Iron Man (vol. 3) #11
Schedule Conflicts
Tony Stark has a nightmare where he — as Iron Man — has to fight alone against Whiplash, and the Espionage Elite. He is quickly swarmed by his attackers when suddenly the Mandarin also appears and mocks Tony for being so fragile.[1] He wakes up from this dream just as Jim Rhodes is about to land their chopper at Tony Stark’s new estate located on an island off the coast of Seattle. Once they have landed, Tony gets out on the hoverchair he needs to get around while his injuries are healing. He is greeted by his two employees, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan who are happy to see him. After the warm welcome, Happy takes Tony on a tour of his new home.[2]
The entire facility is completely automated and responds to voice commands. When they head into the private medical center, Tony finds Jane Foster — who has been personally flown in to treat Tony’s injuries — waiting for him. As it turned out, the Black Widow brought Tony to Foster after his battle with the Mandarin for treatment. Foster learned Tony’s secret identity however, he knows that she can trust her with this secret.[3] This, however, doesn’t change the fact that he is suffering from serious injuries and Foster forbids him from becoming Iron Man again until his wounds have had a chance to heal. She has done a full scan on Tony’s body and she is concerned that his body isn’t healing fast enough and doesn’t want him to push himself any further.[4] Tony assures them that he won’t get himself nearly killed like the last time he was confined to a wheelchair,[5] but insists that he needs to keep busy or he’ll go crazy. Jane agrees to let him continue his consulting work with Stark Solutions as long as he doesn’t do anything physical.
Meanwhile, at headquarters of Baintronics, Inc. in Seattle, Sunset Bain is overseeing a test of some new artillery when one of her assistants informs her that Stark Solutions has once again rejected their their request to work together again.[6] Bain is annoyed by this and checks in on her newest employee Stuart Clarke who informs her that they are all ready with the contingency plan.[7]
Also in the city Warbird arrives in the city and changes into her civilian identity as Carol Danvers. Having just been benched by the Avengers,[8] she has come to meet with her old friend Tracy Burke.[9] Going out for lunch together, Tracy explains that she has a position open for a tech support magazine that she would like Carol to write articles for. To celebrate, Carol is about to order a Seven in Seven when she remembers that Tracy is a recovering alcoholic and apologizes. Burke says it is all right but is surprised to see Carol drinking so early in the day. Danvers is about to make up an excuse when someone outside catches her eye. Excusing herself, Carol goes outside and confronts Tony Stark who is arriving at the restaurant with Pepper and Happy. She accuses Tony of following her to Seattle, but Tony insists that it was a coincidence telling her that he had plans to come out this way since before the Avengers got back together.[10] Annoyed none the less, Carol tells him to butt out of her life and flies off.
Later, Tony is taken down to the Seattle police department for a meeting. The officers take him down to the morgue to identify a body. He is shocked to discover that it is Whitney Frost, aka Madame Masque, something that should be impossible since he already identified her dead body over a year earlier! Tony think about his love-hate relationship with Whitney. She was once the head of the Maggia and became Madame Masque when he face was horribly scarred. Despite all this, Tony and Whitney once shared a romance until the day she betrayed him to her father, the notorious criminal Count Nefaria. At the time, Nefaria was rapidly aging due to a side effect from his ionic based powers and died in the conflict, making Whitney his enemy again from that point on. Tony was more recently led to believe that Whitney was murdered by a successor who took her place, and is aware of a similarly garbed woman calling herself Masque.[11]
That’s when Tony gets a distress call from Jim Rhodes who has just found out that someone has recovered his long lost War Machine armor and is using it to attack Astrodyne Systems, the company he was just about to start consulting for.[12] Despite the fact that this goes against doctors orders, Tony insists on confronting this new War Machine as Iron Man. Slipping into a nearby alley with Pepper and Happy, Tony changes into his armor and takes off. As Tony goes, Happy is hit with the old pangs of uselessness that stem back to when Tony first hired him.[13]
Iron Man attacks the new War Machine and demands to know who he really is.[14] Unfortunately, things are not that easy, as War Machine refuses to divulge who he is or why he’s attacking Astrodyne. As the pair fight, the battle is being watched by Jane Foster and Jim Rhodes back at Tony’s new home. While Jane is furious that Tony has ignored her orders, Jim thinks he recognizes War Machine’s voice.[15] Due to his injuries, Iron Man is easily defeated by War Machine. That’s when Warbird arrives on the scene to save his ass.[16] War Machine manages to evade her by using a cloaking device built into his armor. This allows him to snatch the unconscious Iron Man on a nearby rooftop. He tells Warbird to get lost or else he’ll throw Iron Man to his death.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Warbird, Sunset Bain, War Machine, Stuart Clarke, Jim Rhodes, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, Tracy Burke, Madame Masque (corpse)
Continuity Notes
This all stems from Tony’s recent trials and tribulations. He got the shit kicked out of him in Iron Man (vol. 3) #8. Despite his serious injuries he still went after the Mandarin in the following two issues.
