Synopsis
It's 4 weeks since the end of last issue when Tomoe blew up a building on top of unarmoured Tony Stark and James Rhodes plus Spider-Man in Osaka Japan. Since then Stark has been missing. And a worried major shareholder in Stark International tries to get the AI Friday to confirm what's going on. He's not mollified to learn that Friday is running the company herself.
In the MIT dorm room from #7 precocious teen Riri Williams has finished building her version of the Iron Man armour from stuff she's 'acquired'. She thinks the disappearance of Stark is a sign that she's supposed to be the new not-so-Golden Avenger. So when campus security comes to asks her about stuff missing from the robotics lab and incriminating security footage, she puts on the suit to greet them.
Meanwhile in Osaka a very much alive Rhodey goes to see his informant Yukio at her illegal club, demanding to know where Tony is. She says her contacts still can't find him - maybe he really is dead. Jim loses patience and calls in the local police to raid the place. He then gives wheelchair-bound Yukio 1 last chance to tell him what he wants to know.
The Japanese cops are suddenly faced with opposition in the form of the 2 female techno-ninjas from #6. Rhodes retaliates with his remote-controlled War Machine armour, which they make short work of.
Just then a man hits Rhodey with a chair. Yukio joins in with an electrified walking stick. And the man wheels her safely out of the club.
In an MIT lab Tony's girlfriend Amara Perera is struggling with her search for a cure for Alzheimer's when she gets a visit from Victor Von Doom, who gained entry by magic. He too wants to know where Tony is - but Amara was hoping he knew.
He suggests it's time she moved on from rats to testing on humans. She responds by asking why the new philanthropic Victor doesn't just use magic to find the cure. Doom replies that magic has a cost, and something as big as a cure for Alzheimer's might unleash something much worse. Amara says that she'll have to go through a lot of red tape to get to human testing. Victor says he can avoid all that.
In a final scene in Osaka the mystery man calling himself Franco goes to a room where JR is waiting for him. It's actually Tony digitally(?) disguised. The whole thing was a setup to get 'Franco' accepted by the baddies. And there's a knock on the door.
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