Manhunt, Part 1

Tony Stark leaves the office to see the media circus outside is still out in full force. He heads back to his apartment with his girlfriend Rumiko Fujikawa for a romantic evening alone. However, Tony can’t get his mind off the troubles that Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan have been having recently. Particularly since Hap has taken to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Ru reminds Tony that he can’t do anything to help someone who doesn’t want it. Stark knows all too well, but hates feeling helpless. Seeing that her lover needs time to himself to think, Rumiko decides to leave, telling him to call her once he has it all figured out.[1]

Meanwhile, an unmarked transport van goes into a paid parking garage in Washington, DC. Going up to the top floor, the driver opens the back of the van. Inside is a powerful energy cannon. The weapon powers up and fires at the Chinese Embassy. The force of the blast causes the entire building to collapse.

When Tony Stark catches this on the news, he changes into Iron Man and races to the scene to help emergency crews. Iron Man’s assistance is welcomes as they have already 138 dead, and 62 injured people recovered so far. While they have pinpointed the origin of the blast, they have no idea who is responsible for and why. Not wanting to create a panic, FBI agent in charge of the investigation isn’t forthcoming when the media inquires about the cause of the blast. He is keeping the fact that this is was a deliberate attack under wraps for now in order to prevent a panic. Unfortunately, his control on the situation is soon about to be torn wide open when Iron Man discovers that some of the victims were children that were attending daycare in the embassy’s basement.

A few hours later, Iron Man confronts Nick Fury on a SHIELD testing track. Tony reminds Fury about how he built a particle beam torpedo weapon. Fury remembers how it didn’t get funded because it wasn’t cost effective. Tony wants to know how the designs ended up in the hands of the terrorists that blew up the Chinese embassy.[2] Fury says that that’s what Congress is going to want to know from Tony when they drag him into a hearing and figures that Tony Stark is going to have his name dragged through the mud until they find a better suspect.

Nick Fury’s prediction is right on the money, within days the media which was friendly to him earlier was now asking him troubling questions about his possible connection to this terrorist attack. Tony tries to maintain his composure in front of the cameras but it is stressful, and he begins wishing he could have a drink.[3] Pepper Potts wishes that the media had something better to do than pester her boss. When Tony decides to start looking into who might be framing him for this attack, Pepper wants to help. He starts by getting Friday — his personal AI — to start find any data breaches that could allow the torpedo designs to get leaked.

When he asks Pepper to get Happy, she tells Tony that Hap isn’t back “from lunch” yet. Tony knows this mean that Happy is out drinking, again. Tony knows that Happy is drinking because Pepper has been distant with him ever since she lost their baby. He tells her that she needs to tell Happy. However, can’t tell him that he’ll never be a father as long as he’s with her.[4] She thought that a baby might fix their romance, but now she knows that there is nothing that will fix the problems between the two of them. When Tony asks what those problems are, Pepper tells them that they are between her and Hap.

Tony doesn’t want to let it go, so he heads down to the Irish pub where Happy has been drinking his life away. Happy is already drunk, and Tony tries to convince him to leave the bar, saying he is needed back at the office — sober. Hap takes offense to this, saying that unlike Tony he knows his limits and can stop drinking when he wants to stop drinking. Happy knows that there is something that Pepper isn’t telling them. However, he has misunderstood the knowing looks at that Tony and Pepper have been exchanging. He thinks is this is because the two are attracted to each other. He tells them to just get a hotel room and get it out of their system, they have his blessings.

This angers Tony because Happy is being so obtuse. Pepper is genuinely hurting because because of what has happened and it’s all his fault. That makes Tony think of all the dead children in the daycare center and stops just short of picking up a glass of scotch and drinking it. Tony tells Hap that he’s not going to talk about things in a bar. He drags Happy outside, unaware that there is a sniper on a nearby rooftop trying to get Tony in their sights. It’s here that Tony tells Happy about how Pepper was pregnant and lost her baby when she was attacked by Ayisha. Happy is furious that Tony knew the truth and kept it from him this entire time. He then punches Tony in the face, knocking him to the ground.

That’s when the sniper takes their shot, missing Tony entirely and hitting Happy in the chest. As Tony rushes to Happy’s aid, the sniper prepares to take another shot.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Rumiko Fujikawa, Neil Streitch, SHIELD (Nick Fury), Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Friday

Continuity Notes

1. Pepper and Happy had been trying to have a child together with great difficulty. When Pepper finally got pregnant, her baby was killed when she was attacked by one of Iron Man’s enemies in Iron Man (vol. 3) #54. She hadn’t told Happy that she was pregnant and wanted to keep a secret after losing the baby. This has driven a wedge between Hap and Pep ever since. Hogan took to drinking to cope in Iron Man (vol. 3) #59.

2. Tony states that he developed the particle beam torpedo seven years earlier. Stark got out of the munition game in Iron Man #42. Per the Sliding Timescale, that was about eight years prior to this story. One could assume that Tony was being imprecise.

3. This is a troubling statement for Tony to make because he has a long history of alcoholism. This was first explored in Iron Man #128.

4. It’s odd that Pepper states that she and Happy are married. Per Iron Man (vol. 3) #4, they have been divorced for some time now. They have been giving their relationship another shot since Iron Man (vol. 3) #25.

Topical References

• One of the reporters asks if Tony Stark has considered running for President in the 2004 election. This is a topical reference for the obvious reasons.

• After seeing Tony being swarmed by reporters Rumiko quips that she hasn’t been on this many front pages since she stopped seeing “Puffy”. She is referring to rapper Sean Combs who has come by the names Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy, and will probably go by other variations of this same stupid nickname. This comic was published at the height of his popularity. This should be considered a topical reference as you could replace Puffy with a more contemporary example.

• The security guard working at the parking structure in Washington is watching a Orioles game on a CRT television that uses an antenna to pick up signals. This should be considered topical as the Orioles are a real world baseball team, and this type of television is now considered obsolete.

• There is a Truth advertisement in the parking garage in this story. Truth is a real world anti-smoking campaign. In the 2000s, Truth purchased full page advisements in comic books. Truth is still around, and have pivoted to detouring children from vaping, which has surpassed cigarettes as the most common nicotine delivery system. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world organization.

• Nick Fury calls Tony Stark “Mr. People’s Magazine Sexiest Man Of the Year”. People Magazine is a celebrity news and human interest publication. Since 1985, the magazine has named the “sexiest man alive” each year. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world publication.

• During the montage of newspaper headlines surrounding the terrorist attack. We see a number of real world publications such as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Tony also mentions news network CNN. These are more topical references as these are all real world publications or TV stations.