Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Invincible Iron Man #80 Synopsis by
T Vernon
At Baghdad International Airport, an incoming plane drops an advanced all-terrain vehicle onto the tarmac: this is how Tony Stark, Secretary of Defense, arrives in Iraq on an important mission. He meets General Krebs, the local commander and is ushered into a large room full of people trying to get his attention; he refers them to his hapless attaché Bob Ezzard and walks out the back door with Krebs. Tony leads a convoy in his ATV to the north where the men disappeared. On the way they run into an ambush of followers of Ishtar, firing paintball guns—but the guns fire acid, melting away the armor on the vehicles within seconds. Tony changes to Iron Man to take down the terrorists and rescue the wounded; a quick analysis of the acid reveals it a biological in nature. Tony calls the Defense Intelligence Agency and learns that the goo is a weaponized bacteria which eats metal and secretes acid, the work of one Vitriol, code name for one of Saddam Hussein’s weapons designers who broke with the dictator and formed his own gang, eventually dropping off the grid. In a town under siege by the terrorists, a young woman named Leyla volunteers to direct them to the ruined temple where the soldiers disappeared. Entering the Temple of Ishtar, Leyla steps into a pool filled with the bioweapon and emerges as Ishtar, glowing with fire….