Iron Man (vol. 3) #20
Machinery of War Part 3: Cheating Death
While investigating Sunset Bain’s connection to the new War Machine, Tony Stark also discovered that she has been holding the robot Jocasta prisoner.[1] While attempting to rescue Jocasta as Iron Man, the new suped up War Machine arrives to try and stop him, leaving to an all out brawl between the two. Unfortunately, as they are fighting, Sunset forces Jocasta to run a combat program that begins raining down missiles on the battle, so it’s turning out to be a pretty bad day for Iron Man.
Watching the battle from Baintronics headquarters, Sunset and her head technician, Stuart Clarke, notice that Jocasta is trying to hamper their efforts to destroy Iron Man by warning him of danger and terminate her connection with the Avenger. They then unleash a swarm of smart weapons to up the ante against their foe.
As Iron Man is taking a drubbing, Jim Rhodes arrives in a flying car to confront War Machine. He now knows that the new War Machine is his old war buddy Parnell Jacobs and brought his wife, Glenda Sandoval, to confront him about lying to her about retiring as a mercenary. As Parnell tries to explain himself, he is distracted long enough for Iron Man to grab a circuit board from one of the ruined drones and hook it into his armor. This allows him backdoor access to Sunset Bain’s network. When Bain and Clarke order War Machine to get his head back in the game, it comes to late. Iron Man has been able to hack into some targeted missiles and trains them on his opponent, heavily damaging both of them. With Iron Man at his mercy, War Machine is about to kill Iron Man when Jim reminds Jacobs that he owes him one. Parnell decides to spare Iron Man and then quits on the spot. He strips off all of the additional weapons that Stuart Clarke built to enhance the War Machine armor and flies off.
Despite this, Sunset Bain hasn’t given up and sends more attack drones to destroy Iron Man. Luckily, Tony recovers in time to pick up one of War Machine’s discarded cannons and uses it to blow up the drones. Furious at Clarke’s failure to build weapons that can defeat their foe, she fires him on the spot. As Jocasta continues to try and fight free of Sunset’s control, Tony speaks out to her and tells her to keep fighting. Hearing Tony’s unfiltered voice and — unaware that he’s actually Iron Man — she tries to convince him that the attack was due to Jocasta and that she has nothing to do with it. Tony, however, knows the truth and refuses to let Sunset Bain manipulate him again and encourages Jocasta to keep fighting.
Seeing no way to stop Sunset Bain, Jocasta initiates her self-destruct mechanism which begins slowly melting her physical head which is hooked into Bain’s computer systems. Fearing that she will lose access to this powerful artificial intelligence, Bain contemplates shutting the whole thing down. Meanwhile, Iron Man tells Jocasta not to terminate her own life. Fighting through the last of the drones, he smashes his way through Baintronic’s headquarters to get to the room where Jocasta’s head is being stored. Luckily, he arrives and tries to download Jocasta’s program into his armor. This happens just as Bain hits a delete command to purge the entire system.
Iron Man believes he has failed and as he attempts to exit the building he is surrounded by security. Sunset Bain then arrives on the scene and orders the guards to stand down. She then tries to convince to explain the attack away as a unauthorized munitions test. Iron Man tells Bain that she can charge the damages to Tony Stark and informs her that his “employer” quits and then takes off.
When Iron Man returns to Tony Stark’s mansion, he tries to console Glenda Sandoval over the recent revelations that her husband is still a mercenary. However, she is too filled with grief and runs off in tears. Tony tells Rhodney to look after her and then heads down to his private lab. There, he hooks his armor into the computers and downloads Jocasta’s program into his computers. As it turns out, he managed to save her code after all. Now that she is free of Sunset Bain, Iron Man offers to build her a new body but Jocasta politely declines as she has grown accustomed to her new lifestyle.[2] When Pepper comes down to check on Tony, he rejoices about foiling Sunset Bain’s schemes and saving Jocasta and kisses Pepper on the lips. This is seen by Happy Hogan, who doesn’t say anything.[3] Tony then tells Hap and Pep to get acquainted with Jocasta while he heads out to see if Carol Danvers wants to go out for dinner.
Meanwhile, a body has been dredged out of the waters of Puget Sound, prompting a call to the police. When Detective Plexico arrives on the scene to investigate he is shocked to discover that the dead woman is yet another Madame Masque corpse![4]
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, War Machine, Sunset Bain, Stuart Clarke, Jocasta, Jim Rhodes, Glenda Sandoval, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Madame Masque (corpse)
Continuity Notes
Tony has been investigating the connection between Bane and the new War Machine since he attacked another company Tony was working for in Iron Man (vol. 3) #11-12. He discovered Jocasta has been a prisoner of Sunset since Iron Man Annual #11 in the last issue.
This won’t last overly long as Jocasta will obtain a new physical body following the events of Iron Man (vol. 3) #46-48.
The situation between Tony, Happy, and Pepper is an awkward one. See, when Hap started working for Tony in Tales of Suspense #45, both he and Tony soon found themselves in a love triangle with Pepper. Ultimately, Hap won out and he and Ms. Potts got married in issue #91 of that series. Unfortunately, the wedded bliss didn’t last more than a few years before their marriage fell apart leading to a divorce as explained in Iron Man (vol. 3) #4. Since Hogan and Potts have started working for Tony again circa Iron Man (vol. 3) #1, the situation has been awkward between the two. While Happy had entertained a notion of getting back together, Pepper has been cold to the idea. Sadly, the pair won’t be getting back together.
The Madame Masque situation is quite complicated as she has been apparently killed multiple times:
The mystery first began when the original Madame Masque, aka Whitney Frost, was seemingly murdered by a mystery woman who later took on her costumed identity back in Iron Man #238.
Not long after this, a woman calling herself Masque showed up circa Iron Man #320. However, she went missing in Avengers #399 before anyone could find out who she really was.
A second dead woman was later found who exactly resembled Frost in Iron Man (vol. 3) #11.
It’s later explained in Avengers (vol. 3) #32 that Madame Masque had actually gone into hiding due to a fear for her own mortality. She then started using a string of bio-duplicates starting in Iron Man #138. Once a bio-duplicate outlived its usefulness a replacement was sent to kill its predecessor and steal its identity.
With all that in mind: The first bio-duplicate was the one killed in Iron Man #238. The second bio-duplicate was the one found dead in Iron Man (vol. 3) #11. Masque is the third known bio-duplicate and went rogue and it was the real Madame Masque who had her captured. The body found here is a fourth bio-duplicate responsible for killing the 2nd and taking its place.
Topical References
The car Jim Rhodes is flying is identified as a Lamborghini. It is depicted as a late 90s model of the world famous luxury car. Unless you want to believe that Tony is turning vintage sports cars into flying machines this could be considered a topical reference.
