An armed intruder breaks into the laboratory of Dr. Karl Swensen at Krotze International, demanding the designs for his robotic exosuit. Swensen refuses and triggers a countdown on his own equipment, but the intruder — protected by a M.A.X. Model I suit — survives the electrical discharge and escapes with the lab's data.
That same night at MIT in Cambridge, Swensen's daughter Jennifer "Jenny" Swensen is helping her students — the self-styled Troubleshooters — pull an elaborate prank involving a tractor in the chairman's office. The students include Andy Meadows, Eduardo Giotti, Eric Chin, Timothy Ferris, and Teresa "Terry" Roberts. Professor Swensen catches them in the act but instead of turning them in, decides to help them do it right. Their fun is cut short when detectives arrive to inform Jenny that her father has died in what appears to be a lab accident.
Two days later, at the funeral, Fritz Krotze — owner of the R&D company where Karl worked — coldly informs Jenny that her father's contract gives the family only 24 hours to remove personal property from the lab. Jenny goes to retrieve her father's belongings and, alone at his computer, guesses the password — "Spitfire," his childhood nickname for her — and begins to read a hidden message he left her. She only catches a glimpse before Krotze's security forces her out, but it is enough: her father warned her about Krotze and something called M.A.X.
Jenny attempts to contact Krotze directly, but he is conveniently "in Europe." She goes to her sensei's dojo to train, but her grief and anger leave her unable to focus. Her sensei tells her she must ride through her anger rather than suppress it — or it will destroy her. Jenny resolves to act: she goes to the Troubleshooters and tells them what she knows. They insist on helping despite her protests, and together they plan a break-in to Fort Krotze.
That night, Ferris sets off a pyrotechnic distraction that draws Krotze's guards away from the lab entrance. Jenny slips inside and reads the full message on her father's computer: it is all about M.A.X. — Man Amplified X-periment — his life's work. She turns to reveal the final prototype, M.A.X. Model II, hidden in the lab. The Troubleshooters arrive just as the guards return. Jenny reveals the lab's secret: the entire structure splits into three sections, each loaded onto a pre-positioned tractor trailer, and the convoy drives out through explosive-bolted walls before Krotze's men can stop them.
Meanwhile, at Krotze International headquarters, Krotze and his operative Faylen are demonstrating M.A.X. Model I — modified with weapons systems — to Middle Eastern clients. When word comes that Model II is gone, Krotze orders Faylen to take a team and recover it. Tracking the convoy's heat signature, the Model I suit intercepts the three trucks in a quarry north of Boston. Jenny dons the Model II suit — code-named Spitfire by her father — for the first time and engages. Outgunned but faster, she uses Spitfire's construction tools and turbofan jets to outmaneuver the heavier Model I, finally blinding it with lubricating oil and knocking it out with a series of strikes. She lets the pilot live, warning Krotze through him that she will find proof he killed her father.
In the epilogue, the convoy heads north toward New Hampshire, where Andy's family owns land. Jenny tells the Troubleshooters to keep their identities secret as long as possible. The issue ends with the group heading into an uncertain future, the M.A.X. suit and its secrets still theirs — for now.
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