree's sister. Tony (without the armour) explains what happened, and Tyree heads for his room. Tamara explains that he was doing excellently in a college course in Engineering, but then he was diagnosed with an (unspecified) mental illness. He keeps going off his meds. Tamara is worn down.
Tony leaves, and Tamara warns him that Imperio isn't a good place to be at night. He finds 2 guys examining the golf bag where he stashed it. They refuse to give it to him because they don't believe it's his. They also don't believe it when he fights back - doesn't he know who they work for? And a futuristic gun is a convincer when it zaps him in the chest.
They run off but leave the bag, not realising that they've stopped Stark's artificial heart. He gets the chestplate out of the golf bag and puts it on. But he needs a power source. He inches towards some wires hanging free from the base of a streetlight. But collapses before he can make it.
The 2 crooks report to their boss. They say they tracked Iron Man to Imperio, which is part of the boss's turf. But all they found was Tony Stark's golf bag. And a wino who they killed with the 'kinetic drainer' that The Travellers gave them. The boss confirms that they've told no-one else that Stark and Iron Man are in Los Angeles. And then he burns them up with a blast from his palm.
The boss takes the surveillance evidence to a costumed group he belongs to that he calls The Pride. He figures Stark is trying to infiltrate their city without them noticing. But now that they have noticed they'll have to slap him down.