Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Iron Man: Bad Blood #4 Synopsis by
T Vernon
Iron Man comes to after fainting at the end of the last issue; he discovers James Rhodes without a heartbeat and applies a measured charge to get his heart working again. It succeeds and Rhodey learns that Tony is normal again. They try to learn who the likely culprit is and Jocasta informs them that the Evader prototypes have been flown to an orbiting satellite whose ownership is carefully hidden. Tony and Rhodey both deduce Justin Hammer….
Iron Man in his new space armor flies out to the satellite and walks in through the front door, only to be confronted by a guard wearing an Evader armor prototype. Their fight leads them into space where Tony has a tough time against another armor he designed. Soon, Tony recalls that the jet boots have limited fuel and he draws the guy out until the boots conk out and the guy plunges toward Earth; Iron Man rescues him and they return to the satellite. Inside, Iron Man faces three more guards in Evader armor. He runs from them and they fire, putting a hole in a feed tube which fills the passage with bubbles; Shellhead uses the cover of the bubbles to take down two of the guards. When the third one realizes it’s just him against Iron Man, he runs for his life. Iron Man is heading for the control module when he is caught in a stasis field and Hammer appears, informing Tony that he knows his secret identity….
Elsewhere, the fleeing guard tries to fly a shuttle out of there but to his horror the door doesn’t open and he crashes inside the station, heavily damaging it….
Hammer also reveals that he is dying of an incurable disease; he moved to the satellite to prolong his life and decided to spend his final days defeating Tony Stark. He had Spymaster’s thugs inject Tony with the rogue cells when they beat him up in Paris (IRON MAN (1998 series) #8) and Tony spotting the baddies again (issue #1 of this miniseries) accelerated their growth. And now Hammer gloats. He spots his aide Phillip Barnett taking off for Earth in another escape pod and blows it up by remote control; the force rocks the station, hurling Hammer into the pool. Iron Man detonates a small bomb, destroying the stasis field but the shock has stunned him. He tosses another bomb toward the pool and it takes out the side of the station, sucking the water into space and instantly freezing with Hammer inside. Shellhead’s emergency circuits guide him back to Earth…,
Later, Tony reinstates Happy Hogan and tells Rhodey that SHIELD cleaned up the station, recovering the Evader armors, and rescuing the cat. As for Hammer? Frozen in orbit, he may just live forever….