Iron Man (2026 series) #5

The issue begins with Fixer reminding Tony Stark (and us) what's been happening. A long time ago Stark let Whitney Frost (Madame Masque) know 1 of his worst nightmares - that someone else would be put in a terrible situation like the 1 which caused him to invent the Iron Man armour, and this person would create something even more dangerous. So Masque and AIM kidnapped Tony's handpicked young geniuses and put them in life-threatening situations to see what would happen. Iron Man came to rescue them but got caught too, but now he's escaping with some of them. However Fixer has used some of their inventions to create an Advanced IM armour to stop them and he's already severely, possibly fatally, wounded Adam Ware, the young man who won the Tony Stark Grant Award.

While Norbert Ebersol rants Tony uses his gauntlet to try to contact the rest of his armour but can't. However he comes up with a plan and tells the others what to do while he leads the villain away armed only with 1 repulsor ray in the glove. And while Fixer hunts them Madame Masque is more concerned with the fact that their stolen Helicarrier is crashing to Earth. Meanwhile Stark taunts Fixer with the fact that it wasn't just the danger that allowed him to create the original armour. He had help from Prof Ho Yinsen, and built on what he'd learned from his father and his teachers. And later heroes like the Avengers and friends like Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts helped shape what he became. And at this point the young geniuses have reached the controls for the 'escape' rooms that they suffered in, and Fixer finds himself in 1 of them being battered by multiple IM suits.

Tony uses his gauntlet again to take remote control of an AIM escape shuttle. The 5 young geniuses get in and it flies them to safety. Whitney finds him and reminisces about when they were lovers. Stark says he's going to find Adam's body and the other captives, alive or dead, and then he's coming to take her to justice. But Frost activates a command that she got AIM to insert in his armour, and it coalesces around his body and takes him away from the Helicarrier which finally crashes into the ground.

Later we hear a news report on the event including the fact that the crashed Helicarrier was designed by Stark and an allegation that AIM was following a plan also designed by him. Commentators are blaming him for the results of his irresponsible inventing. A man listening to this has his own Iron Man armour and he he talks to himself about other secrets of Tony's that he has that Tony thought he'd destroyed. He says Tony needs to stop being Iron Man for his own sake and that of the people he loves. And he claims to have learned that the hard way himself. We see a cracked IM faceplate next to a Citizen V mask.

Back in his workshop in the old Gamma Base Tony phones his latest potential girlfriend Luna Lucia to apologise for abandoning their 1st date (in #3) to go superheroing (and leaving her with his ex Pepper). She says dating him gives her good stories to tell her friends, and they agree to another go. He also mentions that something she said about trying something different inspired him. He's met by Pepper and his head of Security Melinda May who are worried by this new plan of his. But he charges on into a room containing the 5 surviving young geniuses and welcomes them to the Stark School Of Super-Science. It's time for him to invest in people with new ideas who'll make the world a better place and will continue doing it when he's lost his own touch.

Finally we learn that Madame Masque escaped the Helicarrier but has now been brought to account by her AIM superiors. Her plan failed and cost them the Helicarrier and has also weakened their own status in the eyes of their followers and emboldened rival factions. But Fixer also survived and reveals that someone else also made it out of the crash, Adam Ware. He tells the High Council that Stark wouldn't have escaped without the aid of Ware's new comms tech (last issue), tech which they have now embedded in his brain. But Adam now uses that tech to free him from his restraints and take control of AIM's computer system. He also takes over tech incorporated in Fixer's body and turns it against him fatally. He claims to now control this branch of AIM and will soon bring all other factions into the fold. And then he has a plan ...