At a US military base, Army tanks
collapse, their vital joints having melted mysteriously. When word
reaches Tony Stark, whose company built the tanks, he visits his lab
to investigate and is surprised by a villain called the Melter, who
knocks him unconscious. The Melter is Bruno Horgan, a one-time
competitor of Tony Stark’s, whose use of inferior materials in
military contracts was exposed by Stark. Horgan had accidentally
discovered the secret of dissolving iron and designed a portable
raygun to fit on his chest as part of a super-villain costume;
objective: revenge! So now the Melter leaves Tony unconscious where
he is discovered by Happy and Pepper. They help him to his office
where, in private, he recharges his batteries. An alarm goes off and
Tony heads to answer it as Iron Man. He finds the Melter destroying
one of his main generators and confronting him discovers that the
villain’s weapon also dissolves Iron Man’s armor off as the
covering on his left arm melts away. Shellhead runs off and splits an
overhead steam pipe (with hovering magnets!) to prevent his foe from
pursuing. Over the next several days, Tony tries to come up with a
way to stop the Melter but draws a blank. He is summoned to
Washington where officials accuse him of making up these absurd
stories about a saboteur to cover up his company’s poor
performance. During this tense meeting, Tony receives a call about an
emergency at the plant. Donning his Iron Man armor, he rushes back to
his New York lab to try to repair the latest massive damage. There he
is confronted by the Melter—who finds that his beam no longer works
on his armored enemy. To cover his escape, the villain melts a crane,
dropping a heavy load on Happy and Pepper; Iron Man is able to
prevent it from hitting them and pursues his foe. Trapped, the Melter
burns away an iron drain cover and leaps into the sewer system and is
quickly whisked out of sight. Iron Man changes back to Tony Stark to
get back to business as usual.