Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Iron Man is trying to protect China's Three Gorges Dam from attack by a horde of Dreadnought robots. He is joined by Dynasty, China's answer to the Avengers (all apparently flying), led by The Star (an armoured Captain America, complete with shield). The rest of the team are The Revolutionary (armour-suited), Soldier One (with shoulder-mounted heavy weapons), Saber (wielding curved light-sabres) and Weather Witch (emitting lightning from her hands).
Despite destroying Dreadnoughts left, right and centre the heroes are losing the battle. Especially when some Dreadnoughts go into suicide mode to breach the dam. Then War Machine shows up to help.
Meanwhile in Paris Doug Johnson, the original Detroit Steel, kills a nest of terrorists to get hold of a passport. (Actually there's no indication they really are terrorists. Just minor criminals stealing tourists' passports to sell.)
In Mandarin City Mandarin and Ezekiel Stane are monitoring the battle. Stane is working on Project Omega, building a giant war mech with tentacles. Stane doesn't understand why the tentacles are important, but Mandarin claims Project Omega has waited thousands of years (but the dam had to be attacked *today*). (I think they're creating a mechanised Cthulhu!). Stane gets uppity, but Mandarin uses a ring to mentally dominate him.
Back at the battle Star tells all the heroes to abandon the dam, and the Chinese airforce blow it up. Apparently it's politically better than allowing it to be destroyed by an enemy. And the rebuilding will provide jobs.
War Machine leads Iron Man to a plane waiting to take them home. But they're also surrounded by members of the Detroit Steel Corps. Stark is effectively under arrest. On the way home he examines some bits of Dreadnought, and determines that their latest upgrades bear the hallmarks of both Mandarin and Stane.
Mandarin and Stane now address an army of (supposedly) old Iron Man villains, with their equipment revamped. Blizzard and Living Laser have already attacked our hero during the last 3 issues. Now we also see Chemistro, Crimson Dynamo, Firebrand, Firepower, Mauler, Melter, Titanium Man, Vibro and Whirlwind.