Iron Man #332
Night Neverending!
Onslaught continues from Incredible Hulk #445…
New York is under siege by an army of Sentinel robots under the command of Onslaught, who is Charles Xavier gone mad.[1] Iron Man has joined Giant-Man and Quicksilver on a mission to the Wakandan embassy. They hope to obtain a sample of Vibranium in order to construct enough psi-shield devices to protect themselves and their allies from Onslaught’s vast mental powers.[2] Travelling through the sewers, Iron Man looks up topside and is disheartened to see that an army of Sentinels are attacking the embassy topside.
Giant-Man and Quicksilver decide that the best course of action is to sneak in from below and not fight the Sentinels, particularly because the chest plate keeping Tony alive is on a limited energy supply.[3][4] That’s when Quicksilver becomes aware that someone is watching them from the pipes above and prepares to attack. However, this turns out to be their fellow Avenger and Wakandan ruler, the Black Panther, who fled into the sewers through a secret access hatch from inside his embassy. Hearing why the other Avengers have come, the Black Panther agrees to escort them back to the embassy to get what they need. Quicksilver speeds off to scout ahead and comes racing back to warn the others that a torrent of water is coming their way.[5]
This forces Giant-Man to grow to massive size to smash a hole to the surface for his friends to escape from. This also, unfortunately, tips the Sentinels off to their presence.[5] Shooting up to massive size leaves Hank weakened but this doesn’t stop him from going toe-to-toe with a Sentinel. This creates a distract for the others to enter the Wakandan Embassy through the secret door.[7] There they are greeted by Taku — the head of security — and a compliment of guards. They are not happy that the Avengers are on embassy soil, but T’Challa orders his guards to stand down. Entering the lab, Iron Man is completely in awe over how much more advanced Wakandan technology is to anything he has seen in the future so far. Soon, he and the Black Panther begin working on the psi-shields. The construction of these devices require a great deal of Vibranium, but luckily T’Challa has a vault full of the rare metal to meet their needs.
Outside, Giant-Man has given it his all against the Sentinels but there are too many and he has exhausted himself in one-on-one battle. Collapsing to the ground, Pym reverts back to his natural size. However, before a Sentinel can crush Hank under his boot, Quicksilver arrives on the scene and rescues him. This distraction allows the Panther and Iron Man the time they need to make enough psi-shield devices for all of the Avengers, X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. That’s when the Sentinels turn their attentions back to the embassy. Iron Man assists T’Challa and the Wakandan soldiers stationed in defending the embassy. After the Sentinels have been dealt with, Iron Man takes off with the psi-shields to bring them to the others. As he goes, T’Challa remarks that the young Tony Stark is everything about the original that ever truly mattered.
In Times Square, Giant-Man and Quicksilver wait for Iron Man to catch up with them. When a Sentinel appears on the scene, the two prepare for an attack. However, the Sentinel turns out to be a shell used by Iron Man to get to the rendezvous point unimpeded with the psi-shields that could very well turn the tide of battle.
… Onslaught continues in Avengers #402.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Avengers (Black Panther, Quicksilver, Giant-Man), Sentinels, Taku
Continuity Notes
Onslaught came to be after Xavier once used his mental powers to wipe Magneto’s mind in X-Men (vol. 2) #25. This resulted in his mind being tainted by Magneto’s evil. This was all explained in Wolverine (vol. 2) #104. Onslaught began his assault in Onslaught: X-Men #1. Onslaught took control of the Sentinels back in X-Men (vol. 2) #48 and unleashed them upon New York in issue #55 of that series.
The psi-shield plans come from the Xavier Protocols, a database compiled by Chuck that details all the ways to take down each member of the X-Men in the event any of them go rogue. It also included plans on how to take himself down, hence the psi-shields. The X-Men risked life and limb to obtain these protocols in Uncanny X-Men #335, Excalibur #100 and X-Men (vol. 2) #55.
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. Gravely injured by his future self, Tony now needs a specially built chest plate to keep himself alive. 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.
The reason why Iron Man’s chest plate is so limited right now is because New York City has been utterly blacked out after Onslaught unleashed an electro-magnetic pulse in Uncanny X-Men #336. This has left Tony with few options when it comes to recharging his chest plate.
Here, Quicksilver is referred to as both a mutant and the son of Magneto, which is what was believed at the time. Years later it has been revealed that these were both lies. Let’s get into that:
Per Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5, Quicksilver was kidnapped as a baby and experimented upon by the High Evolutionary. In order to cover up his work he made it so that future genetic testing would have Pietro register as a mutant. This also why the Sentinels’ scanners identify him as a mutant later on in this story.
Magneto and Quicksilver had been led to believe that they are related by Bova the cow-woman, a creation of the High Evolutionary himself in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4. Years later, it is revealed that he is the son of Natalya Maximoff and an unidentified father, per Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3. While it’s never been clearly explain why Pietro was led to believe Magneto was his father (as of this writing in September, 2022) but presumably it was to further sell the lie that he was a mutant.
The Sentinel who detects Giant-Man here rhymes off the many identities that Hank Pym has had over the years including Ant-Man (Tales to Astonish #35), Giant-Man (Tales to Astonish #49), Goliath (Avengers #28) and Yellowjacket (Avengers #59).
The passcode to Black Panther’s secret door into the Wakandan Embassy is “Monica”. This is in reference to Monica Lynne, a singer turned civil rights activist who has been an on-again-off-again romantic interest of the Black Panther since her first appearance in Avengers #73.
Onslaught Reading Order
Onslaught: X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #335, X-Factor #125, Excalibur #99-100, Cable #34, Incredible Hulk #444, Wolverine (vol. 2) #104, X-Men Unlimited #11, Avengers #401, Fantastic Four #415, Generation X #18, X-Men Unlimited #12, X-Men (vol. 2) #55, Green Goblin #12, Amazing Spider-Man #415, Spider-Man #72, X-Man #18, X-Force #57, Excalibur #101, X-Factor #126, Uncanny X-Men #336, Cable #35, X-Force #58, Generation X #19, X-Man #19, Punisher (vol. 3) #11, Incredible Hulk #445, Iron Man #332, Avengers #402, Fantastic Four #416, Wolverine (vol. 2) #105, Thor #502, X-Men (vol. 2) #56, Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1