Siege!

In the nation of Costa Diablo, the Stark International facility has been taken over by the forces of General Geraldo Caligerro, who has staged a bloody coup of the small South American nation.

When news reaches Tony Stark, he is out at his Rocky Mountain estate spending time with his new vice president, Yvette Avril, in the hopes of getting his mind off his girlfriend, Bethany Cabe, who has gone off on some kind of secret mission in Europe.[1] When his butler, Jarvis, tells him there is trouble, Tony and Yvette fly back to Stark International in Tony’s private helicopter. When he arrives at his ruined office, Tony is given an update from Bambi Arbogast on the situation in San Diablo.[2]

Not liking the news, Tony calls a friend in the State Department and learns that the government is not getting involved because it is a sensitive situation. Stark likes this even less and calls in Jim Rhodes, Vic Martinelli, and Arthur Pithins so they can figure out a plan to liberate the facility in Costa Diablo. With Jim prepped to help transport the prisoners out of Costa Diablo, Tony goes to work to liberate them. Changing into Iron Man, he flies to Avengers Mansion where he commandeers a Quinjet to get him down to South America as quickly as possible. Captain America expresses his concerns that Iron Man might compromise foreign policy, but Iron Man assures him that he has everything under control. Cap doubts this, but lets Iron Man go anyway.

When Iron Man flies into Costa Diablo airspace, his Quinjet is blasted to pieces by a laser cannon built on the roof of his building. Falling with the debris, Iron Man waits until he falls below radar level and flies to a secret tunnel that will get him into the Stark International facility. Emerging in his private office, he knocks out the soldier sitting in his desk. He then takes out the other guards and orders one of them to reveal the location of his staff or else Iron Man will drop him down an elevator shaft. He quickly rescues his staff, but learns that the head of operations, Ricardo Pruz is a prisoner of Caligerro. When Jim arrives to extract them from the country, Iron Man destroys the laser cannon before it can shoot Rhodes out of the sky. With his staff safe, Iron Man flies over the country and sees people in concentration camps and being tortured. He decides he can’t leave without doing something about General Caligerro.

Attacking the presidential palace, Iron Man shrugs off all of the high tech weapons were built using Stark International technology. Breaking into the main office, Iron Man is shocked to learn that Caligerro is merely a puppet under the command of Pruz who was the mastermind behind the coup. Realizing that there is nothing he can do, Iron Man admits that Pruz has won, but warns him that power is a hungry god.

Two days later, Tony Stark is settling into his temporary office when Arthur Pithins comes to him with the day’s newspaper. It features a front page story about Ricardo Pruz. Turns out, after his coup, he was betrayed by Caligerro who had him executed for treason. Tony is surprised to see that his prophecy came true sooner than he thought it would and tosses the paper into the trash so he can get about his daily business.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Jim Rhodes, Arthur Pithins, Yvette Avril, Vic Martinelli, Bethany Cabe, Captain America, Edwin Jarvis

Continuity Notes

1. Bethany took off in Iron Man #146 without a word of explanation. As we’ll learn in issue #152-153, she has gone looking for her long lost husband who she believed to be dead. See Iron Man #128 for the full story on that.

2. Stark International was wrecked during an attack on the facility by Blacklash, as seen in Iron Man #146-147. The facility will be under repairs until issue #155.