World’s Most Wanted, Part 10: Ashes and Snow

An outlaw on the run, Tony Stark has been trying to erase his memories in order to prevent top secret information from getting into the hands of Norman Osborn, the Director of HAMMER.[1] The trail has led to Kirensk, Russia, where he and Pepper Potts (aka Rescue), were attacked by Madame Masque (Whitney Frost), who was hired by Osborn to capture Stark. Pepper bought him time while Tony suited up and fled to his final safe house. In the aftermath of this battle, it appears as though Madame Masque was a victor as she drags Rescue out of the burning bunker.[2]

Finding her discarded communicator, Madame Masque finally reports back to Norman Osborn. She informs him that Stark managed to escape. However, Norman is pleased to hear that not only is Pepper Potts dead, but Whitney has managed to recover her suit of armor.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark was on his way west to Afghanistan. However, he has to abandon his armor in the town of Almaty, in Kazakstan. Hitching a ride, he goes to a library where he tries to send an e-mail to Maria Hill. Not only does he forget that his burner e-mail address is only meant to ping people, he sends it to Maria’s old SHIELD address. He doesn’t remember much, but knows that he feels bad for leaving Pepper behind, figuring Captain America would never leave anyone behind. He concludes his message by reiterating that whatever mission he gave Maria — that he no longer remembers — is still very important and tells her to be safe and to stay alive. Tony then goes back to his armor, suits back up and finishes the final leg of his trip. No longer remembering much about his armor, Tony listens to an audio recording on engineering in the hopes he might relearn enough to be able to complete his goal.

Back in New York City, Maria Hill wakes up to the sound of her phone vibrating and struggles to shut it off. Hearing someone in the other room, Maria grabs a knife from the kitchen and tries to ambush who she thinks is an intruder. It is actually the Black Widow (Natasha Romanov), who quickly disarms her. Natasha is not impressed by this unprompted attack and once again tells Hill to pull herself together before their meet with Captain America to hand off the drive that she needs to deliver for Tony Stark.[3]

Meanwhile, the HAMMER helicarrier is making their way into Russian airspace. Minutes away, Norman Osborn calls their Russian contact Dmitri Bukharin. Bukharin is furious that HAMMER is going to enter the country without permission. Osborn says that he has information about the an illegal sale of fissionable materials to a terrorist group that is going down but will only release the information if he is given permission to follow after Tony Stark. Realizing that millions of lives are at stake, Bukharin has no choice but to give Osborn what he wants. Once Norman ends the call, he orders Victoria Hand — his assistant — to fabricate the terrorists he just described. Dmitri regrets his decision but didn’t have any choice. He pours himself a shot of vodka and proposes a toast to Tony Stark in the hopes it will bring him luck.

Soon, HAMMER arrives over Kirensk in order to pick up Madame Masque and the Rescue armor. It’s that that moment that HAMMER’s data mining unit intercepts the e-mail that Tony sent to Maria Hill. Agent Christopher Walsh has the duty of delivering the contents of the message to Victoria Hand. When he realizes that he just ratted out Tony Stark, Walsh feels nothing but shame.

By this time, Iron Man has arrived in the Middle East. He is spotted by two local who decide to shoot him down. Unfortunately, Tony had fallen asleep in transit and doesn’t hear the alarms warning him of the imminent collision. The blast from the rocket wrecks the Iron Man armor and sends Tony crashing in the middle of the desert. With his suit rendered non-functional, Tony has the go the rest of the way on foot. Although he is injured and without his armor he reminds himself that he’s almost home.[4]

Stateside, the Black Widow and Maria Hill have arrived at the rendezvous point where they are to meet with Captain America. Unfortunately, HAMMER has been tipped off and when Natasha goes down to meet with Cap, she is surrounded by troops and so is Hill. Captain America watches the scene from the shadows and seeing that there is no way to rescue them, leaves to avoid being arrested himself.

