The Man, the Metal, and the Mayhem!

Iron Man and Jack of Hearts have found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the New Men of Wundagore II and a rogue members of the Colonizers of Rigel. Although the Knights of Wundagore are attacking the ship that Iron Man and Jack are on, the pair doesn’t know which side of the conflict, if any, they should be on. A shot fired on the Rigellian ship causes an explosion that sends Iron Man out into space. Here he is blasted by both sides of the conflict and ends up being pulled down to Wundagore II’s surface where he crash lands in a swamp.

As the battle rages, a Rigellian observer named YJ-18 tries to convince Jack to join their cause. However, the novice hero doesn’t understand why this war is even happening. YJ-18 explains that his race are incredibly long lived and their homeworld quickly became over-populated. As such, the Rigellians used their spacefaring technology to colonize other worlds. Things became more dire when the Rigellian home world was destroyed by the Black Stars. This forced the Colonizers to find a new world to call their own. As the planet Earth was forbidden to them, they sought to find another suitable planet.[1]

They thought they found an ideal world when they discovered Wundagore II, a planet that only had primitive forms of life and signs of a long abandoned civilization. However, the Rigellian landing parties brought cosmic radiation along with them which saw the animals of this world mutate into intelligent humanoids who began retaking the abandoned cities on this world. Remembering that they were once the creations of the High Evolutionary, the New Men reformed the Knights of Wundagore and began defending their homeworld from the invaders.[2] Jack questions why the Rigellians tried to live in peace with the New Men. YJ-18 dismisses this idea outright, as he and his people see the New Men as nothing more than filthy beasts.

Back on Earth, Whitney Frost — aka Madame Masque — continues to oversee the reconstruction of Stark International in Tony Stark’s absence.[3] In order to maintain Iron Man’s secret identity she has been secretly operating a Tony Stark Life Model Decoy. She is not happy to have been sidelined while Tony could be missing in space somewhere.[4] She then contacts Darkstar, one of three Russian heroes on the moon, for an update but they have nothing new to report on Iron Man’s true fate however the metallic egg that appeared on the moon has begun to glow. She then shares this with Jasper Sitwell, Stark’s SHIELD liaison, who begins mobilizing a team to go to the moon.

While on Wundagore II, Iron Man wakes up in the swamp and is attacked by a massive preying mantis. He manages to fight off the creature and is found by Sir Lyan and members of the Knights of Wundagore. Explaining he is neutral in the ongoing conflict, Iron Man is allowed back to the New Men’s city. As he recharges and makes repairs to his armor, he learns how the New Men were created on Earth by the High Evolutionary. They were then brought to Wundagore II where they gave into their animalistic ways. Elevated to a god-like state, the High Evolutionary punished them by de-evolving them back to their primitive states until the Rigellians came and they returned to their intelligent forms. Seeing how the New Men are fighting to defend their world in the face of overwhelming odds, Iron Man decides that the New Men are the victims here and agree to join their cause.

On board the Rigellian flag ship, Jack of Hearts wants to go looking for Iron Man. However, Arcturus — the Rigellian leader — denies this request as he assumes the New Men likely killed him. When Jack continues to remain neutral toward the conflict, Arcturus decides to force the young hero into their service by threatening to attack the planet Earth instead.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Jack of Hearts, Arcturus, YJ-18, Madame Masque, Jasper Sitwell, Knights of Wundagore (Sir Lyan, Sir Ram, Sir Lepard, Sir Ossilot, Sir Hogg), Crimson Dynamo, Vanguard, Darkstar

Continuity Notes

1. YJ-18 makes goes over recent Rigellian history with Jack. The facts:

   • The Rigellians are forbidden from trying to colonize Earth. This is a pledge they made after Thor saved their people from the threat posed by Ego the Living Planet. See Thor #131-134.

   • The planet Rigel was later destroyed by the Black Stars in Thor #216-220.

   • Unstated here, but mentioned last issue, was the fact that the majoriy of Rigellians found a new world already. This was imparted to Thor by the Recorder in Thor #256.

2. A lot of history about the New Men is also dropped in this issue:

   • The New Men were highly evolved animals created by the High Evolutionary. When the evil Man-Beast was defeated by Thor, the Evolutionary decided to take his children to another world among the stars, that world became Wundagore II, named after the New Men’s mountain home on Earth. See Thor #133-135 and expanded upon in Web of Spider-Man Annual #4.

   • Later, the Hulk found himself on Wundagore II discovering that the New Men there had become corrupt by evil and rebelled against their master. This conflict ended when the High Evolutionary evolved himself into a god-like entity and used his power to revert all the New Men to their original animal forms. This happened in Tales to Astonish #94-96 and expanded upon in West Coast Avengers Annual #3.

3. Stark International was heavily damaged after it was briefly usurped by Midas. See Iron Man #103-107.

4. Madame Masque mentions her former ties to the Maggia crime family. She was their leader, the Big M, from Tales of Suspense #97 until her identity was exposed in Iron Man #8, forcing her to go on the run.

Topical References

• There are a lot of dated Cold War references in this story. Specifically referring to the Russian characters as Soviets. The USSR was dissolved in 1991.