One night at an East Coast dock, a band of Commie spies are loading a crate aboard their ship—a crate that contains America’s latest atom bomb which they have stolen and plan to deliver to their boss, the Red Barbarian. They open the crate to have another look at their prize—and Iron Man bursts out and subdues them by increasing the power of a magnetic crane. It picks them up by their guns and holds them at a perilous height; Iron Man is not affected because of the special alloy in his armor. He turns the captives over to the FBI and heads off to recharge his armor. Later as Tony Stark, he demonstrates to US military officials his new pocket-size disintegrator which fits into an ordinary flashlight case. The officials are impressed by the device and warn him that the Reds would love to get their hands on it….
Meanwhile, behind the Iron Curtain, the Red Barbarian is informed of Stark’s new invention; when the messengers tell him that the device would be difficult to steal he has them punished. He is interrupted by a startling visitor: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev—who unmasks to reveal himself to be the Actor, a spy and master of disguise. Changing his face to become the exact image of Tony Stark, the Actor offers to steal the disintegrator—for a hefty fee.
Using a variety of guises to enter the USA unnoticed, the Actor decoys Tony to Washington for a phony meeting and arrives at Stark’s laboratory disguised as the millionaire inventor, accompanied by henchmen impersonating top Pentagon officials. While searching the office, the Actor discovers not only the plans for the disintegrator but evidence that Tony Stark is really Iron Man! He heads back to the Red Barbarian while his aides wait behind to assassinate the real Tony. When our hero arrives at the lab, the enemy agents shoot him but the bullets are deflected by his metal chest plate. This gives Tony enough time to douse the lights and change into Iron Man under cover of darkness. He subdues the baddies and forces them to reveal what has happened. Iron Man takes a military rocket behind the Iron Curtain and intercepts the Actor on the road. Iron Man seals the spy inside his car and suspends it from a tree and heads to his rendezvous with the Red Barbarian. Iron Man walks into the villain’s lair with the Actor’s briefcase (containing the plans) and claims to be the Actor disguised as the American hero. He spins a yarn for RB that the attaché case containing the plans for the disintegrator but is protected by a time lock using a miniature A-bomb (!). Iron Man takes the case and heads back to free the Actor, then jets to the nearest western country. The Actor rushes straight to the Red Barbarian with news of Iron Man’s secret identity but the fact that he no longer has the attaché case and denies having been there earlier leads the brutish RB to assume his agent is plotting against him and orders the Actor executed on the spot.
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