Aboard the HAMMER helicarrier, Norman Osborn personally interrogates Madame Masque to find out what happened. He’s surprised she failed her mission and hopes that it had nothing to do with her past feelings for Tony Stark.[5] She insists that it didn’t play a factor, reminding him that Pepper Potts was there to interfere. Although she failed to capture Tony, she killed Potts and recovered her armor. Norman is preparing to strangle her from behind when suddenly, Victoria Hand comes bursting into the room to report that they managed to capture Maria Hill.

At that same moment, some HAMMER technicians are wheeling the Rescue armor into the room where all Norman Osborn’s pilfered Iron Man armor.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Rescue, Captain America, Black Widow, Maria Hill, HAMMER (Iron Patriot, Victoria Hand, Christopher Walsh), Dmitri Bukharin

Continuity Notes

1. This story follows the failed Skrull invasion of Earth. It ended with Norman Osborn killing the Skrull leader and being awarded Directorship of SHIELD, which he rennamed HAMMER, as seen in Secret Invasion #1-8. On his way out, Tony Stark erased sensitive top secret information to prevent Osborn from getting access to it and has been on the run since. See Invincible Iron Man #8-15.

2. As we’ll learn next issue, Pepper actually one the fight and traded outfits with Madame Masque in order to further frustrate Norman Osborn’s manhunt.

3. This hard drive is a back-up of Tony Stark’s mind which will be integral to restoring him back to normal following his mind wipe. See Invincible Iron Man #20-24.

4. Per an “updated” origin told in Iron Man (vol. 4) #1-6, Iron Man’s origin took place in Afghanistan. This was an attempt to update the original origin that was first told in Tales of Suspense #39. See below.

5. Madame Masque, aka Whitney Frost, had a relationship with Tony Stark from Iron Man #104 to 116. It came to an end when Iron Man seemingly slew her father, the crime boss known as Count Nefaria.

Topical References

• Tony’s burner e-mail address is listed as being hosted by Gmail. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world provider.

• Norman states that the sale of fissionable materials is being made between Chechnyan rebels and a disgruntled ex-Soviet militia. This should be considered a topical reference as these groups and the political situation were relative to the era in which this story was first published.

Translations

There is dialogue in this story that is presented in another language that is not translated. They are:

• Интернет-кафе = Internet Cafe

• ДОБРОЕ УТР = Good morning

• Щенок! = literally translates to “puppy”, but when used as a curse as it is in the story, it means that the person’s behavior is weak or cowardly, like a puppy.

• Za Vas = “For You”, a Russian saying when you are toasting someone.

The Iron Man Origin and Afghanistan

When it comes to Iron Man’s origins, this story goes by the one given in Iron Man (vol. 4) #1-6, which was an attempt to “update” the origin for modern audiences from the original one told in Tales of Suspense #39. The original version of events have Tony being captured by the warlord Wong-Chu while he was in Vietnam. The updated version of events has him getting captured by terrorists in Afghanistan. However, since then, Marvel has gone back to the original version of the tale, per History of the Marvel Universe #3.

As you can imagine, the two conflicting origin stories create issues with continuity and this discrepancies have yet to have an official explanation.

That said, this story was written to take place in Afghanistan the story, changing the setting would drastically change the story as it is told. A reasonable explanation for me would be that the story does take place in Afghanistan. So how do you explain this now that the original story is been returned? My take is that since Tony’s identity is public knowledge, then his origins would have also likely come out as well. Building a secret base where he first built his Iron Man armor seems like an incredibly stupid idea. Perhaps Tony built it in Afghanistan to throw off people who would look in the most obvious place — the actual location of Iron Man’s origins.

If that were true, then we could assume that — due to his erased memories — Tony mistakenly believes this Afghani cave is the place of his origins because the original armor is stashed there. The guy forgot that he built Pepper’s Rescue armor a few issues earlier, I think making a mistake like that would be a reasonable explanation for this.