Iron Man visits a home in Beverly Massachusetts, looking for
Carol Danvers who summarily quit the
Avengers (in
AVENGERS v.3 #6). When he enters her room, he expresses his and the team's concern for her, revealing his secret identity as
Tony Stark. Carol pours out her despair at having had everything then lost it, reviewing her career as security chief, becoming
Ms. Marvel and joining the Avengers, losing her powers to
Rogue, becoming
Binary, losing those powers and becoming
Warbird, now leaving the Avengers. Tony asks if she has been drinking to deal with her depression and she flies into a rage and orders him out of the house....
On the way home, he asks
Pepper Potts about her marital problems and is told to butt out. They arrive at
PowerSource Inc., run by former employee
Victoria Snow on the trail of the
Arms Merchant's mysterious employer (we know it's the
Mandarin but Tony doesn't). Tony asks about the new
Firebrand, who was created at this very facility (see issue
#5) and Victoria pleads confidentiality—and then Warbird crashes in, smelling of alcohol and angry at
Captain America and Iron Man. She stops herself from hurting Tony but then the
Lunatic Legion leader
Dylon Cir, believing that the Avengers are on their trail, crashes in and tries to capture Warbird. She blows a hole in the floor so Tony can escape and change into Iron Man and then it's the two of them against the Kree and the heroes are winning—until a third figure enters the fray:
Sentry #571. The rest of the Kree depart leaving Sentry to deal with Iron Man and Warbird. The monster encloses the building in a Kree
Vibro-field, trapping everyone inside so the two heroes take him on....
Hiding in the basement with the PowerSource staff, Pepper asks Victoria how she came to be involved with the Kree; Vic tells how her company was facing bankruptcy when the Kree offered to fund the company's new power plant and she was so grateful that she didn't ask questions, even when they spoke of dooming the entire Earth. Pepper tells Tony via comm-link that the Kree have the prototype weapon....
Warbird, blaming herself for the situation, musters her powers and crashes through the Vibro-field in pursuit of the Kree ship. Iron Man musters all his frustration and knocks the Sentry's head off and takes off after his partner—but then he sees that the building is about to collapse and so
Shellhead stays behind to hold up the generator to catch the pieces of the falling roof....
Victoria Snow is arrested for treason but authorizes Tony to look at her client records and he ponders the tragedies that have befallen Victoria and Carol....
Story continues in
CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol. 3 #8.
Give that special marvelite a timely gift