Here, Happy refers to Pepper as his ex-wife. The two had been married for quite a long time after tying the knot in Tales of Suspense #91. However, in more recent times their marriage fell apart and they got divorced. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #4 for all the sordid details.
Tony knows he can trust Jane because she once knew Thor’s double identity back when he used to pose as Dr. Donald Blake. Thor first revealed his secret to Jane in Journey into Mystery #124. Although she was made to forget it in Thor #136, but learned the truth again circa Thor #236. Tony learned about Thor’s double identity in Avengers #113. That all said, Thor had given up the Don Blake identity for some time now, as seen in Thor #339. He will resume using it in Thor (vol. 3) #1.
It’s later revealed next issue that the energy fields of Iron Man’s armor has been weaking his immune system for years making injuries take longer to heal. Tony will design a new suit of armor without this flaw in Iron Man (vol. 3) #13.
Tony went through a whole ordeal after he got shot through the spine. This put him in a wheelchair until an experimental bio-chip was installed to restore his lost mobility. However, rivals in the business world hacked the bio-chip in order to try and take control of him. Before Tony severed this connection his central nervous system was left in tatters leaving him crippled again. Tony later had a new artificial nervous system created for his body but had to briefly fake his death in order to pull it off. Even after all that, Stark had to undergo physio-therapy just to get back on his feet. See Iron Man #242, 248, 258-266, 284, 289-290, and 300. As per Avengers Annual 2001, Tony no longer has an artificial nervous system after being restored by Franklin Richards, which is whole other complicated thing see point #10 below.
Sunset states that “Tony is being bashful again”, this is referring to the fact that she seduced Tony when he was much younger. This was all in order to steal company secrets from Stark Industries. She dumped him right after and the pair have had a frosty relationship since. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #19 for the deatils.
Don’t recognize Stuart Clarke? Guy built his own suit of armor and lashed out against the corporate world as Rampage when there was a recession going on. See Champions #5-8 and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #17-18. He was last seen in costume in Wonder Man (vol. 2) #5-6, 17-18, and 20-21.
Warbird had rejoined Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Avengers (vol. 3) #4. However, her waning powers and growing drinking problem led to a disciplinary hearing regarding her conduct. Refusing to acknowledge she has a drinking problem, Carol rage quit the Avengers in issue #7 of their series. She won’t seek help for her drinking problem until she enters AA circa Avengers (vol. 3) #22.
Carol Danvers started working for Women Magazine back when she first became a superhero back in Ms. Marvel #1. She had to work for notoriously difficult publisher J. Jonah Jameson and the two frequently butted heads. Ultimately Carol quit the job in Ms. Marvel #22. Carol and Tracy Burke first started working together in Ms. Marvel #8.
