Freedom Ring Part Three

An evil Tony Stark from an alternate reality is trying to make his escape from SHIELD custody.[1] As he chokes out one agent, Mitch Carson puts a gun to his head. Stark tells him that he would turn the gun on himself if he had any idea what Tony is capable of. When Mitch goes to pull the trigger, Tony twists his Carson’s superior so he takes the bullet to the back of the head. Pushing the dead body off of him, Mitch shoots Tony square in the chest, however the bullet bounces harmlessly off it, revealing metal just under Tony’s skin. Stark gloats about how he'‘s been upgrading his body ever since he first became Iron Man in his home reality. He then grabs Mitch and slams his head into the side of a wall, knocking him out. That’s when he notices the Diamondback LMD in another tank and decides to free her. Confused, as the LMD thinks she is the real Diamondback, tells Tony that she was brainwashed by the Red Skull to betray Captain America and was altered to shift her body into a liquid metal form.[2] Seeing what she can do, Diamondback begins believing that she might not be human after all. Lulling her into a sense of false security, Tony tells her to let him get a good look at her and accesses a control panel on the back of her neck.

Meanwhile, at Saint John’s Memorial Hospital, the friends of Curtis Doyle have arrived after he was taken there following his battle with the Abomination as Freedom Ring. The doctors tell them that things don’t look good as Curtis has chest has suffered internal injuries so severe they have to keep him in a medically induced coma. Everyone but Troy is unaware that Curtis was masquerding as a superhero and they blame Spider-Man for what happened since the wall-crawler was the one who brought Curtis to the hospital.

Back aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, Tony Stark explains how Diamondback is a LMD, a defective model that was programmed to betray Captain America and given to the Red Skull. However, after the truth was discovered, Cap couldn’t bring himsel to allow SHIELD to deactivate her and erase her memory because this LMD was so life like. Unable to believe any of this, Diamondback begins to cry. However, this does little to stop Tony Stark from deactivating and reprogram her. Suddenly, the LMD turns into a cube which makes a neural connection with Stark and begins following his mental commands. Willing the LMD to form a new suit of armor for himself. Tony Stark recounts how in his reality he was at war with a power mad Reed Richards, leader of the Fantastic Four. After he killed the Human Torch, Stark was banished to this backward reality and now in a world he considers insane, he will call himself the Iron Maniac.[3] That’s when an army of SHIELD agents come bursting into the room and order the Iron Maniac to surrender or he will be killed. The Iron Maniac is unphased by these orders, telling he is going to kill every one of them instead, and warns them that if any of them manages to shoot him they will pay dearly for it.

Back at the hospital, Troy manages to get in to see Curtis and even though he is still in a coma tells him everything that happened since he was brought to the hospital. He assures Curtis that his magical ring was in a box of possessions that the hospital collected and that he has it for safe keeping. He also says how the news media didn’t get any footage of him battling the Abomination before Spider-Man saved him. Thankfully, the menace was ended when the X-Men arrived and defeated the gamma-spawned monster in a matter of minutes. That’s when Jeffrey, a server at the diner Curtis and his friends eat at, arrives to see him. He and Curtis were on a date before the attack and he tells Troy how Curtis ran away in fear when the battle started and figures Doyle must have wet the wrong way. The pair then stand silently watching their mutual friend.

While on the helicarrier, the Iron Manica is fighting his way out, slaughtering SHIELD agents as he goes. On the bridge, Maria Hill is with Captain America, Luke Cage, and Spider-Woman when the news gets out.[4] When Captain America offers to help, Maria tells her not to worry as she is confident that her agents will be able to handle this situation. However, the Iron Maniac breaks into the bridge and despite the New Avengers attempts to stop him, the Iron Maniac manages to escape.

At that moment, in Japan, the scientist who have been implanting devices in the regenerating body of Titannus. Hoping they have seized control of the alien, they are relieved when Titannus wakes up and doesn’t remember who he is and where he is.

Recurring Characters

Freedom Ring, Iron Maniac, Diamondback LMD, New Avengers (Captain America, Luke Cage, “Spider-Woman”), SHIELD (Maria Hill, Mitch Carson), Titannus

Continuity Notes

1. This evil version of Tony Stark has been in SHIELD custody following the events of Marvel Team-Up (vol. 3) #2-6. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2, he hales from Reality-5012.

2. The whole story Diamondback LMD is detailed in Captain America (vol. 4) #29-39. (The footnote in this story incorrectly attributes these issues to volume 3 of Captain America)

3. The Iron Maniac details the facts of his exile from Earth-5012 to Earth-616. He mentions the Titannus War that occurred both on his reality and this one (Marvel Team-Up (vol. 3) #11-13), the disbanding of Earh-616’s Avengers (Avengers #500-503)

4. The woman who appears to be Spider-Woman here is actually a Skrull spy as revealed in Secret Invasion #3. The real Spider-Woman was swapped out in Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1.