Facing Facts

In the middle of the night a group of young adults from Columbia University break into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gaining access through a skylight, the group sneak past a sleeping security guard to steal a piece of art on display. However, as they are doing so, they accidentally set off the alarm. Panicking, everyone takes off leaving an inebriated Tony Stark to get busted by the guards.[1]

Meanwhile, in California, Jim Rhodes and Pepper Potts are deciding who will have to clean out Tony Stark’s office following his death. Pepper insists on doing it herself because so many important moments in her life happened while she was Tony’s executive assistant. Jim is also concerned about Fujikawa Inc.’s attempts to buy the company and wonders if they are doing the right thing by dealing with them.[2] In the adjacent board room, Happy Hogan and Bethany Cabe are signing off on a contract to sell Stark Enterprises to Fujikawa Inc.[3] They are only doing so because they have no other choice. With the contract sign, it will take 48 hours to come into effect. With the clock ticking, Happy sends Abe Zimmer on a very important mission.[4]

Back out east, Tony Stark is bailed out of jail by his classmate Kris DeGann. As she is dealing with the desk sergeant has a good laugh at her expense ogling a risque photo of Kris that was supposed to be put in place of the art they were trying to steal from the Met. This angers Kris who vows to get even with Tony for getting caught. However, Tony already feels like dog shit because of the scenario. Not only because he got caught and that he’s hung over, but also because he is concerned over what will happen when they run his finger prints and find they are an exact match for the now deceased adult Tony Stark. On the ride back to Columbia University, Tony thanks Kris for bailing him out. However, she tells him that he shouldn’t thank her, but the Kappa Phi’s, the local fraternity he has been trying to join.

They pass by Columbia Hospital where Tony Stark’s former girlfriend and current teacher Meredith McCall-Alden has been recovering since being frozen by her late husband after he was transformed into Frost-Bite.[5] Suddenly, Meredith wakes up from her coma.

Soon, Tony and Kris return to the Columbia University campus where Kris explains that the Kappa Phi fraternity has a bail fund in case one of their pranks goes sideways. Entering the frat house, Tony is surprised that there is a huge party in full swing as though nothing illegal happened the night before. Benj Brennan is happy to see Tony, who he now regards very highly because he didn’t rat the others out during the attempted art theft at the museum. As it turns out, that particular piece of art has been the subject of a recurring frat prank by the Kappa Phi house for decades and Benj is enjoys showing off a wall of photos of past frat members pulling off that and other pranks over the years. Tony, who has no friends or family in this time period, wonders if the communal nature of the fraternity will fill the void he feels in his life.

That’s when there is a scream from downstairs, as it turns out a fire has broken out in the frat house. As everyone tries to flee in a panic, Tony ducks away to change into Iron Man and help people get out. However, Tony is out of his depth and panics under the pressure. When he spots Kris in trouble, instead of getting her out of the burning building, he stashes her up in the attic until he can clear everyone else out. With the fire raging out of control downstairs and people trapped inside, Iron Man uses his an electromagnetic field device to ionize the air in the room causing to be magnetically repelled outside. This causes the students to pass out due to the sudden lack of oxygen, but it also causes the flames to instantly snuff out and more air comes rushing in from the large windows.

With mostly everyone evacuated outside, Iron Man notices that there is still a fire going in the upper floors. That’s when he suddenly realizes that when he left Kris up in the attic he barely registered the fact that the frat was storing canisters of oxygen, helium, and nitrous, all volatile chemicals. Before he can rush in to rescue DeGann, there is a massive explosion on the upper levels of the frat house.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Benj Brennan, Kris DeGann, Jim Rhodes, Pepper Potts, Bambi Arbogast, Abe Zimmer, Bethany Cabe, Happy Hogan, Meredith McCall, 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. Some of Tony’s past history with Pepper and Jim are on display here. Pepper states that she met her future husband working for Tony. Indeed, she met Happy Hogan in Tales of Suspense #45. While she initially despised him the two fell in love and got married in issue #91 of that series. Jim mentions “fighting in the trenches” with Tony. He is referring how the two met in Vietnam shortly after Tony created his first Iron Man armor. See Iron Man #144 for the story on that.

3. This marks the beginning of the Stark-Fujikawa Corporation. This organization will operate independently until the adult Tony Stark returned and gained full control of controlling shares of the company in Iron Man (vol. 3) #56.

4. Abe’s secret mission is to destroy all of Tony Stark’s surplus suits of Iron Man armor in order to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of Fujikawa. See Iron Man #330-331.

5. 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.

   • At any rate, Meredith was frozen alive by Frostbite and freed by Iron Man in Iron Man #327-328.

Topical References

• Jim Rhodes is depicted as having a cell phone with has an antenna to pick up signals. These were common on cell phones in the 1990s. This should be considered a topical reference as it is an obsolete technology.

• When talking about the Kappa Phi bail fund, Kris tells Tony to “wake up and smell the nineties”, this should be considered a topical reference as the decade given here is relative to the date of publication.

• The kids at the Kappa Phi party are listening to “One of Us” a song by Joan Osborn that was released in 1995. Not exactly a 90’s party jam at all, but I think by this point we can all agree that writer Terry Kavanaugh doesn’t have a fucking clue about anything he writes about given how terrible his tenure at Marvel was, but I digress. This song should be considered a topical reference not only because it is a dated song, but it wouldn’t get played at a frat party unless your initiation test is ritual suicide because your frat is depressing and sucks.

• When Benj Brennan is going over the Kappa Phi’s history he lists off sucessful art theft pranks that took place in 1977 and 1968. This would not necessarily be considered topical since Columbia University has been around since 1754. While the Kappa Phi fraternity depicted here is entirely fictional, there is no reason why the dates given in this story would be considered topical really.