A Madness in Mowtown!

Now…

Tony Stark has just got some troubling news over the phone. A psychologist from Milford Mental Health Facility has called to inform him that his former fiancée, Marianne Rodgers, has been committed after a mental break down. He tells Tony how Marianne has been a haunted by visions of monsters and has that she has regressed to a child-like personality.[1] Tony thanks the doctor for the call and after hanging up he instantly blames himself and his double life as Iron Man for Marianne’s deteriorated mental state. This throws Tony into a fit of rage and he begins trashing his office.

This is heard from outside by his secretary Pepper Potts and her husband Happy Hogan. Pepper knows better than to interrupt Tony’s private moments and is busy preparing for their business trip. Happy doesn’t like the idea of his wife going on a prolonged trip because he has gotten used to the idea of her being home all the time. Pepper, however, has found that being a housewife doesn’t suit her and needs this job in order to have something to do. She tries to explain herself to Happy, who quickly becomes upset and storms out, unwilling to accept that his wife needs to have more in her life than their marriage.[2]

Months Ago…

Roxanne Gilbert was returning home from her health food store and is surprised to see that her brother Gary is waiting for her. Getting a closer look at him, she sees he is wearing a costume under his trench coat. He admits to her that he is the criminal known as Firebrand. He then recounts how their father inadvertently hired him to destroy Stark Industries. This led to a battle with Iron Man and Simon Gilbert — seeing Firebrand as a failure — attempting to blow up the facility himself. This backfired on the elder Gilbert who was killed in the blast. Even though Gary hated his father and his capitalist ways, he blamed Iron Man for his death and vowed to get revenge.

Roxanne is sad to hear of her father’s passing and Gary chastises her for not taking a harder line in her activism work, like he did. While she does not support Tony Stark or Stark Industries, due to their past dealings in weapons manufacturing, she believes peaceful protest is the only way to make them see the light.[3] Even though her brother is a violent reactionary, she allows Gary to stay with him and turns a blind eye to the crimes he commits in order to get the money needed to repair and upgrade his Firebrand suit and weapons.[4]

Now

Tony Stark and Pepper Potts arrive at the Chicago International Airport. They have come to the windy city because Roxanne Gilbert wishes to offload her father’s shares in Stark Industries, but will only do so in a personal meeting with Tony Stark. Not aware that they are walking into a trap, Tony and Pepper take a cab to the Gilbert estate. Along the way they are ambushed and captured by Firebrand. Roxanne is furious that her brother would resort to kidnapping to get revenge, but is powerless to do anything.

Firebrand wants to use Tony, Pepper, and their cab driver as hostages to draw Iron Man out and destroy the hero. Tony insists that he is the only one who can get his bodyguard to come to act. Firebrand decides to let Stark go, but keeps Pepper and the cabbie, warning Tony that if he tries anything funny they will die. This gives Tony the opportunity to slip away and change into his alter-ego and meet with Firebrand at Simon Gilbert’s grave. There, Firebrand orders Iron Man to get into a grave he dug for the hero and buries him alive. However, Iron Man is far from powerless. Turning on his life support systems, Iron Man then uses his repulsor ray to burrow through the ground past where Firebrand is standing and ambush him.

However, the process of freeing himself has greatly drained his battery, forcing Iron Man to try and get under direct sunlight for his solar-cells to recharge his batteries. In order to confuse Firebrand, Iron Man employs his holographic projector which has Firebrand shooting at false images of Iron Man as the hero quickly recharges.[5] Iron Man then begins ripping apart Firebrand’s armor, preventing the villain from flying away with his jetpack. In an act of desperation he attempts to kill Pepper and the kidnapped cab driver. However, his sister leaps in the way taking the flame blast meant for her brother’s prisoners. Realizing what Roxanne is doing, Firebrand reduces the intensity of his flame. Shocked that he harmed his sister, Firebrand’s guard is down long enough for Iron Man to knock him out.

As the police arrive on the scene, Roxanne weakly tells Iron Man to go easy on her brother because he is misguided. The hero is impressed by Roxanne’s bravery, considering her the real hero of this entire ordeal before flying her off to get medical attention.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Firebrand, Marianne Rodgers, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Roxanne Gilbert, Simon Gilbert (flashback)

Continuity Notes

1. Tony and Marianne had been dating since Iron Man #36 and got serious enough for Tony to propose to her in issue #45. The engagement proved short-lived after her precognitive visions caused her to panic and abandon Tony when he needed help in issue #50. He called off the engagement in the following issue. She later tried to get a job in issue #52 but completely lost her shit and had to be committed. The cause of her madness is revealed in Iron Man #80-81.

2. Pepper just recently started working for Stark again. Pepper previously worked for Stark from Tales of Suspense #45 to 89 when she married Happy Hogan and quit. Tony hired her in issue #57 because he has been in need of a new secretary since his last one went on maternity leave in Iron Man #49.

3. Firebrand’s last defeat and the death of his father were both chronicled in Iron Man #48.

4. Tony Stark had decided to shift Stark Industries focus away from munitions to other scientific endeavors in Iron Man #48.

5. This is the same device that Iron Man employed against Whiplash back in Tales of Suspense #98.

Topical References

• The Milford facility is referred to as a sanitarium and Tony refers to Marianne as a “vegetable” in reference to her mental health condition. Both of these terms are incredible dated and the latter is even an offensive term when used to refer to someone with mental or physical disabilities.

• When complaining about his wife’s desire to work, Happy wonders if she is “swallowin’ that women’s lib malarkey”, this is a reference to the Women’s Liberation movement which was at was popularized between the 1960s and 1980s, and was a precursor to present day feminism. References to “women’s lib” here should be considered topical. Modern readers should generalize this to simply Happy accusing Pepper of being brainwashed by feminism as opposed to a specific movement of a specific time-period.

• When criticizing his sister’s activism, Gary Gilbert uses a lot of terms that were commonly used to refer to the hippie counter-culture of the late 60s and early 70s. These dated terms should be considered topical.