History
As a saboteur against the forces of Apocalypse, Tony Stark fell victim to one of his own weapons and suffered a serious wound to his heart. With his mechanical expertise he managed to construct a mechanical heart to replace his injured biological one.[1] Following Apocalypse's takeover of North America, Stark fled to Europe and became associated with the Human High Council, the government body that ruled over the remaining human population in Europe and Asia, likely providing his technological expertise to their cause.
The human population grew into a frenzy due to the manipulations of Mikhail Rasputin, one of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen, who relocated to Europe to try and sow the seeds of dissent among the human population in order to overthrow the government and make them his willing guinea pigs for cybernetic augmentation.[1]
Stark was dispatched to the nation of Wakanda to collect Donald Blake, who was in the region providing relief for the people in the famine-ravaged region. When Blake and his assistant Gwen Stacey were attacked by the Marauders, a group of wealthy cyborgs, Stark arrived in a ship and he and his pilot Clint Barton killed them. Despite Stacy's lack of trust in Stark, he convinced both her and Blake to accompany him back to London.[2]
Stark took them to join Eurasian security chief Victor von Doom, scientist Bruce Banner and soldiers Sue Storm and Ben Grimm aboard Mikhail's ship, where the "Lost Horseman" addressed the public with a speech about unity. Taking the group into a private location, he informed them that this was all a ploy to exterminate the human race and showed them Empath, his slave that he was using to manipulate the people's emotions below before taking them all prisoner.[2]
Tony was selected as Mikhail's next subject for cybernetic augmentation. The Horseman thought of Stark as an ideal candidate because of his mechanical heart. However, he did not account for the fact that Stark had rigged a needle device that was programmed to pierce into his mechanical heart, causing an electrical surge to blow the power aboard Mikhail's ship. This would have come at the expense of Stark's life as he would have gone into cardiac arrest, however he was rescued by the now-free Donald Blake who injected his heart with adrenaline, reactivating it and saving his life.[1]
After arming themselves from Mikhail's ammo dump, Tony and Gwen traveled to the control room of his ship and took command of it. They were attacked by Banner, who had reverted to his Thing form — a hulking monster loyal to Mikhail — but Gwen kept the monster busy while Stark hacked into the computer databases to learn a horrifying truth: that Apocalypse had activated his sea-wall defense grid and it was sending nuclear weapons across the ocean that would decimate the Eurasian continent. Stark managed to convince the Thing to revert back into Banner and help them stop the advancing sea wall but to no avail. They all attempted to escape in a ships headed for space.[1]
Detecting that humans were escaping the sea-wall attack, nuclear weapons were launched at the shuttles escaping the holocaust. Tony, piloting the main ship, ordered Sue to send the other ships to destroy the fleet of missiles aimed at them. They succeeded with no serious damage, however one last missile was launched against them: A gamma bomb made out of Adamantium. This missile was ultimately destroyed by Banner, who turned into his Thing form and destroy it in an act of atonement for betraying humanity to Apocalypse.[3]
The fate of Stark and the others following this sacrifice, the death of Apocalypse, and the X-Men's rebuilding of civilization remain unrevealed.