Tin Man

Now

Tony Stark in aboard a fighter plane flying over a conflict zone in a former Soviet state. Its then that the on board systems warn that there has been a missile lock on their jet. Unable to evade the missile, the pilot decides to hit the eject. Tony scrambles to grab hold of the briefcase that contains his Iron Man armor, but is too slow.

Splashing down into the water below, Tony is about to dive in after the wrecked plane when enemy combatants begin shooting at him. He ducks into a sewage pipe. If he doesn’t get his armor back in the next 24 hours he’s going to die.[1]

One Week Earlier

Tony had thrown a huge celebration for the company and invited many high profile guests. Pepper Potts, Tony’s assistant, has been worried about him because he has been working late hours developing a new suit of armor after the previous one was compromised by Ultron,[2] and the hassles he’s had opening new facilities in Eastern Europe, she worries about he is putting his mechanical heart under too much strain.

Pepper’s concerns were valid, as Tony was excusing himself from the party so he could go upstairs and recharge the battery on his mechanical heart. As he headed upstairs, he hears some of the guests gossiping about him. He knows they talk about him behind his back and don’t know everything he has suffered in his life.[3] The charging process is painful and requires Tony to bite down on something to prevent him from screaming out loud. It’s while he is recharging his heart that Tony is visited by Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow.

Natasha has come to tell him about General Milos Radanovich, who left the Russian military and seized control of a country that was part of the former Soviet Union. It is a nation that is reeling from bigotry and hatred. Radanovich has now committing acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing to wipe out the country’s Muslim population. The United States government isn’t doing much to intervene because it gets cheap oil from the nation.

When Tony asked her what she wanted him to do with this information, Natasha asks him to travel to this nation and see the chaos for himself. She counted four Senators and two Congressmen at his party, and she figures that he could use his connections to convince the US to finally do something about the situation.

Now

Making his way through the combat zone, Tony Stark is reminded of the conflict that led to the United States government tapping Stark Industries to build weapons for them.[4] Tony recalls how he worked on designing a suit of battle armor that would enhanced a soldier’s combat capabilities. Heavily armored and computer control used chemical stimulants to keep a soldier fighting even when injured. He remembers how something went wrong and he was shipped into the conflict zone to fix it. He never ended up fighting what was wrong as he ended up setting off a tripwire. He was then made a prisoner of Wong-Chu who forced him and Ho Yinsen to build weapons for him. Instead, they built the first suit of Iron Man armor. Yinsen sacrificed his life while Stark chaged the armor and later used it to free himself.[5]

Another reason why he is remembering that years ago incident is because he received another reminder of it earlier that day…

Earlier

Tony decided to take the Black Widow up on her suggestion, and paid a visit to General Radanovich under the auspices that he was interested in opening a new factory in the his country. Radanovich invited Tony to visit the royal palace where he downplayed the violence in his country, telling him not to listen to the ravings of religious extremists. He then showed off his country’s military might. Tony was surprised to see that Radanovich had one of Stark Industries old Warwagons. His company hadn’t sold that many of them because they consumed a lot of fuel.[6] Seeing the rest of the city, Tony asks to see what the segregated Muslim parts of the country to make sure things don’t look as bad as he has heard. He convinces Radanovich to do this by saying he can convince his friends in Washington that things aren’t so bad.

This led to the fighter plane pass over which led to Tony getting shot down and losing his armor.

Now

By this point, General Radanovich has just learned that the jet carrying Tony Stark had been shot down by insurgents. Worse, Tony Stark was sighted fleeing into the Muslim sector. The General is furious and orders his men to get Stark back before he can see what’s really going on and they lose an benefactor so late in the game.

Meanwhile, Tony decides to take a look at the surface from a manhole cover. He is horrified to see a bunch of innocent people — including children — are gunned down by Radanovich’s army. They then proceed to dig a mass grave and dump all the corpses in. The flow of blood is so huge, that blood begins to drip down into the sewers where Tony is hiding.

When it’s been quiet long enough, Tony tries to leave the sewers only to be captured by the guards. When he tells them who he is, the commanding officer reports back to General Radanovich. Hearing that Stark saw everything, Milos orders Stark eliminated, as they can blame it on the rebels.

Before they can can execute Tony right there, a sniper beings opening fire and takes down all the soldiers. Tony is then met by a little girl who leads him to cover. She takes him to the shooter, a woman named Ayisha Ashirov, who tells her the mute girl is named Merika. When Tony thanks Ayisha for her help, the dead eyed woman tells him that she didn’t save his wife, she was only concerned with killing the soldiers.

