The Five Nightmares, Part 1: Armageddon Days

Tabora, Tanzania, is a town that is rapidly changing thanks to the proliferation of modern technology. In a crowded market, a group of girls play around with their new Starkphones. However, day is marred when a bunch of suicide bombers pull into the market. With repulsor technology built into their bodies they annihilate everything around them.

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, the inventor of this technology won’t find out about this atrocity until many hours later. At the time, he has loaned himself to NASA to assist in making repairs to a space station. When he returns to Earth, Tony Stark replaces his Iron Man armor for a tuxedo so he can go out with a foreign supermodel.

As their evening winds down he thinks about his five biggest nightmares. The first is breaking his sobriety streak by drinking.[1] The evening of romance, however is interrupted by an important call from SHIELD. Tony has Pilar sent home while he hads to the helicarrier where he meets with Dum Dum Dugan and Maria Hill who brief him on the incident in Tanzia.[2] However, they have no idea how the suicide bombers used to cause the level of damage they achieved. SHIELD has identified that an offshoot of Advanced Idea Mechanics with a focus on genocidal technology has been operating in the nearby Congo. Tony wants to confer with his old friend Jim Rhodes before going into the field to deal with Advanced Genocide Mechanics. When Maria Hill balks at the idea of Tony being out in the field, he reminds her that he is in charge and wants to deal with this personally. Tony is annoyed that he won’t get to see the latest space launch, something that they don’t broadcast on television anymore unless people die.

Meanwhile, at the world headquarters of Jones-Reynolds-Jones in New York City, Ezekiel “Zeke” Stane is invited to a meeting. However, he has to pass a security screening first. He is subjected to a full body x-ray to make sure he isn’t smuggling any weapons into the boardroom. He makes provides them with a presentation on a new strain of genetically modified tobacco that will make cigarette smokers lose weigh. However, despite the fact that he has been designing bioweapons since he was nine-years-old, he finds the tobacco industry more evil than what he does for a living. Rather than use their money to create what they asked, Stane used it to upgrade his hypothalamus. As the executives call for security, Stane pulls off the life-like gloves that disguised the repulsors built into his finger tips. Powered by his own body, Stane then murders everyone in the room before leaping out the window and plumets to the street below.

Back aboard the SHIELD helicarrier, Tony Stark is thinking about his second biggest nightmare is a day when the technology to create Iron Man became inexpensive and easy to replicate. He is showing War Machine the data from the suicide bombing. Jim believes that it was armored tech that was used, but Tony doesn’t think so. Rhodes thinks Tony should look into it further before writing it off. Stark ends the call and then begins pulling up his data on all of armor wearers.[3] He thinks about his third greatest nightmare, the possibility that someone other than himself or Jim Rhodes will start piloting the Iron Man armor.[4]

In New York, Zeke Stane survived the fall from the 44-storey building and retreated to his personal limo. His girlfriend Sasha Hammer is unimpressed that he intentionally pushed his new implants beyond safety perimeters. Zeke, however, doesn’t care and has her hand him a tube of a calorie rich goo to replenish himself. Sasha then shows him the results from the suicide bombers in Africa. Zeke is very happy to see the results and the two get turned on by the carnage they have caused. Sasha suggests that Zeke get some rest until they meet with Tony Stark.

By this time, Tony is meeting with Pepper Potts, who is running Stark Industries during his tenure as Director of SHIELD. He tells her that he is noticing slight lag with the body sheath that allows him to interface with his Iron Man armor and wants her to monitor his performance on the AGM raid to see if she can narrow down where the problem is in his Extremis set up. Pepper doesn’t think it is a good idea to do fix-on-fail during a dangerous raid, but she agrees to observe and figure out what’s wrong. Tony suits up and joins a team of SHIELD commandos and leads them on the raid on the AGM facility. It’s here that he thinks about his fourth nightmare: The day when Iron Man tech becomes so cheaply made that it is disposable like an old cell phone. As he fights with AGM, he deduces that they couldn’t have been the ones to outfit the suicide bombers.

That’s when Pepper contacts him as she was able to determine that one of the victims of the suicide bombing was using a Starkfone and managed to take a picture moments before the blast that killed her. It had been sitting on the mail server this entire time. She forwards him the image which shows that the suicide bombers were using Starktech to turn themselves into living bombs. This is the final nightmare that Tony Stark feared: That the person who comes up with cheap, easily reproduced, next gen Iron Man tech is somebody other than himself.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Pepper Potts, War Machine, SHIELD (Maria Hill, “Dum Dum Dugan”), AGM, Zeke Stane, Sacha Hammer

Continuity Notes

1. This is an obligatory reference to Tony Stark’s struggle with alcoholism. This was first explored in Iron Man #128.

2. The man who appears to be Dum Dum Dugan is actually a Skrull spy who has infiltrated SHIELD ahead of a planned invasion of Earth. See Secret Invasion: Prologue #1 and Secret Invasion #1-8.

3. Tony recounts that he started keeping tabs on other armor users after his technology was once stolen and misused. He is referring to the Armor Wars which took place in Iron Man #225-232 and Captain America #340.

4. Jim has had two regular stints as Iron Man, from Iron Man #169 through 216 and again in Iron Man #284 to 290.

Topical References

• The statistics on cell phone ownership in Tanzia given in this story should be considered topical as they are reflective of the year the story was published and will have changed since then.

• The car that the suicide bombers are driving is identified as a 1988 Citreon CX. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world brand of vehicle. While it isn’t impossible to be driving a 1988 model vehicle given the region, it becomes increasingly unlikely as they become less common place.

• The depiction of a NASA space shuttle being used in this story should be considered topical as these shuttles were retired from service in 2011.

• Also depicted is the International Space Station. Its depiction here should also be considered topical as it is slated to be retired in 2031.

• One of the astronauts remarks that if Tony Stark wants to privatize space exploration they have his vote. This story was written when commercial space travel was still in its infancy, hence this comment. Now that privately own space exploration companies now exist and operate this comment would be considered topical.

• When talking about his alcoholism references Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. These should be considered a topical reference as these are real world brands.

• Tony’s comment about news coverage of space launches is in reference to the then recent 2003 Challenger Space Shuttle launch. The implied meaning should be considered topical.

• Zeke Stane’s presentation is recorded on DVD, which was a common presentation format. While this technology still exists as I write this (May, 2023), it has fallen out of popular use and its depiction here should be considered topical.

• Sasha Hammer is depicted using a personal digital assistant. These hand-held personal computers were fairly common in the business world when this comic was originally published. With the advent and proliferation of smart phones, PDAs were discontinued in the early 2010s. Its depiction here should be considered topical.

• When talking about thongs, Lamborgini and Target are name dropped. These are topical references as these are real world brands. Pepper states that she purchased her underwear in a pack of three for $9.99. Adjusting for inflation this would now cost about $14 in 2023 money.