Synopsis
Iron Man (2024 series) #5 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Tony Stark is still suffering from the injuries he suffered in the Stark-Roxxon War, and also from the lack of all his Iron Man armours. So he cobbled together a makeshift version. Riri Williams (Ironheart) is helping him repair his other arnours but she detected unauthorised use of Stark tech in her home town Chicago. They and ex-SHIELD Melinda May, known as Cavalry, discovered a group of ex-New York cops and ex-SHIELD Agents called the Heat, currently led by a Latverian supercriminal Lucia Von Bardas. And they have a giant Stark Sentinel left over from the war between Orchis and mutants. And there are lots of civilian captives.
IM's armour has an equally-improvised AI, IronGPT, which hasn't even had Tony's name programmed in. The existence of the Sentinel prompts it to suggest scanning for mutants in the prisoners. Ironheart's superior AI NATALIE points out that it may be more significant to note that they all seem to be people of colour. Iron Man takes on cybernetic Bardas with his current humongous sword while Cavalry faces the Heat troops and Ironheart goes to free the captives.
Bardas tries to make her actions seem political by claiming that American superheroes are always invading her country Latveria. Stark points out it was usually because Dr Doom was trying to take over the world, and hits her with a repulsor blast. But she reveals that her Latverian backers have upgraded her cybernetic enhancements to include repulsor-absorption, and she sends it all back at him. Tony drops his sword and falls to the ground. Melinda catches it but is overwhelmed by Heat and Von Bardas. Tony forces his battered body to rise and jet-boots into Bardas.
1 of the captives is Riri's friend Xavier King and she tears through a chainlink fence to get to him. He tells her he saw the Heat kidnapping folks so they grabbed him too. They claimed to be cops but didn't act like it. They kept asking where the guns and drugs were. Heat troops advance and angry Ironheart blasts them all and then grabs 1 still conscious and demands to know what they're doing in Chicago. He starts talking when she takes him into the air and threatens to drop him. After things went bad for the Heat in NY (Daredevil (2023) #2-10) Bardas financed them to set up base in Chicago to 'clean up' the city.
Ironheart sees Bardas fighting Iron Man in midair and flies up to help him. She reminds LVB that she herself is technically still Queen of Latveria (since IM(2017)#8-10 where SHIELD sent her to depose Bardas after she took over the country after Dr Doom abdicated in the Infamous IM series). Bardas now claims that SHIELD originally backed her takeover, so Riri Williams should worry that they might turn on *her*. And now she has ex-SHIELD Agents working for her. And IM has to push IH out of the way as LVB redirects *her* blasts back at her.
Melinda May throws IM's giant sword at their opponent, causing damage, as the 2 Iron-folk fall to the ground. Stark uses a tractor beam to regain his sword and uses that to blast the more vulnerable Heat troops. He tells Riri to get back to freeing prisoners while he goes back to tackling Bardas. He tries to reason with the foe, commenting that he wasn't involved with SHIELD when they attacked her. But Bardas retorts that he makes the tools they used. He responds that he stopped making weapons a long time ago, but she was referring to his other stuff like surveillance satellites and software. But now she's going to use his tech that she 'liberated' against him and America. And Latverian money will pay the relevant authorities to look the other way because in America everything's for sale. Bardas has Tony down again so Riri leaves of her prisoner freeing operation again to rejoin the fray. IH and IM combine their energies in the sword and overload Bardas whose cyborg body disintegrates.
IronGPT wonders if the cyborg was already not really alive before they killed her, and NATALIE continues to be annoyed by the stupid AI so Tony tells it to switch off. He commends Melinda's action and asks her to continue as chair of the board of Stark Unlimited. Despite, or because of, their differences of opinion she'll keep him 'honest'. But she turns the job down and asks instead to be his new head of security, where she'll hire some other ex-SHIELD Agents. They shake on it. Then all 3 free all the other prisoners of the Heat while Tony considers if Bardas was right about the surveillance stuff he produces.
But then the Iron Sentinel comes to life animated by the consciousness of Lucia Von Bardas. IronGPT comments about it in an Italian accent it's trying out. NMATALIE thinks this proves that he should *definitely* get out of the AI business. The Sentinel goes on a rampage and the trio concentrate on getting the freed prisoners and unconscious Heat troops out of danger. Ironheart has a plan based on how she and IM defeated an IS in #12 of the previous series. She uses Pym Particles to go giant-size to match the Sentinel. NATALIE scans the bot and says it could be taken out by a repulsor blast but Riri wants to avoid the damage it would cause when it fell. Instead she fires PP's at it, causing it to shrink until it fits in her (admittedly giant) hand.
Melinda May boxes the Bardas Sentinel up. The prisoners, armed with makeshift weapons, cheer Ironheart. Iron Man proposes to destroy the empty warehouse with his sword. But Riri proposes a more fitting solution. She sends repulsor disks to attach to the 'weapons' which IM then powers up with his 'Repulsword' so the prisoners can wreck their prison.
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: Melinda May, Natalie AI, Xavier King.
Enemies
Heat, Lucia von Bardas.