Save the People — Save the Country!

Tony Stark has gone on a sailing trip on the Caribbean Sea on vacation. After his ship is caught in a brief storm he comes upon a small boat carrying a three men and a woman who are in pretty rough shape after being out at sea for some time without supplies. Taking them aboard, Tony learns from Maria, one of the refugees, that they come from a nearby island that is ruled by a cruel dictator called the Overseer that uses high-tech spying devices to dominate over their people. The quartet fled their homeland in the hope of finding asylum as political refugees and finding those who will help liberate their people. Tony agrees to them to to port, but he warns Maria that finding people who will fight for their cause will be a difficult one.

Still, Maria’s determination to rescue her people had mad an impact on Tony Stark, who decides to check things out as Iron Man. Changing into his armor, Tony then flies to the island using his jet boots. Coming in low to avoid radar detection, Iron Man looks around and confirms that the people of this island are forced into slaving away for a dictator that monitors their every move with a network of monitoring towers. Blinding the cameras with his built-in black-light beam, Iron Man searches the island and finds a massive high tech building and goes inside. There he is surprised to discover that the Overseer is apparently some kind of vast machine. The massive computer immediately registers the intruder and begins attacking Iron Man with its automated defenses. When Iron Man proves too powerful to stop with these weapons, the Overseer then activates Myrmidon, a guardian robots that defends the facility.

The sounds of combat is so loud that it reaches the locals who are toiling in a nearby field. Believing that the Overseer might be overthrown, they begin revolting against the guards who force them to work every day. Still, the locals take no action until a young boy — Maria’s kid brother — is zapped by one of the spy towers defense systems. Furious over the apparent murder of a child, the locals swarm the guards and take their weapons and make their way to the Overseer’s facility.

By this time, Iron Man has briefly evaded Myrmidon by flying through a maintenance vent. This gives him access to the inner workings of the Overseer computer and he begins rewiring its defense systems so it destroys Myrmidon for him. With the massive machine beginning to overload, a small man who was operating the Overseer tries to make a run for it but is quickly nabbed by Iron Man. When they go outside, they are met by the villagers who are still angry about the boy and want to execute the dictator on the spot. However, when the boy turns out to have survived, the villagers begin listening to Iron Man and they agree to punish their former ruler without ending his life.

Returning to his hotel room, Tony Stark is visited by Maria and the other refugees the following day. Maria had heard how Iron Man helped liberate her people and wanted to thank Stark personally. Seeing how devoted Maria is to her cause leaves Tony to wonder what his own cause is and if he will always have to fight it alone.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man

Topical References

• Tony’s statement about people not wanting to support the liberation of the unnamed island nation in this story could be a reference to how unpopular the Vietnam War was becoming at the time time this story was published. Any implied reference to that historical conflict should, of course, be considered topical.