Frostbite

The Alden Institute is the leading company in the science of cryogenics, offering the technology to deep freeze a terminally ill human body until such a time a cure can be made. Due to the extreme cost, only the most wealthy can afford the service. However, the cryogenic system has malfunctioned completely freezing the storage facility where all the bodies have been stored. On site staff are now trying to crack through the door that has been frozen shut.

Meanwhile, young Tony Stark is attending the most surreal meeting of his young life, the reading of the will written by his future self.[1] Also in attendance are the adult Stark’s friends an allies including Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne, Edwin Jarvis, Abe Zimmer, Bambi Arbogast, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Jim Rhodes, and Bethany Cabe. The will is being presented to them by the late Tony Stark’s lawyer, Foggy Nelson. However, rather than a written will, Tony had prepared a video will to explain how his estate is to be divided up.

For Jarvis, Tony is bequeathing money so that his mother is never in need again and Edwin himself will receive a life time income in repayment for his unwavering service to the Avengers. To Pym and Van Dyne, he leaves the financial resources to keep the Avengers solvent for all time. Abe Zimmer and Bambi Arbogast are named to be senior members of the Stark Enterprises board of directors as there is nobody else he trusts more to run his company. Happy and Bethany are selected to be the trustees of the company’s corporate assets. Lastly, he leaves Pepper and Jim as executors of his personal fortune. Lastly, he appoints Foggy Nelson to establish a foundation that will manage Tony’s philanthropic endeavors. Tony concludes his video will by asking his friends to remember Tony Stark not for what he has done, but for what he has tried to do. The message finally hits home for many of them that the Tony Stark the knew and loved is gone for good.

Little do any of the mourners realize that someone is spying on them from afar. Watching the proceedings from his secret hideout, this mystery man agrees that Tony is gone, but far from forgotten.[2]

As night falls on the city, the young Tony Stark visits the grave of his older self. A young man out of time his thoughts are of his own mortality. Seeing how much his adult counterpart was loved, Tony realizes how alone he feels in the future and wonders who will mourn him when his own time comes.

Back at the Alden Institute, the scientists finally manage to open the door to the cryo-chamber storage room. There they are horrified to discover that every single customer has died as a result of the malfunction. As their founder — Sloane Alden — was also contained in one of the units they decide to go and check on him as well. Apparently when the system crashed, all of the cryogenic freezing compounds were re-routed to Alden’s chamber in order to preserve his life over everyone else. When they go to check on his chamber they are horrified to discover that the malfunction has transformed Alden into something less than human!

By this time, Tony Stark has returned to Columbia University where he hacks the records to look up the home address of his former girlfriend turned teacher, Meredith McCall-Alden. Tony is troubled by the fact that he disappeared on Meredith when he was pulled forward in time and wants to try and explain the situation to her in person.[3] However, when he comes to her apartment and tries to use the buzzer he discovers that it has been frozen solid. When he tries to use the knocker, it has gone brittle from the extreme cold and snapped off. Curious, Tony opens the door and is shocked to discover that the inside of Meredeth’s home is in the middle of an arctic blizzard. Suspecting trouble, Tony puts on the gauntlets of his as-yet-incomplete armor and dives in to rescue Meredith from whatever threat is causing this extreme weather.

Meanwhile, in California, a helicopter owned by the Fujikawa Corporation does a fly by of the Stark Enterprises building. This is to satisfy Yu Kirin, the CEO of Fujikawa, who has aspirations to buy the company. Satisfied with what he sees, he tells his pilot to head back before Stark security gets wind of their tresspassing.

Back in New York, Tony searches Meredith’s apartment and finds her a frozen victim of the individual responsible a man of ice that is kissing her on the lips. When Tony demands to know what’s going on, the ice man reveals that he is Meredith’s husband and that his cryogenics were an attempt to avoid death from a terminal illness. The accident that has transformed him into a being of ice, Alden now calls himself Frost-Bite and intends to take back what’s his. When Tony tries to attack Frost-Bite, the villain quickly freezes him solid, rending Tony helpless.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Frostbite, Morgan Stark, Foggy Nelson, Edwin Jarvis, Wasp, Abe Zimmer, Bambi Arbogast, Happy Hogan, Bethany Cabe, Pepper Potts, Jim Rhodes, Yu Kirin

Continuity Notes

1. This version of Tony Stark was pulled forward in time to help the Avengers stop his older self after he betrayed the team. It was a whole thing. See Iron Man #319-325, Avengers #390-395, Force Works #16-20, War Machine #20-23, Avengers: The Crossing #1, Avengers: Timeslide #1, Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man #1 as well as Avengers Forever #8 to find out just what the fuck was going on. At any rate, this younger version of Tony comes from a divergent reality as a result, Marvel Legacy: The 1990s Handbook #1 identifies it as Reality-96020. Tony is said to be 19 at the time he was taken from the past and he was brought forward to the future by about 10 years. Per the Sliding Timescale this is not accurate at all. It would actually be closer to 14 years. See the Pre-Modern Age Timeline for more details.

2. This mystery man is revealed to be Tony’s cousin, Morgan Stark, as we’ll discover in Iron Man #330-331.

3. There is a lot going on with Meredith McCall that needs explaining here. The details:

   • When young Tony was pulled out of the past in Avengers: Timeslide #1, he was seeing Meredith McCall at the time. From his perspective he disappeared on her over a decade ago.

   • However, Tony’s fears that this Meredith will recognize him are unfounded since his disappearance now takes place in a divergent reality. While the Earth-616 Meredith McCall did date her reality’s Tony Stark (as seen in Iron Man #28) never would have had Tony Stark disappear on her when they were teens.

Topical References

• Tony Stark’s video will is played on a CRT model television. This should be considered topical as this is an obsolete technology.

• The years on Tony Stark’s tombstone are obscured, likely in an effort not to prematurely age the character. That said, both his birth and death dates are listed as being in the 1900s. This should be considered a topical reference due to the Sliding Timescale. The timescale pushes the Modern Age forward in time and has done so enough that the Modern Age does not start until after the beginning of the 21st century. As such the century in which Tony was born into and died will ultimately have to take place in the 21st century.