The Avengers were on a hiatus for a bit because the core members were believed to have died in Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1. In reality, they were transported to a pocket dimension by Franklin Richards where they relived re-imagined lives until they were found and brought back to their native reality in Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4. Iron Man and the other core Avengers reformed the team in Avengers (vol. 3) #1 shortly thereafter.
Tony’s relationship with Whitney Frost, aka Madame Masque, is a long and complicated one:
She first appeared in Tales of Suspense #97-98 as the leader of the Maggia known as the Big M. She attempted to seduce Tony Stark in order to steal secrets from his company. Unable to get his attention, she instead focused her attentions on Jasper Sitwell, then the SHIELD liaison for Stark Industries. However, her deception was exposed in Iron Man #8.
Fleeing the authorities, Whitney crashed her aircraft in Iron Man #12 and her face was horribly scarred. She was then recruited by Mordecai Midas, where she took on the identity of Madame Masque. She reconnected with Tony at the time and began falling in love with him as seen in Iron Man #17-19.
Frost then began posing at Krissy Longfellow and got a job as Tony’s new admin assistant in Iron Man #91 although she was exposed in issue #99. Tony and Whitney decided to pursue a romance during Mordecai Midas’ failed attempt to take over Stark International. Tony even revealed his true identity to her. See Iron Man #103-107.
Around this time, Whitney’s father — Count Nefaria — gained ionic powers in Avengers #164-166. A side effect of these new powers was that Nefaria was now rapidly aging. He forced Whitney to try and help him and he died during a battle with Iron Man, as seen in Iron Man #115-116. Whitney left him right after, not able to forgive Tony for killing her father. Nefaria eventually comes back to life and will attack Tony in Iron Man Annual 1999, in case you’re wondering.
Anyway, Whitney Frost was believed to have been killed by a mystery woman who then stole her identity in Iron Man #238. Tony later identified her body in Iron Man #245. Here, Tony states that this event happened “over a year ago”. According to the Sliding Timescale, it was actually nearly four years prior. Tony’s been killed, resurrected, and merged with a younger version of himself not long before this story, so I think we can excuse him getting the dates wrong.
Iron Man also recounts meeting a woman calling herself Masque. She appeared in Iron Man #320 before disappearing all together circa Avengers #399.
As we’ll learn in Avengers (vol. 3) #32, Whitney Frost is actually alive and well. After the incident with Count Nefaria she became afraid of her own mortality. She then started working behind the scenes and employed bio-duplicates to act as her proxy. This has been the case since Iron Man #138. Every time one bio-duplicate has outlived their usefulness, Frost sent its successor to eliminate it and take its place. Masque is the only outlier because she went rogue before she could be completely condition to do her job.
The original War Machine armor was last during an time travel adventure, as seen in War Machine #15-17.
Tony hired Happy as his chauffeur after Hogan risked his own life to pull Tony from a car wreck in Tales of Suspense #45. Hap has always felt inadequate working for Tony Stark.
Here, Iron Man states that the original War Machine retired months earlier. After losing his War Machine armor, Jim Rhodes aquired a suit of Eidolon Warwear in War Machine #18. However, he sacrificed this suit of armor to destroy all record of Tony’s Iron Man armor during the period everyone believe he was dead in order prevent Iron Man tech from falling into the wrong hands. See Tales of the Marvel Universe #1.
That’s because this War Machine is Jim’s old war buddy, Parnell Jacobs. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #20 for the dope on their friendship.
Here, War Machine mistakenly calls Warbird Ms. Marvel, prompting her to tell him she hasn’t used that name in years. Carol took up that name in Ms. Marvel #1. However, she changed her name to Binary in Uncanny X-Men #164 and decided on Warbird in Avengers (vol. 3) #4. She won’t go back to calling herself Ms. Marvel until House of M #1.
Topical References
The news footage of the War Machine attack is being recorded by K5 News. K5 is an NBC affiliate located in Seattle, Washington. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world television station.
