Deadly Blessing

Following his defeat at the hands of Iron Man, the Knight has been locked up in a New Mexico. Posing as an actual priest, Knight’s all the Bishop, gets access to his cell and uses his scepter to break Knight out of his cell. However, rather than bring them back to their leader — the mysterious King — the Bishop flies Knight high into the air and drops him to his death.[1][2]

Meanwhile, Tony Stark has taken Indries Moomji for a private dinner at a fancy restaurant located near the top of the World Trade Center. She is flattered by his generosity, but he wants to make it up to her after she was injured while visiting his company. However, their dinner is interrupted by Vic Martinelli — Tony’s head of security — who has followed a lead on who has been attacking his company. A payment made to the bomber to one Glen Travail in Northern Scotland. He also reports Knight’s death while in police custody.

As Tony races back to Stark International he gets a call from his secretary, Bambi Arbogast. She tells him that he has sent an invitation to discuss a business deal with the Laird of Glen Travail, which cannot be a coincidence. Tony’s hunch is correct as this is all a trap being set up by the Chessmen’s leader, the mystery man they call King.

After running a diagnostic on his armor to make sure it is in full working order, Tony has his pilot Jim Rhodes chart a course for Scotland. When they are in the air, Tony is surprised when Indries Moomji reveals that she is on his plane. She explains that she wanted to come along and convinced Jim to let her tag along as a surprise. Growing attracted to Indries, Tony is happy to have her along.

Hours later they arrive at the castle of the Laird of Glen Travail and are welcomed by its owner, who warmly welcomes them all. Shown to his room, Tony figures that it has been bugged and uses a device in his Iron Man helmet to neutralize any surveillance devices in the room before changing into Iron Man to look around. Flying around outside the castle, Iron Man is ambushed by the Bishop. Although his attacker only seems to have his rod as a weapon — which both allows him to fly and fire beams of energy from the weapon — Iron Man can’t seem to connect any of his attacks.

The sound of the battle attracts the attention of both Jim and Indries who are invited by the Laird to watch the proceedings from a television screen he has hooked up to his surveillance system.

Back outside, Iron Man figures out that he only seems muddled when he is in close proximity to the Bishop. This causes him to remember a technical journal he read about a device that can impact the brain and deduces that such a device must be hidden in the Bishop’s hat. Knocking the hat off with a rock, Iron Man recovers his cognitive abilities and is easily able to overpower the Bishop, who faints from the ordeal. Heading back into the castle, Iron Man confronts the Laird for answers. However, the Scotsman reveals that he has Jim chained up in a room full of venomous spiders and tells Iron Man that he has an hour to find and save Jim before the spider venom kills him.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Chessmen (Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn), Jim Rhodes, Bambi Arbogast, Vic Martinelli, Indries Moomji

Continuity Notes

1. Knight fought Iron Man, and lost, last issue. Their mysterious master is actually rival businessman Obadiah Stane, as revealed in Iron Man #166. This is all part of a scheme to take over Stark International, a plan that will succeed by issue #173. Part of his plans also include Indries Moomji who has been hired to destroy Tony emotionally. His sudden infatuation with her is due to pheromons being used to manipulate his emotions. This is also revealed in Iron Man #173.

2. The Knight, Bishop, Rook, and Pawn are all unidentified by name here. Iron Manual Mark 3 #1 reveals their names to be Fletcher Heggs, Alban Eamond, Barnabus Kinloch and Napier Sutton respectively.

Topical References

• Tony and Indries are depicted as having dinner in a restaurant in one of the original twin towers of the World Trade Center. This should be considered a topical reference as these towers were destroyed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and since replaced by the Freedom Tower. Modern readers should assume that Tony took Indires to the new tower as opposed to one of the original twins.

• Tony is depicted as having a car phone in his sports car in this story. This should be considered topical as cell phones have rendered the car phone obsolete.