Hot Metal

After hearing about an accident at California’s Poly-Technical Institute, Iron Man goes looking through the wreckage to find his former teacher, Ted Slaght. Tony blames himself since his discovery that Slaght was suffering from a neurological illness that led to his experiments in a new form of metal alloy were scrapped by the institute.[1]

As Iron Man sifts through the wreckage, he thinks back to his days in University and Slaght’s lectures on the uncertainty principal. Young Tony was unconvinced that any aspect of science were left to random probability. After one lecture, Ted pulled Tony aside and told the young man that although he is one of the most brilliant students this institution has ever seen, he says Stark’s biggest problem is that he lacks an open mind. He told Tony that a good scientist examines his answers for flaws while a great scientist examines the questions themselves, telling Tony that he needs to try to be less inflexible. Reflecting on this now, Tony realizes that while his father taught him the strength of character, it was Ted Slaght who taught him the power of reason.

Tony’s thoughts are interrupted when he is attacked by Slaght, who has been transformed into a creature of liquid metal called Slag. Slag attacks Iron Man, but refrains from destroying him since the person he blames for his transformation is Tony Stark. Little realizing that Iron Man is Tony Stark, he overpowers the hero and burns the phrase “mysterium tremendae” into his armor. He then tells Iron Man to bring Stark to him before the following dawn otherwise Slag will go on a rampage and kill innocent people.

The phrase “mysterium tremendae” brings back memories for Tony. On the day of his parent’s burial, Ted Slaght came to pay his respects.[2] It was here that Ted used the phrase with Tony, explaining that it is the “big mystery” surrounding life. In grieving, Tony isn’t that interested in hearing a lecture on metaphysics. Ted apologized then, understanding that despite Tony’s iron exterior, this is all incredibly difficult for him. Tony then admits that all he wanted was his father to be proud of him. Ted tells Tony that Tony’s father wasn’t a stupid man and only a fool wouldn’t be. Ted then told Tony that he was proud of him.

Later, Tony makes repairs to his armor and then begins looking up the details on Ted’s most recent experiments in order to come up with a means of stopping Slag.

At dawn, Tony waits at his parents graves for Slag to show up. When the monster appears, Tony turns off the image inducer hiding the fact that he is wearing his Iron Man armor. Seeing this as yet another deception, Slag attacks. Tony fights back, using liquid nitrogen to freeze Slag into a solid form. This doesn’t last long as the creature breaks free. However, the freezing causes Ted Slaght’s true personality to come to the fore briefly, pleading with Tony to end his life because he cannot control the monster. When the evil side of her persona reasserts himself, Iron Man realizes that he has no choice but to end his former teacher’s life. Using a magnetic device, Iron Man polarizes Slag’s body causing it to rip itself to pieces, leaving nothing left but spattered liquid metal. Iron Man mourns the passing of his teacher since this is not how he wanted things to end.[3]

The following day, Tony Stark calls a meeting with his senior staff — Bethany Cabe, Happy Hogan, Abe Zimmer, Erica Sondheim, and Bambi Arbogast — to tell them about Ted’s recent passing. He explains that he wanted to call the meeting to tell them all how much they mean to him. Everyone is touched by this and Tony tells them that its time to get back to work on building a better future.

Hours later, Iron Man is flying up into the Arctic, thinking about how it was a great speech, particularly since it came straight from the heart as he is looking forward to the future. He soon arrives at a secret bunker buried under the frozen ice and snow and enters. Once inside, Tony knows that despite how great that speech is in practice, nobody can really escape their past.[4]

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Slag, Bethany Cabe, Happy Hogan, Abe Zimmer, Erica Sondheim, Bambi Arbogast

Continuity Notes

1. Tony discovered that Ted’s memory was going back in Iron Man #315. This led to the project being pulled. Slagh tried to run his experiment any way in issue #316, resulting in an explosion that transformed him into Slag last issue.

2. As revealed in Iron Man #288, Howard and Maria Stark seemingly died in a car accident many years ago when Tony was still a young man. About that:

   • Here, Howard and Maria are referred to as Tony’s biological parents. Years later it is revealed that Tony was actually adopted. See Iron Man (vol. 5) #17 and International Iron Man #6-7.

   • S.H.I.E.L.D. #5 later revealed that Howard worked for a secret organization called the Brotherhood of the Shield. The organization had come up with a contingency plan to fake Howard’s death should the need arise, using a car accident as part of the ruse. As of this writing, it is yet to be revealed if Stark actually faked his death or not.

3. As of this writing (August, 2022) Slag remains among the deceased.

4. This of course is alluding to the revelation that Tony has apparently been a sleeper agent for Kang the Conqueror since the early days of the Avengers as detailed in Avengers: The Crossing #1, Avengers #390-395, Iron Man #319-325, Force Works #16-20, War Machine #20-23, Avengers: Timeslide #1, and Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man #1. It’s later revealed in Avengers Forever #8 that Tony’s belief that he was a sleeper agent was a false memory implanted in his mind by Immortus as part of a much grander deception.

Topical References

• The prognosis that Ted Slagh is suffering from an early on set of Alzheimer’s Disease, a neurodegenerative illness that is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. While this is currently a major illness with no known cure as I write this (August, 2022) the reference to a specific real-world illness should be considered topical to account for future medical breakthroughs that might result in a cure for the illness and thereby unintentionally age this story. Modern readers should interpret Tony’s diagnosis to a unspecified neurodegenerative illness rather than a specific one.