Armor Wars II Part 2: … Like All Secrets, Easily Revealed

The Mandarin has called in one of his minions, a man named Stephen Wu into his office. Wu was one of the Mandarin’s operatives called the Hand with each member using one of the Mandarin’s rings on a mission.[1] The Mandarin has become aware of the fact that the ring that Stephen returned to him is a forgery. Using his matter-rearrangement ring he painfully incapacitates Stephen and demands where he got the forgery from.[2] Wu explains that he got it in San Francisco from an old wizard named Chen Hsu. The Mandarin recognizes the name and decides to pay Chen Hsu a visit, but not before ending Stephen Wu’s life.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Iron Man has answered a distress call from the Stark Enterprise atomic research facility. There he has discovered that the facility was under attack from the Titanium Man. Something that should be impossible as the armored foe is supposed to be dead.[3] With one of the reactors going critical mass, Iron Man has no time to figure out if this is an impostor or not. Blasting his way through the crumbled radiation shielding, the Avenger reaches the reactor. With no time to shut everything down, he cuts it loose and flies it out to the middle of the ocean and dumps it at sea. The reactor sinks deep enough that when it does explode, Iron Man can weather the blast.

By the time Tony makes his way back to Stark Industries, the Titanium Man is long gone. Returning to his office and stripping off his armor, Tony decides to prepare to deal with the government coming down on him over the near meltdown. However, a moment later, Tony finds himself waking up the bed of a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Not knowing how he got there, he calls Bambi Arbogast at the office to figure out what happened. She is relieved to hear from him because Tony has apparently gone missing for three days. The NRC’s down the company’s neck, the media is having a field day, and Jim Rhodes is losing his mind. Tony explains he doesn’t know how he got to San Francisco but he’ll get back to Los Angeles as soon as possible. After getting off the phone a strange woman enters the room with their breakfast. Apparently, Tony has been spending three nights with her. When he tells her he has to go, she leaves without protest. As Stark scrambles to get dress he fears that he somehow went on an alcoholic bender and blacked out over the past few days.[4]

Little does he know that his black out was far from alcohol related. In reality, his body had been hijacked through a team of scientists hacking into his bio-chip and taking control of his body on behalf of a man named Kearson DeWitt.[5] The woman who was with Tony this entire time was hired by Kearson to keep watch over Stark for the past three days. When she reports in to DeWitt, he is very pleased with the news.

When Tony returns to Stark Enterprises his business is surrounded by a mob of reporters. Inside, he meets with Jim Rhodes who is glad he is back. Things are bad since employees have walked off the job under instructions from the union as the facility has been deemed unsafe. Surprisingly, nobody has seen or heard from the Titanium Man since his original attack on the nuclear testing facility. Suiting up as Iron Man, Tony races out to the ruins of the building to look for close. The moment he arrives a laser cuts through the ground under his feet and he falls into an underground chamber where the walls have been hardened into the consistency of diamonds.

There he is confronted by the Titanium Man and when Iron Man apologizes for seemingly killing him earlier, this causes his foe to bombard the room with lasers. With no need for disguise, the intruder — actually the Living Laser in disguise — has confirmed that he is facing the original Iron Man.[6] With the cat out of the bag, the Laser can now move ahead with his plan to kill the hero.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Living Laser, Kearson DeWitt, Jim Rhodes, Bambi Arbogast, Mandarin

Continuity Notes

1. The Mandarin formed the Hand (no relation to the Japanese ninjas that regularly clash with Daredevil) to operate on his behalf, giving each loyal follower one of his rings that is best suited for their mission, as seen in Iron Man #241-242.

2. As we’ll learn in Iron Man #261, the forgery is the reason for the Mandarin’s bizarre lapses in memory and assuming a different persona in the appearances between Iron Man #241 and this issue. In Iron Man #274, Chen Hsu is later revealed to be a member of the Kakarantharian crew that came to Earth. The rings the Mandarin now wears were stolen from their ship, as explained in Tales of Suspense #62.

3. This is supposedly Kondrati Topolov, aka the Gremlin, and the second Titanium Man. He took on the role in X-Men vs. the Avengers #1. He seemingly perished in a battle with Iron Man in Iron Man #229. As of this writing (August, 2022) Topolov has remained among the deceased. This obviously an impostor as we’ll see later this issue.

4. Tony is afraid that he has relapsed into drinking due to the fact that he is a recovering alcoholic who has already nearly destroyed his life on two different occasions. See Iron Man #120-128 and 167-182.

5. Recently, Tony was shot through the spine by a jilted love named Kathy Dare in Iron Man #242. This left him confined to a wheelchair until he had an experimental bio-chip implanted in his spine to repair the damage in issue #248. He has been stricken with bouts of phantom pains since Iron Man #256. As we’ll find out between this issue and Iron Man #266 that this bio-chip was a trap set by the Marrs twins — rivals in business — to replace Tony’s nervous system with one that they can used to remotely control his body. Even after this plot is foiled, Tony will suffer lasting effects from it until he is fully cured in Iron Man #290.

6. At the time of this story, Tony Stark had recently gone on a mission to deactivate all the unauthorized use of his technology. This move made him incredibly unpopular with the government who tried to stop him. Tony then faked Iron Man’s death and then tricked the public into thinking that he hired a replacement. See Iron Man #225-232 and Captain America #340.