Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Iron Man faces Dr Doom in the ruins of Castle Doom. But this is a new Doom with no armour and only a very small scar on his face. But that doesn't stop the Golden Avenger attacking with his repulsors. Doom easily repels the assault with a magic force field.
Tony Stark is still sceptical, so Victor Von Doom proves his identity by reminding him of events in their Arthurian adventure. This only compels IM to attack harder, morphing his armour into Hulkbuster form. But Doom's forcefield still holds. So Stark decides to chat while his armour's AI searches for weaknesses in Doom's defences.
Iron Man is here because Madame Masque has just raided the place. Cue flashback memories of his earlier involvements with Whitney Frost. Victor tells Tony that MM has been acquiring powerful items that have fallen to Earth from other dimensions (Earth is an interdimensional crossroads). Things that are too dangerous to let the criminally insane Whitney have them.
Doom takes Stark down into a wrecked laboratory where he opens a box and produces a Wand of Watoomb. He explains that this is not the 1 that Dr Strange has - it came from elsewhere. But he gives it to Shellhead for safekeeping. Masque stole a decoy version that Doom had originally intended to swap for Dr Strange's. Tony should be able to track her energy signature to figure out where else she robbed, and also find her now.
The AI informs Tony that Latverian rebels are storming the castle. Stark expects Dr Doom to kill them, but Victor says he's not like that anymore - and he doesn't want to rule Latveria again. And he teleports Iron Man to the Bronx Zoo.
The Armoured Avenger tracks Madame Masque to Montreal.
She's sitting in a hotel room when a woman and man enter. Frost shoots the man and accuses the woman of lying to her because Doom's Wand was a fake. Then she shoots the woman.
Whitney takes a shower to wash blood off. But she grabs her gun when she hears a noise. Tony Stark is there, apparently without the armour, and he's already unloaded the weapon. She demands he give her her mask to hide her scarred face. He complies, saying he wants to talk.
Tony accuses Whitney of being in league with Dr Doom. She vehemently denies it and Stark believes her. But he still can't believe Victor might actually be doing something good (or at least not without a sinister reason).
Frost leaps at Stark to strangle him. But Tony was wearing his armour all along in invisible stealth mode, and Whitney fractures her hand. However she uses her other hand to touch the armour and somehow trigger an intense electrical discharge which blows Stark backwards.