Ultimate Iron Man II (2008 series) #4

So Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane, and Whiplash (Mark Scott) are on the plane heading for South America with a nuke aboard. Scott knows that Dolores is planning to detonate the bomb over Caracas, confirmed by Tony’s nanobots….

War Machine has Dolores’ top scientist prisoner and is interrogating him to find out where Dolores is. Rhodey threatens but as Si Ma puts it, they have the Good Guy Problem: the baddies know they won’t do anything too bad. So Rhodey has them put $200,000 in the scientist’s bank account and let Dolores assume the scientist betrayed him—and now the guy is scared….

Back at Stark Labs, Nifara questions whether Dolores is the real Big Bad. Why would he suddenly turn on Stark and Stane now? What if the conspiracy is dumber than they thought? Rhodey did get the information out of the scientist easily. So she checks up on who owns the plane Tony is on….

While Tony finds there are two bombs: one is the nuke, the other is set to go off and crash the plane if they disable the nuke….

War Machine follows the scientist’s directions on where to find Dolores. Rhodey goes there and finds Dolores is dead, killed by an explosive charge in his piano. So he wasn’t the mastermind….

Tony uses his nanobots to hack the plane’s controls so they fly off the set course, heading for the Sargasso Sea. He sets the bots to act as signaling devices and puts them on Obadiah and Scott before they jump overboard. And then Tony sets the bots to allow him to jump too before it disables the nuke and the other bomb goes off. He jumps, there’s an explosion, he waits for rescue, seriously injured….

Stark’s people detect the signals and dispatch a team to pick them up. Si Ma visits Howard Stark in prison to ask about the scheme: Howard points out that no one would want to kill Tony, Obadiah, and Mark Scott, certainly no known terrorist band. Howard realizes that nuking Caracas would be a sales pitch, from a new player in the munitions game. Guards come to escort Howard back to his cell but he realizes this is another murder attempt. Si Ma takes the guy down and Howard decides to leave the prison because he knows he is no longer safe there….

One week later, Tony, his leg regrowing, sits with his father at a Caribbean resort. Tony jokes about his close call but Howard points out there is an unknown enemy out to get him. Tony puts a great deal of thought into the matter and concludes that the mystery villain is Loni Stane, Howard’s first wife, who is not as stupid and helpless as they think, after all she got half of Howard’s company away from him. And she might not be as loving toward her son as she pretends. Howard is skeptical but Tony is certain. It’s Loni….