World’s Most Wanted, Part 11: Kids With Guns vs. The Eternal Angel of Death

A fugitive from the law, Tony Stark has been fleeing across the globe slowly erasing his mind in order to prevent HAMMER Director Norman Osborn from gaining valuable secrets.[1] The trail has led him to his final destination, Afghanistan, where he has one final secret cache.[2] With his armor wrecked, he has forced to make the final few miles on foot. Little does he know that the two young men who shot him down. All he knows is that he is almost home. He thinks about how it will all end where it began, remembering how Ho Yinsen once saved his life.[3]

Meanwhile, the Black Widow (Natasha Romanov) and Maria Hill have been arrested by HAMMER and are now prisoners inside Avengers Tower. They are communicating via morse code, but get quiet when Victoria Hand — Norman Osborn’s assistant — comes down to show the prisoners to Madame Masque. When asked if she thinks Hill could have been responsible for all the trouble she has caused, Masque looks Maria in the eyes and says she looks like of someone who can raise all kinds of hell.

Back in the Middle East, Tony Stark struggles to finish programming some code. Its a difficult ordeal since he has forgotten how to type and keeps making mistakes. He eventually gets it right and powers up the original suit of Iron Man armor that he built many years ago with Ho Yinsen. Looking at it now, he can’t believe such a thing was capable of moving on its own, let alone help him survive those early days. The key, of course, is from the reactor that is built into the chest plate. While he makes some adjustments to the wires, a mass of them suddenly come loose and fall to the ground. He finds the wire he needs to power the repulsors so he can wipe out the last of his mind. That’s when the two young men that had been following him enter the room. One of them pulls a gun and shoots Stark from behind just as he powers things up.

At that moment, aboard the HAMMER helicarrier, Christopher Walsh is monitoring things as they search for Tony Stark. When the repulsor generator turns on it is instantly detected. When Walsh points this out to his superior, his commanding officer congratulates Walsh’s good luck.[4] When word gets to Norman Osborn, he has Walsh come up to his office to congratulate him personally. Walsh, however, is starting to feel guilty over his part in all of this. Osborn tells Walsh to walk with him and details how he is going to suit up as the Iron Patriot and crush Tony Stark with his bare hands. When asks if they shouldn’t give Stark the proper due process. Osborn says that given the circumstances that’s all the justification he needs to kill Tony Stark.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark tries to get his attackers to remain calm, but can’t remember how to speak or understand Urdu. Instead, he begins typing frantically at the keyboard. This gets the translation software in the Iron Man armor to boot up so that it can repeat what everyone is saying in a language they can understand. He learns that they view him to be a great warlord and demand that he teach them how to be like him. This deeply disturbs Tony and decides he doesn’t need a translator to give them his response. Grabbing the gunman’s hand, he places the barrel of his weapon under his chin and tells him to either kill him or get out of his workshop.

As Norman Osborn suits up, he begins practicing how he will say Stark’s name when he finally has him. Little does he know that Christopher Walsh’s conscience is quickly catching up.

Back in the cave, the two young men have choked when Stark told them to kill him or get lost. He calls them pitiful, snatches away their gun and sends them on their way so he can get back to his real work. He then suits up in the original suit of Iron Man armor and blasts off. Tony hopes he can make it to Dubai uninterrupted so he can die in peace.

Walsh picks this up on his computers and hopes that Victoria Hand — Norman Osborn’s right hand — isn’t in her office. As fate would have it, she is not, as she is down in a lab as technicians are cutting open the Crimson Dynamo armor in order to figure out what makes it tick. They are shocked when they find a horribly scarred woman hidden inside. Victoria realizes that this is Madame Masque and the woman they brought with them is an impostor.

At that moment, the phony “Madame Masque” — actually Pepper Potts — is freeing both the Black Widow and Maria Hill from their cells. When they ask if Pepper has a plan to get them out, she tells them that one is already in motion. This entire time, Pep’s Rescue armor has been held in the storage area where Norman Osborn has kept all of Tony’s stolen Iron Man suits. Under direct sunlight, the armor’s solar power collectors fully recharge the suit and it begins downloading a virus into all the suits of armor.

By this point, Osborn is fully suited up in his Iron Patriot armor. Growing impatient, he radios to Walsh and demands results on where Tony Stark is. Unable to narc on his old boss a third time, Walsh tells Osborn that Tony is headed for Pakistan. Unaware that he has been deceived, the Iron Patriot takes off, looking forward to bringing this chase to its conclusion.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Black Widow, Maria Hill, Rescue, HAMMER (Iron Patriot, Victoria Hand, Christopher Walsh), Madame Masque

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. 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. There has yet to be an official explanation for these conflicting versions of events, but I posit a theory in my indexing of last issue. TL;DR version: This is just a place where Tony stashed a version of his original armor and in his diminished mind is confusing its location as the origin point of his armor.

3. We get an obligatory reference to Tony’s alcoholism, which was first explored in Iron Man #128.

4. Last issue, Chris Walsh was the HAMMER agent that found the e-mail Tony sent to Maria Hill, that helped tip them off to Stark’s general location.

5. 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.

6. 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.

Translations

This story includes dialogue in Arabic that has not been translated into English. They include:

• Allah Akbar = “God is the greatest.”

• کولی‌تاقی بگیر و سیا کن = “Shoot him, Kuli!” Kuli is a derogatory term to describe someone of Afgani origin.

• مولوناوے کے پنتہہ حر دجا۔۔ = “"On the fifteenth day of Maulana, stand firm!" This “15th day of Maulana” stuff is in regards to an Arabic culture. You can deep dive Wikipedia for the deeper meaning, but given the context this would probably be the western equivalent of someone saying “for the love of god, stand still!”

• چپ یو جو پینک بند کرو! =”Shut up, stop panicking!”