Ayisha brings Tony back to the hideout of the Christian/Muslim coalition that is trying to overthrow Radanovich. It is led by Ayisha’s father, a Muslim, and Professor Yurkovich, a Christian, are leaders of the group. They explain that their ultimate goal is to captured Radanovich and bring him before the War Crimes Tribunal to face justice for his ethnic cleansing. Ayisha, hardened by the war, won’t settle for anything less than killing Milos outright. Since the General seldom leaves his palace stronghold, the resistance has been stymied until just recently when they found a weapon that could allow one person to single handedly win the war for them.

They then unveil one of Tony’s long abandoned suits of combat armor. Stark is shocked to see that one of these failed inventions managed to survive all these years. He warns them against using it because it has an adverse affect on the soldier that wears it. He tells them how the on board computer kept in injecting drugs into the soldier wearing it to make him ignore the pain and keep fighting. The soldier kept on fighting no matter what and ended up dying on his feet. Ashirov and Yurkovich thank Tony for his honesty and they will contemplate if they should use the armor or not.[7]

Feeling weak and with nothing to recharge his weakening heart, Tony goes out for some fresh air. Outside, he sees Ayisha watching the burning city. She confirms that it is always like this before going heading out to go hunting for more soldiers. Tony goes back inside and sits down to eat with Merika. He tells the little girl that all he has ever wanted to do was make the world a better place. He admits that early on in his career he went about it wrong and has been trying to correct those wrongs ever since Ho Yinsen sacrificed his life. As he tells Merika this, he is cutting shapes out of a piece of paper. Holding it up to a lantern, it projects images of Iron Man on the wall. Merika is entertained by the trick and she kisses Tony on the cheek and falls asleep in his lap.

That’s when Ayisha returns from her hunt, and tells him about her life. She was just a child when the war started, just like Merika is now. Merika used to sing before the horrors of war robbed her of her voice. Ayisha used to sing too, but that all changed when Milos Radanovich crushed her fathers hand then forced him to watch as they raped and murdered her mother. Ayisha proved more resilient and survived her own assaults. Now she is driven by hate and washes away her shame with the blood of her enemies. She will not rest until Merika’s father, Ayisha’s rapist, is dead. She does it so girls like Merika never experience what she has. Ayisha full intends to be dead by the time this war is over. Tony is more optimistic, hoping that she will live to old age and have a hundred grandchildren. Ayisha is touched that Tony is suh a kind man but the only dreams she has are nightmares. She then falls asleep on Tony’s lap soon after. Tony notices that she is crying in her sleep.

They are all woken up when General Radanovich arrives in the Warwagon and begins laying waste to everything in its path. Tony realizes that Ayisha actually went out to give away his location so Radanovich would come out and kill him. Tony tells them to hold off the Warwagon while he goes to get something that will turn the tide of battle. He has Merika lead him back to the downed fighter plane. He then dives into the water and swims down to the wreck to recover his Iron Man armor.

While he is gone, the battle is not going well for the rebels as they are woefully equipped to fight back against the warwagon. Seeing this as her moment, Ayisha puts on the old suit of Stark battlearmor and leads her people into battle. Iron Man arrives on the scene just as Ayisha smashes into the the massive vehicle causing it to explode and seemingly claiming her life as well.[8] Tony laments that he wasn’t able to save Ayisha. However, her father tells him that she was too late to save her a long time ago, but she planted the seeds so that future generations can flourish from. When Tony offers to take Marika back to the US with him, Ayisha’s father refuses saying that she is going to inherit everything they won. Looking at the ruined city, gives Tony pause as he contemplates what Merika’s future might be like.

When back home, Tony follows the unfolding story back in that other country. Ashirov and Yurkovich are going are running a temporary coalition government until they can set up the first democratic election in the region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Tony thinks about all of the death and destruction his inventions have caused in war over the years, yet the loss of one life hurts the most of all, as he mourns the loss of Ayisha.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Black Widow, Ayisha Ashirov

Continuity Notes

1. Tony’s heart was replaced with a mechanical one in Iron Man (vol. 3) #30. The one draw back is that it needs to be recharged on the regular or it will stop working. Putting on his Iron Man armor boosts its battery life.

2. Iron Man’s last suit of armor utilized SKIN, a nanite based liquid metal, was built over the course of Iron Man (vol. 3) #42-45. Ultron compromised the technology in issues #46-48.

