Synopsis
Iron Man (1968 series) #149 synopsis by
T Vernon
Rating:
Modern day pirates with helicopters and assault weapons hijack a ship crossing the Atlantic. Suddenly Iron Man appears and it takes only seconds for him to rout the bandits. He then delivers the message he came for: the ship is to return to port immediately. He arranges for the ship to be met by the Coast Guard to take the prisoners into custody and returns to the Stark complex on Long Island. There, Shellhead goes to his temporary quarters (the place burned in issues #146-147) and changes into Tony Stark. Sparing a second to worry about the missing Bethany Cabe, he rushes to a staff meeting. There he confronts one of his regional managers, Zurrow, rebukes him for authorizing a sale of electronics to Latveria and fires him, noting that Iron Man was able to intercept the shipment and order it home….
Doctor Doom is centuries in the past, having the wizard Cagliostro teach him all the aged sorcerer knows about magic. He hands over a cask of jewels as payment and returns to the present via time machine. His technician, Gert Hauptmann, brings the bad news that the shipment of electronics has been cancelled. Doom rebukes him and leaves the scientist pondering thoughts of revenge for the insult and his brother’s death at the hands of Doom….
That night, Iron Man sits on the pier at Stark International, waiting for Doom’s attempt to take the components by force. An amphibious craft emerges from the sea and clobbers Shellhead with a giant hammer; it then fires a set of electrical wires which entangles the hero and interferes with his own circuitry. Shellhead then throws himself under the treads of the enemy craft, which severs the wires while leaving his armor unscratched. But the baddies get away with the crates of goods….
The next day, Tony Stark arrives in Latveria (flown by Rhodey) and is met at the airport by the soldiers of King Zorba. But they have come in peace, giving Tony a map to Doom’s castle, hoping that Iron Man can eliminate Doom’s threat to the kingdom. As Iron Man he jets to the castle where his advanced sensors reveal that the entrances are masked by illusions. Entering he is attacked by three guard robots which he defeats easily then he finds Doom on a balcony awaiting him. Iron Man demands the stolen tech back; Doom dismisses him as a mere errand boy. Shellhead refuses so Doom uses a molecule expander to transform dust in the air into flying boulders; Iron Man dodges and suddenly it’s a vicious hand-to-hand battle between two armored foes, which ends surprisingly with the time cube sending them far into the past: Gert Hauptmann had taken his revenge….