Enemy of the State II, Conclusion: All the President's Men

Now

Everett Ross finds himself in front of a State Department Committee. He is explaining how the artifacts known as King Solomon’s Frogs are magical time machines that can pluck people to and from the timestream.[1] That’s when one of the Senators interrupts Ross and asks why he is dressed like a cowboy.[2] Everett tells them that they’ll get to that and begins explaining how XCon utilized the frogs to pluck the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada from seconds in the future and brainwash them into becoming loyal operatives. These future version were then swapped out their present day counterparts. He then begins to explain how the Black Panther (T’Challa) stopped this plot…

Earlier

Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) wakes up in his office where he was piecing the conspiracy together with Black Panther and his allies. He is woken up by Pepper Potts and he explains he was knocked out with gas.[3] He has also figured out that XCon must have brought his future self into the present to replace him as well. Explaining the situation to Pep as he goes, Tony opens up the vault containing his Iron Man armor and discovers what the Black Panther was seeking to collect from it is gone, as well as his new suit of stealth armor.[4]

Meanwhile, the Black Panther and his entourage — including a duplicate of himself, Everett Ross, Monica Lynne, Nightshade (Tilda Johnson), Abner Little, and Princess Zanda —[5] have the needed device and are heading to Washington, DC. Knowing that his other self is dying, T’Challa asks him how he is doing as he understands that he in constant pain. Carefree, the other T’Challa assures him he’ll remains standing no matter what and will fight by his side in the battle ahead. However, the Black Panther believes otherwise.

A few minutes later, the doubles of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada are meeting with one another. They have done so to discuss the Black Panther’s recent annexation of an Canadian island in the middle of Lake Superior.[6] Down below, Queen Divine Justice and Junta (Danny Vincent) are escorting the real President to the meeting in the hopes of thwarting XCon’s plans. They end up running into the Black Panther who is waiting in the tunnel for them to arrive. That’s when T’Challa is ambushed by the other Tony Stark — suited up in the new model of stealth armor — This suit has cloaking technology as well as being made out of materials that are immune to the Panther’s Anti-Metal weaponry. He then unleashes an electro-magnetic pulse that disables all the devices weaved into the Black Panther’s ceremonial garb.

As the two fight, T’Challa orders Junta and Queen to get the President to safety. When Iron Man grabs him by the throat, T’Challa cuts open a nearby water pipe with his claws. Stark assumes that this is to cause a downpour of water so Iron Man’s cloaking device is rendered useless. In reality, the Panther deduced that in order for the suit to be completely silent it would need to vent CO2 from the armor. The water helps, T’Challa pinpoint the location of these vents allowing him to find the chink in the armor. He then sprays the armor with an ammonia based household cleaner, exploiting a vulnerability in the ceramic armor making the cloak useless as well. He then puts on a power glove and begins pummeling Iron Man in the hopes that Stark will become focused on the glove itself and open for the next attack.[7] Unfortunately, T’Challa begins to faulters because he is still recovering from head injuries during his recent fight with Iron Fist.[8] Iron Man then strikes the Panther with sufficient force to send him smashing through a brick wall. This stops Stark dead in his tracks as he becomes horrified by what he has done.

At that same moment, the present-day Iron Man catches up with the Black Panther’s entourage and tries to convince Everett Ross that he knows what T’Challa is up to. That’s when the other Black Panther collapses. When Monica pulls off his mask, they realize that the two identical men swapped costumes when nobody was looking. Ross realizes that he has to make the next decision and laments that he really hates his job.

Back in the sewers, the other Black Panther plays possum long enough Iron Man to get close to him again. While Tony’s guard is down, T’Challa plants a negator-pack — a device that he stole from Stark’s vault — and clamps it on his armor. The Panther than breaks free and runs off, leaving the other Tony to remove the negator before pursuing further.[9] Iron Man manages to catch up and their battle spills upward onto the front lawn of the White House. This prompts the other Prime Minister and President to flee in Marine One, the Presidential helicopter. However, the negator-pack stunt was nothing more than another distraction for the real attack. T’Challa had been biding time for the EMP to dissipate and be able to reboot his system. He then exploits the Ultron code used to program Tony’s artificial heart, causing Iron Man to seize up.[10] The two men then fall, smashing through the White House’s roof and crashing in the middle of the Oval Office.

That’s when the present day Black Panther and Iron Man arrive on the scene with their entourage. Seeing their other selves near death, Stark becomes upset and finds it wildly dangerous for T’Challa to have manipulated the mysterious Ultron code in his artificial heart. However, there are matters to resolve and they quickly incapacitate the Secret Service and get capture the other President and Prime Minister. With both of King Solomon’s Frogs, Abner Little is able to send the future Iron Man, President, and Prime Minister back to their proper time.[11] However, the other Black Panther remains and when Everett asks about him, he is only told that this T’Challa’s story is different than the brainwashed pawns of XCon.

Meanwhile, Iron Man pulls the Black Panther aside to talk about what happened. He is surprised that T’Challa so chillingly created countermeasures to take down his other self. T’Challa is insulted by this, pointing out that Stark did the same thing in creating his new stealth armor. What is more galling is that Stark continues to consider his intellect superior to T’Challa’s. Still, if Tony is looking for an apology, the Panther offers one before heading off to rejoin the others. As everyone is taking stock after the battle, Henry Gyrich bursts into the room with to arrest everyone and confiscate King Solomon’s Frogs. As Abner Little is being dragged away, he warns them that the frogs can be unpredictable. As if on cue, when Gyrich closes the briefcase containing the frogs, he and the Black Panther’s entourage find themselves suddenly transported to the town of Aberteen, Texas, circa 1870.

