Execute Program, Part 4

In Marin County, Sal Kennedy starts his morning with a morning beer, no clothes, and the sunrise. However, his idea of a perfect morning comes to an abrupt end when he sees Iron Man cowering in the corner of his porch. Tony just killed annihilated a terrorist camp and needs help. Sal brings Tony inside, gets on some clothes, and cooks breakfast. As he eats, Tony explains how his entire body has been hijacked and used to murder men connected to the death of Ho Yinsen, the man who helped him become Iron Man. Until the recent killings, Tony has had no memory of the times his body has been hijacked. Now he is a fugitive from the law, Tony doesn’t know what to do. When he breaks down in tears, Sal comforts him.

Meanwhile, SHIELD has arrived in London ahead of a world peace conference. Nick Fury reports to Secretary Jack Kooning to inform him that Tony Stark has escaped custody.[1] This is of graved concern because reformed terrorist Karim Mahwash Najeeb — another person responsible for Ho Yinsen’s death — is attending the conference.[2] Kooning authorizes the use of lethal force to stop Iron Man, and tells Fury not to fail him.

At that time, Tony Stark is shaving off his mustache and bleaching his hair in an attempt to disguise himself. He tells Sal about how he was working on Project Argonaut, an army of Iron Man robots that he could control simultaneously to maintain world peace. He now realizes the folly of this, he was seeking to perfect machines instead of looking inward and perfecting himself first. Lending Tony some clothes, Sal takes him down to the bio-engineering building at Berkley University. Since it’s Sunday, the place will be deserted, allowing Sal and Tony unfettered access to the facility. Sal uses the scanners to try and find out if there is something biologically wrong with Tony that’s causing these strange blackouts.

Kennedy is amazed to see how Extremis revamped Tony’s entire body. However, he does notice something out of the ordinary, some kind of foreign mass in Tony’s limbic system. It’s an intricate matrix of nano bio-mechanics. However, it is elegantly constructed compared to the other changes made by Extremis. However, Sal can’t say for sure if this was part of the process or something entirely different, there is only one person who can tell Tony one way or the other.

He is referring to Maya Hansen, who is doing time at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was arrested after it was learned that she allowed Extremis to get into the hands of a homegrown terrorist. Here, she is put to work making plastic flowers that’ll be sold in stores. As she works, another inmate sits down at her table. It turns out that her brother, Robert Montoya, was one of the FBI agents that was murdered by the Extremis enhanced terrorist.[3] She suddenly pulls a shiv and tries to cut Maya up. She manages to cut Maya below the eye but is stopped by Iron Man who has come to bust her out of prison.

When they get back to Berkley, she and Tony argue with one another while Sal stitches up the cut on her face. Maya still thinks that releasing Extremis into the wild was the right thing to do. When Tony continues to argue this, she points out that people are still be killed by Stark made weapons even though he stopped producing them years ago.[4] Sal tells them to shut up because he just turned on the news and they are reporting on the peace summit on London. Security is high, with SHIELD beefing up security and the New Avengers and Fantastic Four being called in to help.[5] The reporters notice that Tony Stark — the person responsible for organizing the summit — hasn’t been seen, leading to much speculation. He put it on to drive home what is at stake if Maya doesn’t help them. This convinces her to put aside her differences and help.

Little do they know that the young man responsible for hacking Tony Stark and killing all these people is heading into the peace conference as a spectator. When he goes through security, he is cleared of carrying any weapons. Collecting his electronic devices, he leaves with a smile on his face.[6]

After running some tests, Maya Hansen determines that the device in Tony’s brain wasn’t put there by Extremis. It was something that was there before Tony was transformed. In fact, there is something very old school about it. Getting a better look via a 3-D scan, Tony also admits that it looks familiar somehow. The device is some kind of receiver that, once given a signal, shuts down Tony’s neocortex and overrides his impulse controls and motor functions. The reason this implant remained when the rest of Tony’s body was transformed is because Extremis needed a healthy brain to direct its enhancile effect.[7] Unfortunately, removing it is not an option as the device buried deep and to try and remove it would surely kill Tony in the process. Getting fed up with what they can’t do, Tony starts thinking of ways to track the signal of the person hijacking his body. When Maya tries to help, Sal tells her to hush and watch a master at work.

