Ultimate Iron Man (2005 series) #2

After telling Howard Stark that his wife has died, Zebediah Stane continues with the news that the hospital is keeping her on life support so the baby can be born. Howard leaves and Stane tells the guards to get everyone out but Si Ma and Nero tell them that the blue materials are dangerous so they are able to hide all of the bio-armor materials from being confiscated….

At the hospital, the baby is born but something seems wrong; Howard pushes past the hospital staff to paint his son with the blue bio-armor. Howard puts the baby in his late mother’s arms and tells her he is naming him Antonio, after Maria’s brother who died young. When the doctors insist on looking at the baby, Howard runs out of the building and heads home with Tony….

Meanwhile, Zebediah Stane is receiving some bad news: he doesn’t own Howard Stark’s patents. Stark never patented anything connected with the bio-armor project so as to keep the formulas and processes secret. Stane sends for Loni who is caught in a closet with a sexy young staffer. Stane orders Si Ma and Nero to tell what they know about the bio-armor but they refuse, as the bio-armor is part of a separate company which Stane does not own. Bony Telford, Stark’s attorney, comes to collect everything connected with the bio-armor company, telling Stane that, since he (Stane) drove down the stock price by telling everyone the project was a failure, he should be happy not to be stuck with it. Stane confronts Loni, claiming she promised him the patents. She tries to toss it off but he pushes her to the floor since the bio-armor was the only thing he wanted from Stark….

Si Ma joins Howard on his boat to continue working on the bio-armor. But Nero is kidnapped by Stane’s henchmen and he is tortured but will not talk. So they use the Lid on him, a device which extracts all information from a person’s brain but leaves him an idiot….

Stane leaves Nero for Howard to find as a warning that he now knows everything Nero knew. Stark is familiar with the Lid, rejected by the Pentagon since using it on an enemy soldier would be a war crime. Howard and his team go into hiding….

Four years later, Howard Stark is living quietly in a suburban neighborhood, with Tony still in his blue bio-armor, Si Ma, and the mentally impaired Nero living with them. And then Stane’s men find them and mind-control Nero into opening Tony’s window so they can snatch the boy away. Howard and Si Ma find Nero dead, and Howard fires a weblike tracking device which clings to the baddies’ van. Tony is taken to a meeting with Zebediah Stane where his bio-armor is scrubbed from the top of his head, causing him great pain, and the Lid placed on him, the needles piercing his head….