Extremis, Part Six of Six

A homegrown terrorist named Mallen has injected himself with Extremis, granding him superhuman powers. He has made his way to Washington, DC to take down the government as he blames them for the death of his parents. Iron Man (Tony Stark) tries to stop him before, but got the shit beat out of him. Tony has now injected himself with Extremis as well, creating a perfect synthesis between himself and his Iron Man armor.

Uplinking with satellites, Iron Man is able to pinpoint Mallen’s location and orders a complete evacuation of the area. Iron Man attacks from the air, blasting Mallen into the ground. He then orders him to surrender or else Stark will be forced to kill him.

Mallen refuses and a fight breaks out between the two. Iron Man explains how he had to take down Mallen himself. This is because he made his first suit of armor he killed fifty people to try and free himself and his friend. Despite his efforts, his friend still died.[1] Mallen says his parents died the same way. However, Tony points out that Mallen killed fifty people he never met before, twenty years later. Stark says that Mallen is a nightmare version of himself, one that couldn’t see the future. Some pissed off redneck who never thought about how these tools could be used to help people.

When Mallen tries to fire a bolt of electricity, Iron Man manages to evade out of the way. Sneaking up behind Mallen in a fraction of a second, Iron Man tells him that he’s been upgraded since the last time they fought. Tony still doesn’t want to take a life and gives Mallen once last chance to surrender. Mallen refuses and when he charges at Iron Man again, Tony rips an underground electrical wire and shoves it into Mallen’s chest. The jolt is so powerful that it sends the terrorist flying through a building and crash landing onto a construction site.

There, Mallen refuses to stop fighting and eventually he gets Iron Man on the ground and begins trying to choke the life out of him. When Mallen says there is no future because he plans on killing it, Tony realizes that there is no getting through to him. Activating the uni-beam on his chest, Iron Man blasts a hole through Mallen’s torso. Then, to finish him off, vaporizes his head with his repulsor rays. Iron Man is so angry that he was forced to take Mallen’s life he kicks his dead body around to vent his frustration. Now he has one last thing to do, something he likes even less.

Soon, Iron Man arrives at FuturePharm with some soldiers. He has come to arrest Maya Hansen, who created Extremis. This is because Tony remembered that the only way anyone could have stolen Extremis would have needed to use both Maya and her now deceased assistants keycard at the exact same time. Since Aldrich Killian couldn’t have opened the door, Maya must have helped him. He also know why Maya did it too: The military had cut funding to Extremis. She decided to renew interest in it by giving an unauthorized demonstration.

Maya tries to justify herself by comparing Extremis to the atomic bomb. She said it had to be used once in anger to show that it should never be used again. If her plan succeeded she would have gotten her funding back and could have moved on to using Extremis for medical applications instead. As Maya is being taken away she says that the only mistake she made was giving a damn about who was in the Iron Man armor. However, she says there is no difference between the two of them.

Tony thinks about this for a minute and tells her that while they are no different, he’s trying to change that. At least he’ll be able to look at himself in the mirror in the morning.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Maya Hansen, Mallen, Aldrich Killian

Continuity Notes

1. Tony is referring to Ho Yinsen, who sacrificed his life to buy Iron Man time to charge his armor. See Tales of Suspense #39.