The Art of the Deal

Tony Stark has travelled to Switzerland to investigate potential embezzlement going on at the company run by Countess Stephanie de la Spiroza. What Tony uncovers is that someone had built a secret facility within the company for some off-the-books work.[1] when their chalet was attacked by the men responsible, a group calling themselves the Siege Engineers, Tony had Stephanie hide in her panic room while he dealt with their attackers as Iron Man.

Before the hero can learn who is behind this scheme, a massive flying fortress appears as wells as three Hydra Dreadnaughts. The robots destroy the chalet and proclaim that the Countess and Tony Stark are dead and that Iron Man will be next. Unable to fight both the Dreadnaughts and the battle platform at the same time, Iron Man decides to exploit a flaw in the robot’s programming. With the Dreadaughts pursuing him, Iron Man flies past the battle ship, causing the robots to react to the opposing fire. Deeming the platform a threat to their mission, the Deadnaughts attack it. This sends the platform it crashing into the mountainside, destroying both it and the robots. With the immediate battle over, Iron Man goes to the ruins of the chalet and begins digging through the rubble to the Countess. He is relieved when he finds that she and her butler managed to get to the bomb proof panic room before the place was blown up. Tony flies them to a nearby ski resort and doubles back to investigate the battle scene. Unfortunately, by the time he gets back, his attackers and their ruined equipment are all long gone.

Returning to the ski resort, Tony Stark checks into his room and then uses his laptop to video conference with Pepper Potts back at Stark Solutions in New York City. His call comes in as Happy is assisting a woman named Doreen bring in new computer equipment into the office. Pepper is not amused to see that Happy and Doreen are hitting it off.[2] She ends the call with Tony after he sends her images of the Siege Engineer’s equipment and asks her to look into who they are. Once the call is over, Happy is escorting Doreen out the door and Pepper expresses her dislike of the woman, calling her a trap trying to get Hap’s attention. Hogan gets irritated and tells Pepper to give him one good reason not to pursue Doreen. When Pep goes silent, Happy decides he’s going to ask Doreen out for dinner.[3]

Meanwhile, Tony is sitting down to lunch with Stephanie and demands that she come clean with him about what’s going on at her factory. She admits that she hired Stark Solutions to investigate accounting irregularities in order to get Iron Man involved in protecting her. However, she had good reason to not be direct about it. She reminds Tony that she inherited her business from her late husband. He was “good friends” with Andreas Kapelos, although she knew that there was more to this relationship than meets the eyes given how nervous her late husband was around Kapelos. When he later died in an apparent accident, Kapelos approached her at the funeral and asked if he could buy Dufours Manufacturing from her. While she was planning to do just that, Kapelos’ manner raised suspicions and she began looking into the company finances. Sure enough she found the irregularities she hired Tony to investigate. When Kapelos found out, he confronted her, telling Stephanie that he has had a long understanding with the Dufours family and if she doesn’t uphold this arrangement there will be another accident. Fearing for her life, the Countess worried about what to do about this until she saw the Tony’s press conference on television and decided to hire Stark Solutions for assistance. She admits that she wasn’t truthful with him because Kapelos had men watching her at all times, but also because she feared he might leave given how they parted in the past.[4]

Tony tells her that it is all in the past and he agrees to continue helping her. The pair about about to kiss when Stephanie’s butler interrupts to inform them that he has a phone call. It is Pepper Potts with intel on the Siege Engineers. She tells him that they got their gear from an outfitter with the uninspiring name of the Arm’s Merchant.[5] Tony is pleased with this information and tells her to get in touch with the local CBNC new bureau. Tony arranges an interview where he tells the world that he has uncovered the operations of the Arm’s Merchant and that they also successfully captured his client list.

This is viewed by the mastermind behind the Siege Engineers, who is annoyed by this possible leak of information. He instructs his assistant to silence anyone who might be responsible.

Sure enough, this is exactly at Tony planned it and that evening Iron Man is waiting at the ski resort when three more Dreadnaughts show up to try and silence him. Attacking them with a steel girder, Tony coaxes them into blasting the bludgeon with their heat rays. He then tosses the molten metal at them, causing it to split into three globs of metal that hit each robot square in the belly. With this done, Iron Man then leads the trio on a chase back to the Dufours facility where he goes crashing through the side of the mountain and into the secret lab that has been operating there. There he catches Kapelos trying to gather up all the damning evidence connecting these operations to the Arm’s Merchant and flee. Iron Man confronts him and explains that he plugged the Dreadnaught’s exhaust vents. If Andras doesn’t hand over the data on his illicit dealings with the Arm’s Merchant, Iron Man will wait until the robots overheat and explode. While Iron Man can surely survive such an explosion, Andras cannot. Realizing that he has no means of escape, the mobster hands over the data.

With the evidence he needs in hand, Iron Man takes off to a remote spot in the mountains with the Dreadnaughts hot on his tail. Sure enough, the robots eventually overheat and explode. While the blast throws Iron Man for a loop and sends him crashing to the ground, he is relatively unhurt. Later, Tony catches up with the Countess, who has decided that she will continue operating her late husband’s company herself in order to honor his memory. The two then spend a romantic evening together, Stephanie’s extra way of saying thanks for all his help.

While back in New York, Happy Hogan is heading home from his date with Doreen. As he drives off Doreen pulls out a tiny radio to make a report. As it turns out, Doreen is a spy who has been hired to infiltrate Stark Solutions. She reports back to her employer to inform them that she has succeeded on making her way into the company and Stark Solutions will soon be ripe for the picking.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Mandarin, Deadnaughts, Arms Merchant, Countess Stephanie de la Spiroza, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts

Continuity Notes

1. Tony began his investigation last issue. It’s later revealed in Iron Man (vol. 3) #9-10 that the secret facility was built to assist the Mandarin in constructing a massive dragon-shaped battle platform.

2. Little does anyone know that Doreen is actually a spy working for the Mandarin vis-a-vie the Spymaster and his Espionage Elite. She has been hired to bug the Stark Solution’s office which will happen in Iron Man (vol. 3) #6. This will bite Tony in the ass as it will inadvertedly lead to Spymaster and his group to learn his secret identity in issue #8.

3. The tension between Pepper and Happy is because, once upon a time, they were married. The couple died the knot in Tales of Suspense #91. However, marital problems soon arose and the pair got a divorce after Pep cheated on Hap. This will be revealed next issue.

4. The Countess was a thorn in Tony’s side after she spurred her romantic interests on two occasions she inadvertedly jeopardized his life. The first was by stealing a needed component in a battle between Iron Man and Titanium Man, and later she hired the Mad Thinker to try and expose Iron Man’s secret identity. See Tales of Suspense #69-72.

5. Pepper mentions how the Arm’s Dealer previously ran afoul of the Thunderbolts. This happened in Thunderbolts #3.

Topical References

• Andreas Kapelos is depicted as having all of Dufours’ illicit business dealings stored on a CD-Rom. This should be considered a topical reference as this is an obsolete method of data storage.

• The original twin towers of the World Trade Center are depicted as part of the New York City skyline in this story. This should be considered a topical reference as they were destroyed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and subsequently replaced with the Freedom Tower.