3. Tony makes reference to his addiction issues. He is referring to alcoholism, something that was first explored in Iron Man #128.

4. What follows is an “updated” version of Iron Man’s origins, originally told in Tales of Suspense #39. Since History of the Marvel Universe #2, Iron Man’s origins are tied to the fictional Sin Cong Conflict. As such, all other contradicting versions (such as it taking place during in the Vietnam War, or the War in Afghanistan) should be considered topical. This is the first and only time the origin story includes a portion about building suits of battle armor and testing them in the field for the military. See below for more details.

5. Here, Tony Stark ignores the fact that Wong-Chu survived the distraction, was kidnapped by a time traveling Doctor Midas, and then given to the future Wong-Chu. Which was revealed in Iron Man Annual 2000. This was clearly done for narrative pacing as these additional details are not really that important to the core origin story.

6. Tony reminds Radanovich that he is no longer in weapons manufacturing. Stark got out of the weapons game way back in Iron Man #42.

7. Ashriov sarcastically refers to the battle suit as “another marvel from Stark Enterprises”. Technically speaking, Tony’s current company wasn’t the one that made these weapons. He is referring to Stark Industries, the family company that Tony inherited. It changed its name to Stark International in Iron Man #73, was taken over by Stane International in Iron Man #172. Tony then started Stark Enterprises in Iron Man #217. This company bought out Stane International in Iron Man #283. Stark Enterprises was then sold to the Fujikawa corporation in Iron Man #329. Tony started then started Stark Solutions in Iron Man (vol. 3) #1, which went out of business following issue #41. Tony started a new Stark Enterprises in Iron Man (vol. 3) #45. He will get control of his old company back in in issue #56.

8. Ayisha survives as the battle armor keeps her alive and forces her to use mechanical parts to repair her body. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #53.

Topical References

• The fighter jets in this story are depicted as 2000’s model of a Mikoyan MiG fighter plane. This should be considered a topical reference as these jets will be retired eventually as more sophisticated fighter jets are developed.

• Tony Stark recounts an old commercial where John Cameron Swayze strapped a Timex watch to an airplane propeller. These commercials came out in the 1950s. In it, Swayze would show off the durability of Timex watches by putting them through various durability tests. This is an incredibly dated reference that even I had to Google. This is a topical reference because it is increasingly unlikely that someone in their 30s today could remember or know about old Timex commercials from the 1950s.

• One week prior to this story, Tony is throwing a Christmas party. This doesn’t line up with the Sliding Timescale. However, Christmas seldom does. Since the holiday is not integral to the plot, one could assume its depiction here is topical. You could easily substitute any other event or occasion in the place of Christmas and it wouldn’t alter the story.

• The snow globe that Happy gives Pepper reminds her of the famous scene in the film Citizen Kane. This wouldn’t necessarily be considered a topical reference because this is a classic film. It usually sits in the number one spot of the American Film Institute’s best films of all time since they started ranking films.

• Milos Radanovich is stated to have been around during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the Sliding Timescale pushes the Modern Age forward in time, over time this will become increasingly impossible as such this should be considered a topical reference.

• This story reframes Iron Man’s origins, changing it from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs. The United States has always been incredibly militant in trying to prevent illegal drugs from being smuggled into America, but the term “War on Drugs” wasn’t coined until 1971. It’s a forever war that people are slowly realizing is the wrong tactic to deal with addiction issues. It’s wasted trillions of dollars but there are still morons trying to throw money and weapons at the problem. This reference should be considered a topical reference.

• When recounting how the military sent Tony out into the field to see what was wrong with his battle armor, he said he felt like someone from Triple-A. AAA is short for American Automobile Association, an car insurance company. This should be considered topical as this is a real world business.

Reframing Iron Man’s origins

This story is one of the many attempts to modernize Iron Man’s origin story. In this instance, it says that Stark Industries was providing weapons to fight the War on Drugs. This is also the first and only story that states that Tony was building battle armor and testing it in the field. All other versions of the origins deal with Stark developing advanced weapons but they are usually somewhere in the realm of conventional weapons.

If you’re unimaginative and lazy, you’d say that one retelling of the origin retcons the other one. But you’re here instead of a wiki so you’re smarter than that, right?

While the reason why there is a conflict is topical, one could assume that Tony was developing multiple weapons for the military. That way all version of events are true. Events shown in one version happen behind the scenes in versions that don’t depict those events.