Moms

Flying back to Stark International, Iron Man’s jet boots suddenly shut off as he passes over Cougar Mountain. Although this causes him to fall out of the sky, he manages to position his fall so he lands in a nearby lake. However, his jets kick back in before impact. Deciding to play it safe, Iron Man decides to fly the rest of the way close to the ground in case his boots fail him again. As he passes the security gates at Stark International, he overhears some guards wondering who the man under Iron Man’s mask really is. Little knowing that he’s secretly their boss, Tony Stark, their suspicious tone gets to Tony as he begins to wonder who he really is as well.

However, Tony puts these concerns aside and cancels all his meetings so he can focus on figuring out what went wrong with his armor. After a thorough investigation, Tony is frustrated to discover that there is nothing wrong. Tony decides to resume his normal schedule and gets dressed up for a charity backgammon tournament. As he puts on his tuxedo, he considers it yet another costume he wears.

Meanwhile, near Cougar Mountain, a boy young man simply called “Sonny” by his mother gets his favorite meal: scrambled eggs and a tall glass of milk. As her son gorges himself, Sonny’s mother pleads with him not to take her to the cave. Calling her “Moms”, Sonny reminds his mother of how she used to abuse him growing up and once locked him in a closet for three days after getting bad grades. It’s because of this, that he is going to bring his mother to the caves again.

Later, at the backgammon event, Tony meets a female acquaintance who tells him how her plane almost crashed as it passed over Cougar Mountain. Deciding this can’t be a coincidence, Tony decides to leave the event to investigate the area in the hopes of discovering what is causing electronic equipment to fail in that region. Driving out to Cougar Mountain, Tony then changes into Iron Man so he can search from the air.

At that same moment, Sonny has brought his Moms to the “cave”, a secret laboratory where he conducts painful experiments on his mother. As he begins to hypnotize her, Sonny recounts how Moms sent him away to the Stanky Institute where he learned about psionics. Upon returning home, he discovered that Moms had latent psionic powers and has been running these torturous experiments on her in order to test their limits. This time, Sonny has set up light on the nearby mountain top and orders his mother to use her powers to knock it down. The strain is tremendous and instead of doing what Sonny asks, Moms instead causes a powerful storm to form around the area.

Meanwhile, Iron Man has found the light and follows its power line to the source while also battling through the elements. He arrives at Sonny’s cave moments after the young man heads off to get some more food. Taking off his helmet so he can see better in the cave, Iron Man finds Sonny’s equipment and Moms, who is still in her hypnotic trance. As he tries to make sense of this set up, Sonny returns and uses a rock to knock Tony out from behind. Unaware of who his intruder is, Sonny pushes Stark into a pit that is rapidly filling with water from the rain and then seals it with some heavy machinery.

As the pit fills with water, Tony waits until the water rises enough where he can reach the machinery blocking the exit but can’t muster the strength to move it. Realizing that the water has to be coming from somewhere, Tony holds is breath and swims to a crack in the wall. He is just barely able to squeeze through but has to abandon his armor in order to do so.

Emerging from a nearby lake, Tony gets his breath back and heads back to the cave where he challenges Sonny to a fist fight and knocks him out. In the aftermath of the battle, Tony has learned that he is more than a man in a tin suit. Free from her trance, Moms thanks Iron Man for the rescue then asks him if he can hit her son again.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Bambi Arbogast (voice only)

Topical References

• Bambi Arbogast tells Tony that he has a message from Cheryl Tiegs who, at the time this story was published, was a famous fashion model. At the time of this writing (January, 2022) Tieg’s is now in her 70s, so I don’t think I need to explain why this should be considered a topical reference.

• Real world products: Perriere