As Tony thinks of the different ways someone could send the signal, Tony sends his mind out into computer networks to try and narrows down the path the signals are coming from. However, as he narrows it down and tracks it back to the source, the Sentry arrives and blows the roof off the top of the bio-med building. Tony quickly changes into Iron Man and tries to flee the scene. While Iron Man is fast, the Sentry is faster and smashes him into the ground. The Sentry then reports back to Nick Fury that the target has been neutralized.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Sal Kennedy, Maya Hansen, Sentry, Jack Cooning, SHIELD (“Nick Fury”, Dum Dum Dugan), She-Hulk, New Avengers (Captain America, Spider-Man, “Spider-Woman”, Wolverine), Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, Human Torch)

Continuity Notes

1. This is not the real Nick Fury. The real Fury has gone AWOL following Secret War #1-5, when it was revealed that Fury was involved in an unsanctioned invasion of Latveria. As explained in New Avengers #1, SHIELD has been using a Fury Life Model Decoy to hide the fact that he has gone rogue. While everyone believes he fled to escape punishment, in reality, he uncovered a Skrull invasion plot and is working to thwart it, as will be explained in Mighty Avengers #12.

2. This is base around a recent attempt to modernize Iron Man’s origins from the original account told Tales of Suspense #39. There are conflicts with pre-established continuity that, time of this writing (April, 2023) still need to be clarified. I’ve covered theories in my summaries for issues #5, 8, and 9.

3. For more on Tony being transformed by Extremis, Maya Hansen’s creation of the process, and the terrorist that used it to slaughter an FBI field office, see Iron Man (vol. 4) #1-6.

4. Stark Industries produced weapons until Tony decided that his company would cease doing so way back in Iron Man #42.

5. The identity of the young man, his killer, and the purpose of this hitlist is all explained in Iron Man (vol. 4) #11. The young man claims to be the son of Ho Yinsen and he is using Iron Man to murder the people involved in the capture and death of his father. As of this writing (April, 2023), the name of Yinsen’s son has yet to be revealed.

6. The writer really did their homework here. This would explain why a device implanted by Ho Yinsen would still be around when Tony no longer has the mechanical heart he had been stuck with in Iron Man (vol. 3) #30.

7. The woman who appears to be Spider-Woman is actually a Skrull spy named Veranke. She took Jessica Drew’s place as part of a Skrull invasion of Earth in Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1. This will all be revealed in New Avengers #40/Secret Invasion #1-8.

Topical References

• Sal Kennedy recalls how he led a protest at Berkeley University back in 1968 that led to a fire at the administrations building. The year this even happened should be considered topical as it is relevant to the date of publication and would unintentionally age Sal as the Sliding Timescale pushes the Modern Age forward in time. Modern readers should take this to mean that Sal attended university 38 years prior to the main story.

• Tony is forced to wear one of Sal’s Grateful Dead t-shirt while trying to disguise his identity. This could be considered a topical reference. However, Sal is viewed as a hippie and you could assume he was into classic rock.

• The news network covering the peace summit is depicted as CNN. This should be considered a topical reference as this is a real world TV network.

• The TVs in this story are depicted as CRT model televisions. This should be considered topical as this is now an obsolete technology.

• The Son of Yinsen is depicted as having a palm pilot. These were hand held computers that could connect to the internet. They were quite popular in the business world before the advent of smart phones. While palm pilots are still around they have fallen out of popular use because of smart phones and are on their way to obsolescence. As such, its appearance here should be considered topical.

• When talking about remote connections, he sarcastically quotes “Can you hear me now?” He is referring to an advertising campaign by Vorizen Mobile. It featured a nerdy guy (played by former spokesperson Paul Maracelli) would test the connectivity of a Vorizen phone by walking all over the place asking the person on the other end of the line if he could still be heard. This add came out at a time when cell phone signals were weak and it was quite easy to get a weak signal or experiencing a dropped call. These adds took place from 2002 to 2011. As such, it should be considered a topical reference.