Iron Man #256
Soliloquy in Silence
Now
Tony Stark is aboard the long abandoned Stark space station, pinned under tons of machinery.[1] He needs to get free in order to prevent the station from being pulled into Earth orbit potentially unleashing the AIM bioweapon — a deadly virus — that is on board. With both his energy reserves and oxygen supply running low the clock is ticking. Sacrificing some of his oxygen to activate the acetylene torch built into his armor’s finger tip, Tony begins the delicate task of freeing himself. As he works he thinks about the events that led him into this situation…
Earlier
It was an ordinary day when Tony Stark arrived at Stark Enterprises that morning. Going over some reports from the accounting and marketing division, Tony discovers an irregularity in one of them. He and Bambi Arbogast then go down to the department and confront a young administrative assistant named Sarah Jennings. Tony confronts her about making changes to the report without getting approval of her superiors and asks why. Sarah fears that she is going to get fired, but instead she finds the file contains two tickets to Hawaii, a gift, because Sarah’s change had them go with a lower bid on a contract with Staxway Distributors, saving Stark Enterprises a lot of money. In an interesting twist of irony, Tony owned the company that was competing with Staxway and personally lost money on the lower bid. Still, he wanted to reward Sarah for having the business savvy to go for the lowest bidder, something that her superiors ignored doing.
As they leave the marketing department, Mrs. Arbogast reminds Tony that he has a big meeting coming up with Winston Cauwfield of Cauwfield Chemicals to listen to his business prosposal.
Now
Tony’s efforts to get himself free have failed and now he has less than 30 minutes of oxygen left. His onboard computers also predict that if the satellite should get sucked into Earth’s orbit it will crash land in the French Riviera, claiming untold lives. Desperate to reach the device that will purge the virus from the space station, Tony tries to think of a solution. Once more his mind drifts back…
Earlier
At the meeting with Winston Cauwfield, Tony is given a proposal to clean out the virus from his abandoned space station. Cauwfield then proposes renting of the facility and using it as a facility to produce chemicals in a safe environment. It would be a profitable venture that wouldn’t cost Stark Enterprises any money. Tony needs to go over the paperwork but he and his lawyer, Felix Alvarez, are impressed by the proposal and would like to enter into an agreement.
For Tony, the idea of reviving his space station and having it be used again is a dream come true after the station had to be abandoned for so long.
Now
Iron Man is down to 15 minutes of air left. He decides that the only way to get free is to breach the hull of the space station. This would shut down a number of systems including the artificial gravity, allowing him to get out from under the tons of equipment he is trapped under. However, there is some risk involved: The viral cylinder hasn’t been moored down and would be at risk of being sucked out during the explosive decompression and be irretrievably lost to the void of space. Since he’s dead either way, Tony begins preparing his repulsors since he has nothing else to lose.
Earlier
Having agreed to the Cauwfield Chemical deal, Tony is prepping his Iron Man armor for the mission into space to purge the virus from his space station. With him is Jim Rhodes who notices that Tony is looking a little ragged. Tony explains that recently he has been suffering mysterious back pain and strange dreams after having his mobility restored with an experimental bio-chip.[2] Jim suggests he get Erica Sondheim — Stark Enterprises’ resident doctor — to take a look at him. Tony explains that she has examined him nearly every day since the operation and so far she has found nothing wrong with him.
When Jim offers to accompany Tony, he is refused, as Stark doesn’t want to risk anyone else’s life on this mission. Tony is then suited up with a rocket booster that will take him out into space. Soon, Iron Man was reaching escape velocity and heads to the space station. Once inside, Tony quickly got to work making repairs so he could reactivate the life support systems.[3] Unfortunately, once the oxygen was turned back on it starts interacting with the contents of a damaged AIM backpack that had long been forgotten on the space station. With the pack about to explode, Tony quickly tried to get it to the disposal unit but couldn’t make it in time. Tossing the device in a large room it exploded, causing the roof to collapse on top of him.
Now
With the pain in his back making it hard to think, Tony fires some flame-retardant foam at the device that will purge the virus hoping that when it freezes it’ll keep it moored. He then blasts a hole in the wall causing explosive decompression. With his oxygen nearly all gone, Tony is sucked out with all the debris and manages to fly back into the station. With it getting harder to breath, Tony manages to activate the anti-viral device and restore the environmental systems on the space station. He hopes there was enough time for the virus to be purged as he needs air right away. Tony manages to pull off his helmet before he blacks out from lack of oxygen.
Six Hours Later
Iron Man is able to get back to Earth and as he briefs Jim on what happened, he blames himself for almost causing a catastrophic loss of life. Jim points out that regardless of the risk he succeeded in his mission and he should be proud of that. That’s when Tony tells Jim about the back pain he experienced on the space station and how, now that he is back on Earth, it has mysterious vanished. Realizing that something is out of the ordinary, he decides to get it checked out after all.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Jim Rhodes, Bambi Arbogast, Felix Alvarez
Continuity Notes
The space station began construction in Iron Man #205 as part of Tony’s efforts to assist humanity in becoming a space faring society. Unfortunately, it had to be abandoned when AIM unleashed a powerful bio-weapon inside the station rendering it uninhabitable in issue #215.
Tony was crippled from the waist down when he was shot by Kathy Dare in Iron Man #242. He regained the ability to walk again by having an experimental bio-chip installed in his spine to restore his mobility in issue #248. What Tony doesn’t know is that the bio-chip was all part of a complex plot by the Marrs twins, rivals in the business world, who are using the bio-chip to replace Tony’s nervous system with one that they can control. See Iron Man #258-264 for all the details.
Tony crosses paths with the corpse of the so-called Star Hunter, a creature biologically engineered by the US government to be a weapon to use against enemy satellite systems. Tony slew the monster in Iron Man #237. This story incorrectly attributes the tale to issue #217 for some reason.
Topical References
Flustered with how Tony treats his money, Bambi Arbogast suggests that he buy all his employees tickets on the Concord. The Concord was a super-sonic commercial airliner that could fly passengers from New York to London in just under 3 hours. It was extremely expensive and catered to business class customers. This should be considered a topical reference as the entire Concorde fleet has been retired since 2003 due to a number of factors making it too costly to continue operations.