Recurring Characters

Black Panther (616 & 1145), Iron Man, XCon, Queen Divine Justice, Junta, Everett Ross, Nightshade, Monica Lynne, Abner Little, Princess Zanda, Henry Gyrich, Pepper Potts, Kamal Rakim

Continuity Notes

1. Ross also mentions how they were previously believed to have been destroyed back in Black Panther #4. In reality, they entered a time loop and have turned up again during this story arc, which has taken place over the previous four issues.

2. The reason why Ross is dressed like a cowboy is because he and his allies were briefly transported to the days of the American Frontier in Black Panther (vol. 3) #46-47, as we’ll discover later this issue.

3. Tony assures Pepper that he hasn’t been drinking. Tony has struggled with alcohol nearly his entire life as revealed in Iron Man #128. At the time of this story, Tony’s last drink was Iron Man (vol. 2) #1.

4. Here we get the obligatory showcase of old suits of Iron Man armor. In this panel we see: The original Iron Man armor in both its original grey and gold variations (Tales of Suspense #39 and 40), his first suit of red and gold armor (Tales of Suspense #48), his trademark red-and-gold armor (Iron Man #85), his space armor (Iron Man #142), the original stealth armor (Iron Man #152), Silver Centurion armor (Iron Man #200), his deep sea armor (Iron Man #218), and his “renaissance” armor (Iron Man (vol. 3) #1).

5. As will be explained in Black Panther (vol. 3) #48-49, this other Black Panther is from some 10 years in the future. That he is dying was revealed last issue. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4, this T’Challa’s timeline exists in Reality-1145.

6. This was one of T’Challa’s opening salvos, the purpose of which was to force the duplicate President and Prime Minister together so he could get rid of them both. As seen and explained over the last four issues.

7. It’s here that Everett Ross refers to Iron Man as “whatever goon Tony Stark has hired to wear the armor”. At the time of this story, the general public is unaware that Tony Stark and Iron Man are the same person. Since going public with his creation, Tony had maintained for years that he had a hired bodyguard wearing the armor. He won’t dump the secret identity shtick until Iron Man (vol. 3) #56.

8. The Black Panther had suffered serious head injury in Black Panther (vol. 3) #39. This issue implies that these injuries are what will lead to him becoming the like Panther-1145. However, this T’Challa will eventually recover and stop showing symptoms by his appearance in Black Panther (vol. 4) #1.

9. These negator-packs were bult by Tony Stark during the so-called “Armor Wars”, when he discovered that some of his Iron Man technology was stolen and sold to actors that were causing harm to innocent people. He then went on a crusade to brick all this unauthorized use of Starktech. See Iron Man #225-232 and Captain America #340.

10. At the time of this story, Tony Stark had a synthetic heart implanted into his body by Ultron who had taken control of one of his suits of armor. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #26-30 and 46-48.

11. Because these future versions of Stark, the President, and Prime Minister were brainwashed after being pulled from the time stream the fact that they were sent back would have created a divergent reality. However, time of this writing (January, 2024), there has yet to be an reality designation given to origin point of these variants.

Topical References

• One of the subtitles for this issue is titled “Call in Hoss and Little Joe”, this is a reference to two characters on the western drama Bonanza which ran from 1959 to 1973. This wouldn’t necessarily be considered a topical reference as this reference isn’t made in story.

• This story depicts the President of the United States as George W. Bush, who held the position when this comic was first published in 2002. His appearance here should be considered topical as his Presidency lasted from 2001 to 2009. I would say that the Prime Minister of Canada is depicted as Jean Crétien, who was the leader of Canada at the time this story was published. However, the artist didn’t bother to draw the character look like him. Trust me, if he was drawing Jean Cretién, you’d know he was drawing Jean Crétien, he’s got a distinct look. A congenial anomaly that in his facial muscles making it look like he was always talking out the side of his mouth. I guess you can say his appearance here is implied. Either way, it is also topical as his leadership ended the same year this comic was published.

• While narrating the Black Panther’s battle with Iron Man, Everett Ross states that it was like “Balboa going southpaw”. He is referring to Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone) in the Rocky series of boxing films. This reference should be considered topical as it could be replaced with a more contemporary boxing reference.

• When describing how T’Challa was playing possum, Everett compares him to Wyle E. Coyote. This anthropomorphic coyote was the primary antagonist of Loony Tunes character the Road Runner. He was known for building elaborate traps purchased from the Acme Corporation. His ploys were frequently thwarted due to his incompetence or the Road Runner outsmarting him. Despite suffering grievous harm, Wyle would bounce back from all of these disasters. Anyway, reference to this character should be considered topical because this is a fairly common cartoon trope and you could easily replace this reference with another example. More over, Wyle E. Coyote is owned by Warner Brothers.

• Marine One is depicted as a Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopter, which was the model of helicopter used by the President between 1978 and 2002. It was later replaced by Sikorsky VH-92 Patriot in 2018. As such, this depiction should be considered topical.