The Masters of Silence

After collapsing due to his declining health, Tony Stark has a nightmare where his entire life is destroyed by a massive robot. Seeing this as a betrayal by the technology he has surrounded his life with, Tony’s Iron Man armor begins to melt away, leaving him naked against his attacker. That’s when a metal tendril bursts out of his chest, the first of many as his body is slowly being converted from mechanical to organic.

He suddenly wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed with Jim Rhodes standing over him. Jim rushed him to the Stark Enterprises medical facility after Tony recently collapsed.[1] That’s when resident doctor Erica Sondheim comes in to express her displeasure with Tony for keeping his deteriorating condition a secret this entire time instead of seeking help. At the end of his rope, Tony finally relents and decides to let his friends help him and begins detailing to Jim what he’ll need.[2]

Elsewhere, a consortium of individuals who rival Stark Enterprises have met to discuss the recent information collected from their spies. They now know that Tony Stark is terminally ill and they decide that now is the right time to strike.[3]

Meanwhile, Tony Stark gets into contact with his lawyer Felix Alvarez and arranges for draw up some paperwork for some changes he wants to make for his business. He then turns it to the news and watches a report about a recent fusion reactor failure in Japan, the worst in the country’s history.

This has delivered a hard blow to Akane Fusion Developments since they designed the reactor. Its CEO, Rei Takahashi has his assistant Ottomu to investigate and find out what caused the reactor failure. Ottomu determines that it was the result of faulty parts provided by Stark Enterprises. This angers Takahashi who blames Stark for this happening and decides to get revenge. To do so, he hires the cybernetic ninja warriors called the Masters of Silence to do the job. He is then visited by the Masters — Kaminari, Inazuma, and Kaze — who have examined Rei’s case against Stark and deem it worthy of their services. As they depart to carry out their job, the Masters of Silence tells Takahashi that after this he is to contact them no more.

At that same time, Tony is in a video conference with Abe Zimmerman discussing a theoretical idea that could possibly save his life. It’s a long shot, but Zimmerman is up to the challenge and gets to work seeing how to implement Tony’s request. Stark then places a call to his admin assistant, Bambi Arbogast, and asks her to have a team to bring in an A/V Holo Recording System into his room as soon as possible. That’s when Jim Rhodes returns to Tony’s room with the remote interface with his autonomous suit of Iron Man armor. Even though Tony’s body is useless to him, he refuses to lay down and let everyone else do all the heavy lifting. He commands his suit of robotic armor to head down to the manufacturing lab and begin working on a brand new project.

Later that day, the Masters of Silence force their way into the Stark Enterprises building and make their way to Stark’s private room. They are using a cloaking device that makes them invisible to the naked eye, making all opposition easy to deal with. Becoming aware of the intruders, Tony sends his remote armor to battle them. Since he is viewing everything remotely, Tony is able to see through the cloaking device and engage his foes directly. Seeing that their cloak is useless, the Masters of Silence drop it and begin attacking Iron Man. Due to the delay in mental transmission, Tony isn’t as agile as if he were wearing the armor himself and the robotic armor is quickly trashed. However, when the Masters of Silence get into Tony’s room they find only a holographic projection of Tony waiting for them as a decoy.

This is because Jim Rhodes had rushed Tony back down to the lab where he is now putting the finishing touches on a new suit of Iron Man armor. This armor is grey on white and heavily armed with military grade weapons. Once it is complete, Tony puts on this new suit of armor and prepares to head out to face the Masters of Silence.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Masters of Silence (Kaminari, Inazuma, Kaze), Jim Rhodes, Erica Sondheim, Felix Alvarez, Abe Zimmer, Bambi Arbogast, (unidentified) Justin Hammer, Hydra, Roxxon, the Hand

Continuity Notes

1. Tony collapsed last issue after a trip to the distant future of the 28th century.

2. Recently, Tony was shot in through the spine in Iron Man #242 leaving him disabled from the waist down. He cured himself with an experimental bio-chip in issue #248. This chip was used by the Marrs twins as a backdoor to override Stark’s nervous system with an artificial one that allowed them to take control of his body. Iron Man uncovered and foiled this plot over the course of Iron Man #258-266. Tony’s condition will persist until Iron Man #290.

3. Iron Man #283 reveals that these men are Justin Hammer and representatives of Hydra, Roxxon, and the Hand.

Topical References

• The televisions and computer screens in this story are depicted as CRT style monitors. This should be considered a topical reference as this is an obsolete technology.