In Shining Armor, Part 1

An archeological team is digging around the Celtic Stones of Wales. This is being led by Professor Ellen Mallory and they have made a startling discovery.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark is hard at work with his latest invention. Helping him are Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan. Pepper is still being cold and distant to Happy and when he suggests they got to lunch together, she brushes him off. Tony knows that this is because she lost the baby they were trying to conceive. When Tony asks when she plans on telling Happy about the baby, Pepper says she doesn’t want him to deal with the pain. However, her cold shoulder is putting a edge between the two. Hap meanwhile goes to a bar to drink instead of eating lunch.[1] Pepper tells Tony to mind his busineess, saying he should worry about his now public identity and his relationship with Rumiko Fujikawa and butt out of her business.[2] When Tony asks what Rumiko have to do about this, Pepper says nothing.

That’s when Friday, Tony’s personal AI assistant, tells Tony that he has an important call from Ellen Mallory. Tony isn’t sure what an archeologist might want with him so he takes the call. Mallory has made a fantastic discovery, one of Iron Man’s helmets was buried in the ground. Tony is certain it is some kind of hoax. However, Mallory is certain that it’s real, soil samples and carbon dating have determined that the helmet has been buried under ground since first millennium AD. She insists on coming to show Tony the helmet in person even though he thinks it is a wasted trip.

Once he terminates the call, Tony and Pepper realize that the time machine Tony has been building actually works. Tony then suits up and prepares to use it. Pepper has her reservations, remembering how much time travel fiction are cautionary tales. She worries that something Tony does in the past might adversely affect the future. Tony points out that there are many theories when it comes to time travel. Some say time travel is impossible, others suggest that there is a multiverse of alternate realities where each possible decision could exist. Pepper wonders if they are living in just one possible future and if they have made mistakes along the way. Tony feels that some of those should be changed. Tony sets the time machine to send him back in time to the year 1002 AD. For him, he will be gone for 40 hours, but the recall function will return him what will seem like two seconds.

Pepper is still concerned because this doesn’t give Tony much time before the charge on his mechanical heart runs out. Tony assures her it’ll be fine and thanks her for her concern. As the time machine fires up, Pepper once more reminds Tony of the last time he ended up in this time period. That was via Doctor Doom’s time machine, and he is certain that this time will be just fine.[3]

The trip through time works, but the magnetic fields around the Celtic Stones inverts the polarity of his armor making most of its functions — particularly its weapon systems — non-functional. The moment he arrives, Tony is attacked by a knight on horseback. Knocking the knight out easily, Iron Man steals his horse and goes looking for somewhere he might be able to make repairs to his armor. Spotting a castle in the distance, he hopes that there is a blacksmith with some rudimentary tools that he could use.

Along the way, he runs into more knights who have a woman tied up as a prisoner. Thinking that the knights are evil, Iron Man comes to her rescue. Freeing the woman, Stark is about to fight the knights when suddenly there are swirling mists that knock him out. When Tony wakes up he is in the castle and out of his armor. The woman he rescued, Aislinn, has been nursing him back to health. She explains that the knights captured her because she has the blood of the Earth Mother flowing through her veins, to some she is viewed as a witch and have persecuted her. Tony doesn’t buy into magic, saying that it is used to explain the unexplainable until science can find an answer. He points out that the willow bark broth she made him drink will be the foundation for aspirin. She is more interested in Tony’s armor, figuring that he must be a great blacksmith to create something so sophisticated.

However, Tony isn’t ready to explain how he made it and explains that he needs to get back to the Celtic Stones in the next 30 hours or he’ll be stranded in this era forever. When he tries to leave, Aislinn summons her guards who overpower Tony. They then bring him down to the dungeon to shackle him up. There, Aislinn demands that Tony reveal the secrets of his armor or else he will be put to death. However, Stark insists that trying to explain technology that is thousands of years ahead of this era will be next to impossible. Seeing this as defiance, Aislinn promises that she’ll torture him until he either talks or dies.

Back in the present, Ellen Mallory and her asistant Martin Black arrive at Stark Enterprises and meet with Pepper Potts. Mallory is excited to see Tony Stark because she made a grisly discovery on her flight to New York. Pepper explains that Tony went back in time to the year 1002 AD. This confirms Ellen’s worse fears. She opens the Iron Man helmet she found buried under the Celtic Stones. Inside is a human skull she fears might be the final remains of Tony Stark!

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts, Friday, Ellen Mallory, Aislinn, Martin Black

Continuity Notes

1. Pepper’s pregnancy was difficult to achieve. Tragically, Pepper suffered a miscarriage when she was attack in Iron Man (vol. 3) #54. Pepper has since given up having kids and kept her pregnancy a secret from Happy. This has driven a wedge between the two.

2. Tony and Rumiko Fujikawa began dating shortly after they met in Iron Man (vol. 3) #4. The two broke up in issue #37. They got back together in issue #56, after Tony publicly revealed he was Iron Man the issue before.

3. Iron Man and Doctor Doom previously found themselves briefly stuck in Medival Camelot in Iron Man #149-150.

Topical References

• Pepper asks Tony if he has ever read the works of Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is a renown science fiction author who was active from 1938 until his death in 2012. Bradbury is a celebrated science fiction author. Pepper is likely referring to the short story called A Sound of Thunder, which is a story about hunters from the year 2055 going back and time and killing a tyrannosaurus rex. It is the story where stepping on a butterfly in the past has calamitous effects on the future. This isn’t necessarily a topical reference as this story is now considered foundational to the genre.

• References to the present day portions taking place in the year 2002 should be considered a topical reference as they are relative to the date of publication. The gulf of time between the year 1002 AD and the Modern Age will continue to grow as the Sliding Timescale bumps the Modern Age forward. As such, any measurements of time should be considered topical as well as they will always be in a state of flux.

• Friday says that Tony is about to experience more New Years than Dick Clark. Clark was a notable American radio and TV personality. He was best known for American Bandstand which ran from 1952 to 2002 on both television and radio. He also hosted Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve show from 1972 until his death 2012. As such, this should be considered a topical reference.

• Tony refers to acetylsalicylic acid by its commercial name, Aspirin. This was the trademark name used by the Bayer drug company when it first trademarked their brand of in 1899. It lost it between 1918 and 1921. The term aspirin has since become a proprietary eponym. As such its use here wouldn’t necessarily be considered topical.