At a US military base, Army tanks collapse, their vital joints having melted mysteriously. When word reaches Tony Stark, whose company built the tanks, he visits his lab to investigate and is surprised by a villain called the Melter, who knocks him unconscious. The Melter is Bruno Horgan, a one-time competitor of Tony Stark’s, whose use of inferior materials in military contracts was exposed by Stark. Horgan had accidentally discovered the secret of dissolving iron and designed a portable raygun to fit on his chest as part of a super-villain costume; objective: revenge! So now the Melter leaves Tony unconscious where he is discovered by Happy and Pepper. They help him to his office where, in private, he recharges his batteries. An alarm goes off and Tony heads to answer it as Iron Man. He finds the Melter destroying one of his main generators and confronting him discovers that the villain’s weapon also dissolves Iron Man’s armor off as the covering on his left arm melts away. Shellhead runs off and splits an overhead steam pipe (with hovering magnets!) to prevent his foe from pursuing. Over the next several days, Tony tries to come up with a way to stop the Melter but draws a blank. He is summoned to Washington where officials accuse him of making up these absurd stories about a saboteur to cover up his company’s poor performance. During this tense meeting, Tony receives a call about an emergency at the plant. Donning his Iron Man armor, he rushes back to his New York lab to try to repair the latest massive damage. There he is confronted by the Melter—who finds that his beam no longer works on his armored enemy. To cover his escape, the villain melts a crane, dropping a heavy load on Happy and Pepper; Iron Man is able to prevent it from hitting them and pursues his foe. Trapped, the Melter burns away an iron drain cover and leaps into the sewer system and is quickly whisked out of sight. Iron Man changes back to Tony Stark to get back to business as usual.
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