The Deep End, Part 3: Baptism of Fire

Halabja, Iraq - 15 Years Ago

Leyla had gone to Bagdad to pursue her interest in science. However, due to the political situation in the region at the time, she had to send letters written in lemon juice back home in secret. Her parents are proud of their daughter, who reports back that she is doing well in school. She also writes to say that she has fallen in love with one of her fellow students and they are planning on getting married.

This happy news is interrupted when Leyla’s parents hear helicopters approaching. Rushing to the window to see, Leyla’s father witnesses as their own military blows up the entire neighborhood.

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq - 12 Years Ago

Leyla’s husband is visiting his sister Esme, with their two children. They are celebrating because the region has been liberated from an oppressive regime by the United States. Due to the fact that she was educated in Bagdad, Lelya had to work in the chemical weapons division of the regime. It was during this time she earned the codename Vitriol. However, now that their land has been liberated, Lelya will finally be able to come home.

That’s when history repeats itself, Leyla’s husband hears the approach of choppers. They belong to the local military and they have come to bomb the entire neighborhood.

Minas de Riotinto, Spain - 11 Years Ago

Losing her parents, her husband, and her children, and forced to flee Iraq, Leyla ended up in Spain. Unable to live without those she loved the most she decides to end her own life. Learning that the Rio Tinto river is highly acidic due to run off from the local mines, she decides to wade into the water. However, Leyla didn’t die, instead she was transformed…

Now

Transformed into a being of highly volatile acid, Leyla now believes that she is the reincarnation of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war. When Iron Man and a team of soldiers came looking for their missing comrades, they were lured here by Leyla in her human form. She is able to blast Iron Man with her metal eating acids, trapping Iron Man in his already incapacitated armor. Tony takes the brunt of this attack to give the soldiers under his command a chance to retreat back to their Stark All-Terrain Vehicle. Unfortunately, Layla has an army of loyal followers and they were busy spraying their SATV with supplies of her acid. They are force to surrender. Leyla orders them to recall their followers from the field, as she expects more will come searching for Tony Stark and they will need to prepare a warm welcome for them.

In the village of al Hadr, five miles away, not everyone believes Leyla is the reincarnation of Ishtar. However, she suits the goals of the insurgency in the region. When two American helicopters try to pass over, they spray them down with their metal eating acid, causing them to crash. The soldiers who survive run to cover and radio for help. The threat they are facing requires help from someone with a similar skill set to Iron Man. However, the person they need refuses to come out, prompting the soldiers to demand that they get him out by any means possible.

Back at the temple, Iron Man wakes up to find himself a shackled to a wall as a prisoner. Just like anyone else in the world, she knows that Iron Man is Tony Stark, the current Secretary of Defense.[1] Since she knows all about him, Tony asks who she was before she became Ishtar. Leyla reveals that she was part of a religious minority in the region that was persecuted by a previous regime. Hiding her ethnic background she went to school in the city and was tapped by the previous dictator to make the very chemical weapons used against her people. However, she also blames the Americans for their constant interference in the Middle East for claiming the lives of her entire family. Tony realizes that Leyla was the chemical weapons inventor known as Vitriol. He tries to explain that the United States did the best they could at the time and how they are trying to make things better now. Leyla, however, points out that they have done little to help the persecuted religious minorities in the region.She tells him how Ishtar ruled over the Assyrian Empire for centuries. She plans on doing the same by driving the Americans and Iraqis out of the region.

It’s then that one of Leyla’s followers enters the room and informs her that the tankers are all full. Having mostly dissolved Iron Man’s armor, “Ishtar” has Tony Stark tossed in the room where they are keeping the other American soldiers prisoner. With them is the missing archeologist they came looking for, Rob Schweiger. Leyla has kept Rob alive so he can translate the writing in the ancient ruins as she is unable to do so. He was also able to get a close look at how Lelya produces her acidic spray. It’s almost like a second skin, leading Tony to conclude that she has some kind of symbiote attached to her body. He recalls how they found a similar bacteria living in a polluted river. They all then start trying to figure out how this ties in to the tankers filled with the acid. Tony Stark suddenly puts it all together and realizes that Vitriol and her followers are going to dump massive amounts of the chemical into the water supply and wipe out everyone in Iraq.

Needing to stop Leyla and her followers, they use Iron Man’s helmet to knock out their guard. However, when they try to escape they are surrounded by guards. Seconds later, they are blasted by a man who arrives in a suit of armor. Opening his helmet, Tony recognizes the man as Carl Walker, aka Force. Carl is glad Tony Stark remembers him and punches Tony in the face. Force then announces that Tony’s rescue has just been cancelled.[2]

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Force, Vitriol/”Ishtar”

Continuity Notes

1. For the whole story on how Tony Stark became Secretary of Defense, see Iron Man (vol. 3) #73-78.

2. Force was previously known as Clayton Wilson. Following the events of Iron Man #222-224, Tony helped Clayton get out of a life of crime and the wrath of Justin Hammer by setting him up with a new identity and a job. Tony last interacted with him with “Carl Walker” back in Iron Man #300.

Topical References

• This story was written during the early days of the War on Terror and the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that were in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As such, a lot of the attitudes and depictions of the United States government are influenced by this particular point in time. While these themes are merely implied, they should be considered topical.

• That said, the story is rooted as taking place in and around Iraq. This fact cannot be changed without altering the story. Modern readers should interpret this story as taking place in Iraq, although not during the conflict that took place between 2003 and 2011. One could assume that this is a conflict unique to the fiction, much in the same way that Marvel has created the Sin-Cong Conflict to stand in for Modern Age stories that were written during and featuring the Vietnam War.

• Leyla/Vitriol/Ishtar’s backstory is depicted as taking place in the late 80s, early 90s, during the Gulf War. Last issue we heard characters who had been investigating Vitrol in the past. As they are Modern Age characters who don’t appear to have extended lifespans, then by association Leyla must also be a similar character. As such all references to her past taking place during a specific period and the real world conflicts should all be considered topical references. Modern readers should interpret this to be a conflict that took place in the Middle East that is unique to the fiction. Leyla’s backstory happened 15 and 11 years prior to the main story instead of a specific year.

• When fleeing from Leyla, one of the soldiers quips that she has named herself after a terrible movie, his comrade says that it was probably because “Gigli” was already taken. Ishtar is terrible adventure comedy that was made in 1988, it was a commercial bomb. Gigli was a 2003 romantic comedy that (time of this writing in 2023) is still considered the most expensive box office bomb of all time. This joke should be considered topical.

• When Force refuses to come out in the field, the soldier pinned behind enemy lines demands that they "stuff his butt in a FedEx” box if need be. This should be considered a topical reference as FedEx is a real world company.

• When Rob explains how he figured out that Lelya wasn’t the goddess Ishtar one of the soldiers sarcastically compares him to Columbo. Columbo was the title character of a popular detective series that ran on TV in one form or another from 1968 to 2003. Columbo eventually became used as shorthand to refer to someone as a good detective, much like the use of the name Sherlock. As the phrase has entered common use, it wouldn’t necessarily be considered topical.