Spitfire and the Troubleshooters (1986 series) #4

The issue opens with Prof. Richard Faylen fleeing through a city, hiding in cheap hotels for weeks since Krotze's disappearance. He makes it to his car, believing he has escaped — but Steel Hawk has planted a bomb in the ignition, and Faylen is killed in the explosion.

Four weeks later, in Washington D.C., Jenny Swensen flies to the Capitol steps in the M.A.X. suit as a surprise witness for the Senate Foreign Trade Committee, convened by Senator Daniel Hurt to investigate defense contractor Fritz Krotze. Hurts has arranged for Jenny to testify, and the spectacle draws wall-to-wall television coverage. The Troubleshooters watch from their M.I.T. dorm room, divided — Eduardo Giotti is furious at being kept in the dark about Jenny's plan, while Teresa Roberts defends her. At Boston Police headquarters, detectives Oliver Sloan and Sidney Jenkins also watch and note that Krotze's man Faylen has just turned up dead in Albany.

Before the committee, Jenny removes her helmet and identifies herself as a professor of applied engineering at M.I.T. and daughter of the suit's inventor. She presents the data disk stolen from Krotze's lab, which proves his financial dealings with The Club — an international terrorist organization — and accuses him of having her father killed. The committee presses her for proof of murder; she admits she has none beyond the disk. Senator Hurt calls a recess until the following morning. Simultaneously, Steel Hawk — who has held Krotze prisoner and tortured him for weeks — watches the broadcast and realizes Jenny's testimony has made Krotze a liability. He beats Krotze with a steel baseball bat and, on the bridge over the Charles River outside Boston, injects him with a slow-acting poison and drops him into the water, giving him forty-eight hours before it surfaces in his body.

Two nights later, at a party on the M.I.T. campus thrown by Chairman Dibble in Jenny's honor, she demonstrates the M.A.X. suit's capabilities to Senator Hurt and assembled guests. Steel Hawk has tracked her there and planted a remote-controlled bomb in the suit, planning to detonate it and frame Jenny for the assassination of Senator Hurt. Jenny detects the device just in time and sends the suit into a power dive to the next block, where the bomb detonates harmlessly — though the M.A.X. takes heavy damage. Steel Hawk then attacks directly, hitting the M.A.X. with a rocket launcher and an automatic machine gun. In the subsequent hand-to-hand struggle Jenny breaks his leg, but Steel Hawk throws a final grenade and escapes in his jeep, shooting his way past Sloan and Jenkins before fleeing.

Detective Sloan and Detective Chin help Jenny out of the damaged suit. The reprieve is brief: Sloan immediately places Jenny under arrest. Krotze's body has just been pulled from the Charles River, and Jenny testified under oath that she wanted to kill him — making her the prime suspect. The issue ends with the teaser "Spitfire vs. The Power of Star Brand!"