Synopsis
Last issue Roxxon and AIM made a combined bid to take over Stark Unlimited and its new Board Of Directors is willing to accept. Meanwhile the bad guys destroyed most of Tony's Iron Man armours and put him in hospital, and magic was involved. So he had to cobble together a makeshift version.
This issue begins with Tony still weak from his injuries trying to convince some of the Board members to oppose the buyout. Meanwhile we see a flashback to something he's done in the new armour.
Iron Man's new base is a shack in the Chihuahuan Desert where he gives a load of explosives to the superhuman Tuatara. She transform to her giant lizard form and takes them to blow up a Roxxon pipeline. And she also brings back a sample of some new plating from the pipes.
Stark goes to see Jack Kooning of the Board but he remains convinced the merger is a good deal. He claims that AIM is repositioning itself after its partnership with Orchis (in the saga that ended with Fall Of The Mutants) and the Board can change it from within. And Roxxon is a wealthy oil company. Tony claims that its dependence on the oil/gas market is a big vulnerability, and it is heavily in debt. But Jack is confidant that the combination of the energy and weapons market (which Orchis returned SU to when it owned it during FOTM) and AIM's big ideas will perform much better than Stark's eco-friendly stance.
Then he visits ex-SHIELD Agent Melinda May who accuses him of being behind Tuatara's terrorism, but he points out she has no proof of that other than it being convenient for his anti-merger campaign. She repeats the idea that she can mitigate the worst effects of the bad guys' rule, as she did when Orchis ran SU. But he reminds her that under her watch his factories churned out mutant-killing Sentinel robots.
Later he's flying over snow-covered Aspen, Colorado in his junk-armour with something strapped to its back. He regrets not having had time to build temperature control into it as he nears an AIM site and broadcasts a 10-minute warning to evacuate. He's attacked by someone in the Force armour, but who doesn't seem to be its original wearer Carl Walker/Clayton Wilson (and who Tony's new AI Iron.GPT misidentifies as Whiplash, but then it doesn't even know who Tony is yet). Force doesn't believe he's the real Iron Man because his repulsors don't even work.
But the fight is interrupted by an invitation for Stark to join AIM boss Monica Rappaccini for lunch. The conversation is fairly civilised until Tony recognises that the waiter is Anthony Druid who drops his disguise and in favour of his Dr Druid look. Rappaccini says they needed someone who could combine magic spells with computer software to corrupt his armours. Druid says he's not doing this by choice but he sends tendrils of his dark cloak inside Tony's armour to remind him of his many past failures.
Tony experiences the disdain of his father for losing his company and an equal disdain from Captain America (possibly over Civil War I). Emma Frost berates him for not *really* caring about mutants when she married him (FOTM again and his previous series). He re-experiences his period of alcoholism.
And then he wakes up in the empty lunch room with his AI telling him he's only got 45 mins to get to the Board vote on the merger in New York. Force attacks him again but this time IM pulls out his ace-in-the-hole, developed from the flexible steel/plastic plating on Roxxon's pipeline. He takes the thing off his back and transforms it into a humongous sword.