Iron Man (vol. 4) #2
Extremis, Part Two of Six
Tony Stark has just received a call from his old friend Maya Hansen asking for help. Dropping everything, Tony arranges for his private jet to fly him out to Texas. On the flight over, he has a teleconference with his senior staff. They want to go over the new StarkPhone and how it’ll dominate the industry.
The Board of Directors also use this opportunity to try and convince Tony to step down as CEO and take on a Chief Technologist. This would allow Tony to spend all his time tinkering while the business side of things to others. Stark refuses because the moment he does, they’ll try to pivot the company back into military contracts again. He points out that they have just designed the most advanced cell phone on the planet, they don’t need military money. However, the Board says that all of their new innovations will need about three years before hitting the market and military contacts are the easiest ways to improve cashflow. They could license out technology but Tony needs to be present to sign off on the contacts, they can’t have him in his Garage for weeks at a time. They tell him that if Tony wants to make the world a better place he can’t do it by themselves. With that, Tony terminates the call.
Soon, Tony Stark arrives at FuturePharm to meet with his old friend Maya Hansen. She tells him how, after stealing her new project, Maya’s partner Aldrich Killan committed suicide in his office. Hansen is deeply upset about discovering his body and needs his help to figure out who Killan gave it to. Tony plus his StarkPhone into the back of Aldrich’s computer and has the entire contents of the hard drive downloaded to one of his programmers to crack. While they are waiting, Tony suggests they go and visit their old mentor Sal Kennedy, his private jet is faster than an Avengers Quinjet, so he could get them there very quickly.
Meanwhile, in Bastrop, Texas, an unmarked van pulls up in front of the local FBI branch.
By this time, Tony and Maya have arrived at Sal Kennedy’s home, and after wondering what news aged thing their mentor is into now rings his doorbell.[1] Sal welcomes them inside and offers to twist up a joint, but they politely decline. He is disappointed but invites them into his sparsely furnished house and a glass of his homemade apple juice. He tells them how he does lecture under a “teaching tree” at Eslan. He laments that this magical thinking is what people do to ignore the fact that the Untied States is now a post-political corporate conglomerate. What people should be doing is facing the future and Kennedy thought that Tony and Maya would be leading the charge. He looks at their accomplishments and calls Maya the Edward Teller and Tony is the Dean Kamen of technology. When Tony contests that he and Maya have done a lot of good with their work. Kenendy compares their accomplishments to Clive Sinclair who revolutionized microcomputers, but will only be remembered for the C5. The epitaphs on their graves may as well read “almost useful”.
These days, Sal basically spends his time using psychedelics to expand his mind. He talks at length about his experimentation with DMT. He says that 60% of people experience the same humiliation. He recalls Terence McKenna’s called the hallucinations “self-transforming machine elves”, bouncing technological artifacts that speak in machine code. While McKenna thought he accessed the after life, Kennedy thinks he really discovered the operating system of the human body. He points out that the human brain was designed to take in and process DMT and thinks that people are supposed to take it to see their own operating systems and hack them. He believes that drugs are technologies, and points out that early humans used magic mushrooms to improve their vision. Concluding that both Tony’s Iron Man armor and Maya’s Extremis do similar things on a technological level.
Finally, Sal asks them why they have come to see him. They want advice on what Maya should do about Extremis. Sal recalls that this was an attempt to create a new Super Soldier formula. Sal remarks that nobody has ever exactly duplicated Abraham Erskine’s design.[2] He thinks that this is because the serum itself was a Hieronymus Machine — just a bunch of junk that somehow works as intended because the inventors intent. He tells them that they are in big trouble. He is able to tell that Tony can’t look at himself in the mirror. Even though he is independently wealthy, intellectual, and has power, it’s not enough. Something has put a dam on his life. He then turns to Maya and says that her gender has put a glass ceiling on her career. If she had all of Tony’s privilege and wealth she could cure cancer. Tony’s problem is that Iron Man will only be as effective until someone finds a way to surpass the technology. Sal says that with Extremis, Maya has done just that.
As Sal is telling all of this, Mallen — a man injected with Extremis — barges into the FBI field office. With his enhanced strength and ability to breath fire he kills everyone inside the building before burning it to the ground.
That’s when Maya’s phone rings, as news about the attack on the FBI field office spreads. Tony pulls out his phone and puts it on the news for details. Maya confirms that this was caused by whoever stole Extremis. Somehow they injected themselves with it and survived and it used the power it gave him to kill everyone at that office. Tony gets onto the phone with his assistant and arranges for her a flight back to Texas, and to have his Iron Man armor shipped there.
Meanwhile, Mallen retreats back to the van that dropped him off. Seeing the fire, one of his allies asks what he just do. Mallen is wearing a sinister smile and tells them that he just started.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Maya Hansen, Sal Kennedy, Mallen
Continuity Notes
Here we get the obligatory reference that Tony is a recovering alcoholic. See Iron Man #128.
Abraham Erskin’s Super Soldier formula famously turned Steve Rogers into Captain America in Captain America Comics #1. While others have been able to create derivatives, they have never been able to perfectly duplicate Erskine’s formula.
Topical References
The new StarkPhone is boasted as having satellite internet access and can download an MP3 in 30 seconds. It can also apparently connect to a computer via wifi, Bluetooth, USB, and Firewire. At the time of this story, cell phones were just starting to be able to connect to the internet, but the technology was very limited. MP3s were also one of the most common audio formats on the internet due to its ability to compress audio files without a loss in quality. This should be considered a topical reference. If you own a smartphone you know why, I shouldn’t have to explain it to you.
While Wifi, USB, and Bluetooth are still a thing, Firewire is not as these types of connections didn’t catch on and fell out of use. Regardless, these tech specs should be considered topical as they all have the potential to become obsolete as new technologies are invented.
Lastly, one of the Stark managers name drops Nokia, an electronics company that was dominating the cell phone game in the early 2000s. They are still around but the market is now dominated by Apple and Google. That said, this should be considered a topical reference as Nokia is a real world brand.
Tony openly explains that his StarkPhone connects to the internet via a satellite. This story was written back in the day when cell phoners were just starting to be able to access the internet. However it was slow and limited. The idea of transmitting the contents of an entire hard drive through a cell phone was considered high tech. If you have a smart phone, you understand why this is a topical reference.
Sal Kennedy is wearing an iPod around his neck. The iPod was a portable digital music player that was at the height of its popularity at the time this comic was published. As people rapidly adopted smart phones — which had the same capabilities — Apple discontinued the iPad in 2022. As such, this should be considered a topical reference.
Edward Teller is considered the father of the hydrogen bomb and Dean Kamen is best known for inventing the Segway scooter. He explains how Clive Sinclair, so I’ll skip him. It could be considered a topical reference as you could probably find a more contemporary analgue for Kamen, maybe Sinclair, but you’d be hard pressed for Teller. I guess the guy who invented the Raytheon Hellfire missile?
The computers in the FBI field office are depicted as having CRT monitors. This should be considered a topical reference as this is an obsolete technology.
Terence McKenna was an ethnobiologist who advocated the responsible use of psychedelics. At the time of this story, he recently died in the year 2000. This wouldn’t necessarily be a topical reference… How many notable ethnobiologist mystics do you know about? Exactly.
Maya’s cell phone is depicted as an analogue phone with a small screen and physical buttons. This should be considered a topical reference, while these styles of phones are available, they have fallen out of popular use and are on their way to obsolescence as smart phone becomes more inexpensive. As such this should be considered a topical reference as it is a technology on its way to obsolescence.
Tony watches CNN on his phone. This should be considered a topical reference as CNN is a real world television channel.
