Synopsis / Summary / Plot
We're back to Riri Williams doing the recap, reminding us that Tony Stark's missing, she's been subbing for him as Ironheart and Dr Doom is going by the nom-de-armour Iron Man these days. Loads of people have been searching for Tony lately but last issue he contacted Riri and some others and told them to stop looking. Also someone aims to set up a replacement for the disbanded SHIELD, and Riri guesses it's Tony.
Meanwhile in Amara Perera's apartment in Boston Victor Von Doom is recovering from his injuries (he was attacked by Hood's gang in the past 4 issues). He asks about their unborn child but Amara continues to insist she doesn't want him involved. Victor in turn says he will give her whatever the child needs and ask for nothing in return. Then he mystically summons his armour and just as magically vanishes. When he's gone Amara confides to the baby inside her that she reluctantly loves the man.
Tony Stark's birth mother Amanda Armstrong is staying at the Sofitel Hotel in New York, sitting on her balcony. She gets a(nother) visit from Mary Jane Watson who tells her that Eric Lynch is going to sue Amanda for hitting him with her guitar (#594). And also that Lynch and the rest of the Stark Industries Board are going to take control of the company away from Amanda on Monday if Tony doesn't show up.
After MJ has gone Amanda gets a phone call from Tony, just to warn her that he's coming to see her. She looks up and Iron Man is hovering in front of her. He lands and de-armours. He tries to explain why he's been absent, but she's more concerned why he's wearing a wig and false beard. And it turns out also false moustache and eyebrows. The medical stuff he's been through has left him (temporarily) completely hairless (as we saw in #593 and later). He says he wanted her to recognise him.
Tony explains that enhancements he made to his body saved his life (in Civil War II) but it could only work once. And those enhancements were somehow bad as well, so he 'rebooted' his system to get rid of them. (It's unclear to me whether the coma he was in was part of the enhancements saving his life or part of the reboot.)
But he also says unfortunately he's got to go now. He's got a long flight and he gives her a communicator and asks her to tell him about his biological father while he's en route. Then he armours up again and jets off.
We now move to Eric Lynch in the Stark Industries Boardroom on the phone to MJ telling her that he's going to sue Miss Armstrong and that the Board have voted to take the Company on Monday if Tony Stark no-shows. (But up above it seemed he'd already told her all this!)
But we haven't time to think about that because the Hood has teleported in. He came to ask why Dr Doom was pretending to be Iron Man (to which Lynch doesn't know or care about the answer). But now that he's overheard about the hostile takeover he wants in (and not just because he's a very minor stockholder).
While Iron Man flies away from New York Amanda starts to tell him about the imminent takeover. But the AI Friday chimes in to say she's already brought her boss up to speed on everything. Tony still wants to know about his father. All his life he'd been fighting what he thought was his genetic heritage from Howard Stark. But since his near-death he's become more interested in what he might have inherited from his real father.
Iron Man is flying over Washington as Amanda tells him his dad was Thor. The joke has the desired shock effect. Then she reminds Tony that dad was a SHIELD Agent who was really working for Hydra. She found out about Hydra while she was pregnant, and killed him in self-defence. He was a bad guy, but also very smart and very handsome. Tony reckons he definitely inherited the last 2 parts.
Over Arlington National Cemetery he asks why exactly she killed him. Amanda replies that Jude was going to give the child to Hydra. And after Tony was born she worried about Hydra coming after him, and Howard Stark offered to help hide the child. (But this doesn't jibe completely with her story in International Iron Man #7, and her memory now seems to show her killing Jude with scissors in his neck only because he was a traitor who betrayed fellow Agents to their deaths.)
Tony asks why Jude worked for Hydra. His mother says Hydra had a persuasive pitch then. She agrees that Jude believed in what he did. Tony says he's trying to justify to himself a selfish decision. And we see him standing over the grave of James Rhodes.
Now at last we join Ironheart with fellow armoured heroes Toni Ho (in a variant of her Iron Patriot armour), Madison Jeffries and Arno Stark. Last issue they came to a warehouse in Paramus New Jersey hoping to find Tony but instead burst in on villainess Ceres Goldstein. Riri is sure they were sent on a wild goose chase and demands to know who Toni and the others are working for (the mystery SHIELD-replacement guy). Madison says they don't know, but Toni says she knows enough to know the job's important.
But just then Ironheart and Iron Patriot's boot jets take them into the air, and they didn't initiate it. Toni says the mystery boss has taken control of their armour, which Riri protests should be impossible for hers. A voice breaks in to greet them and confirm Toni's theory. Then they meet the mystery man who claims to be *the* 15th/16th Century Leonardo da Vinci, who claims to have been 1 of the original founders of SHIELD.
Back on the balcony Amanda Armstrong is remembering stabbing Jude again. When he walks in alive. She's not surprised but annoyed because she said they had a deal. But he says he wants to meet their son.