I Am Iron Man Vol 1 5

I Am Iron Man #5
Previous Issue	I Am Iron Man #4
Next Issue	—
Art by: Dotun Akande
Alternate Covers
1 - Textless
Art by: Dotun Akande
Release Date	July 26, 2023
Cover Date	September, 2023
Issue Details
Editor-in-Chief	C.B. Cebulski
Rating	T+ (13 and up)
Original Price	$3.99
Pages	32

1. "Chapter Five: The Real Iron Man"
Appearances · Synopsis
Writer(s)	Murewa Ayodele
Penciler(s)	Dotun Akande
Inker(s)	Dotun Akande
Colorist(s)	Dotun Akande
Letterer(s)	Joe Caramagna
Editor(s)	Tom Brevoort

 I am Tony Stark. I Am Iron Man. I'm also an Avenger, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Guardian of the Galaxy and the list goes on. I'm constantly exposed to dangerous situations. Probability dictates I'm destined to have my butt handed to me occasionally. And when you're a lowly mortal human who wrestles with gods and Titans, that means you die...a lot. When that happens, I have a consciousness-backup system that swiftly uploads my consciousness and memories into a clone. More times that you would imagine, there is a glitch, or I survive what should have killed me, and the world is left with multiple Tony Starks. In normal circumstances, the world just became a better place. But I have a direct line to the President, I'm respected by the U.N., I am one of the few individuals with the highest S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance and I have access to the most dangerous weapons known to humanity. Multiple Tony Starks are a security hazard waiting to happen when there are shape-shifters, among many other threats, out there who can take advantage of the situation. So when a Tony Stark discovers the glitch, he must hunt down and terminate all other Tony Starks. 

—Iron Man

Appearing in "Chapter Five: The Real Iron Man"

Featured Characters:

• Iron Man (Tony Stark backup clone) (First appearance; dies) (Main story and flashback)

Supporting Characters:

• George (First appearance) (Only in flashback)
• Deola (Main story and flashback)
• S.H.I.E.L.D. (Main story and flashback)
  • Director Maria Hill (Main story and flashback)
  • She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters) (Main story and flashback)
  • Unnamed agents (Only in flashback)

Antagonists:

• Gargantus II (First appearance; dies)
• Unnamed alien masters of Gargantus II (Apparent death)

Other Characters:

• K.A.T.I.E. (Voice only)
• Spider-Ham (Peter Porker) (Drawing) (Only in flashback)
• Avengers (Mentioned) (Only in flashback)
• Spider-Man (Peter Parker) (Mentioned) (Only in flashback)
• Magneto (Erik Lensherr / Max Eisenhardt) (Referenced) (Only in flashback)
• Tony Stark (Mentioned)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Mentioned)
• United Nations (Mentioned)
• Unnamed aliens of the Draco Galaxy (First appearance; die) (Only in flashback)
• S.H.I.E.L.D. (Only in flashback)
  • Director Nick Fury (Only in flashback)
  • Unnamed agents (Only in flashback)
• Thanos (Mentioned)
• Spider-Man (Miles Morales) (Mentioned)
• Gargantus I (Only on screen as a static image or video record)

Races and Species:

• Humans (Main story and flashback)
• Riigha
• Polar Bears (Only in flashback)
• Mutants (Mentioned)
• Unidentified alien species (Main story and flashback)
• Titans (Mentioned) (Only in flashback)
• Cotati (Mentioned)

Locations:

• Milky Way Galaxy
  • Sol System
    • Earth
      • Sudan
      • United States of America (Only in flashback)
        • The Cube (Only in flashback)
      • Earth Orbit
• Draco Galaxy (Only in flashback)

Items:

• Iron Man Armor (Main story and flashback)
  • Iron Man Armor Model 70 (Main story and flashback)
  • Iron Man Armor (Space Armor) (First appearance; destruction) (Main story and flashback)
  • Iron Man Armor Model 51 (Only in flashback)
• Deola's Armor (First appearance)

Vehicles:

• S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier

Synopsis for "Chapter Five: The Real Iron Man"

As an unconscious Iron Man plummets down the airspace of Sudan, surrounded by falling pieces of a bigger armor, his AI K.A.T.I.E. urges him to wake up, alerting him that his consciousness-backup system is offline. She revives him with his armor's defibrillator just before he hits the earth, but a humanoid monster punches him into the ground. It taunts Stark as it pummels him, until Tony disintegrates its arm with his unibeam.

Three months earlier, Tony was visiting the Cube. When he is perplexed by saluting inmates, the talking polar bear warden named George praises Tony for advocating for humane reforms on the prison, getting rid of power-dampening collars or sedatives. However, Tony has no recollection of this. They reach the plastic cell of the technopath delinquent Deola, and Iron Man bickers with her as he offers to put her mechanic skills at work. While they leave, Tony teases Deola as his armor's countermeasures stop her attempts to control it with her powers. Exiting the facility, Tony faces a S.H.I.E.L.D. ambush led by Maria Hill and She-Hulk. Stark fends off the attacks, and George tries to fight She-Hulk without success. On Tony's orders, Deola uses her powers to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D.'s helicopters and use their metal to restrain its operatives. Another Iron Man, wearing the Model-Prime Armor, torpedoes toward Tony, but suddenly crashes under his feet.

Stark reveals that he expected him since he was unaware of the Cube's reforms. He reveals that he created a field of data packets around himself, that the other Iron Man unwittingly downloaded into his armor until they reassembled into a virus that shut down his life support systems. Deola is concerned, and confused, that the Iron Man she is helping just mentioned killing Tony Stark. He clarifies that he is indeed Tony Stark; due to the constant dangers in his life, he employs a consciouscness-backup system that uploads his consciousness and memories into a clone in case of death. Whether due to a glitch of a false positive, superfluous Tony Starks might surface. Since multiple Tony Starks represent a security hazard due to his influence and knowledge, when a Tony Stark finds out a glitch, he must hunt down and terminate all other Tony Starks. Iron Man's armor finishes synchronizing his memories with that of the dead clone as Tony assures Deola that he is the real Tony Stark because he is the one that has won.

Three months later, Iron Man and Deola don bulky space armor as they are deployed on Earth's orbit, fueling a satellite cannon with a tank filled with disembodied alien heads. Amid their banter, Tony explains that they are cloned from a species that releases a destructive bellow when they experience grief. They are soaked in a liquid that estimulates their biosynthetic brain, making them experience harrowing anguish when the cannon's trigger is pulled. Via comms, Hill warns Tony of an incoming bogey, the same alien that is now battering Tony in Sudan. Back in orbit, Deola alerts Hill that she can sense a spaceship cloaked nearby. Inside, three aliens monitor the deployment of their warrior in its mission to kill Iron Man. The creature is an enhanced version of Gargantus.

On the ground, the enhanced Gargantus tears Tony's arc reactor off his armor. Deola slams metallic projectiles into him, and repairs Tony's suit with a spare. Gargantus regrows his arm as both he and Iron Man square up. Stark notices his torso is impenetrable, likely shielding its weak spot. The monster attacks, and Tony suppresses his armor's magnetic defenses so Deola can merge her armor with his. She retains protection with a slimmer Iron Man-esque suit underneath. Tony overpowers Gargantus and creates an opening in his torso. Deola squishes something inside it, and Gargantus begins to detonate. Stark shoves Deola out of the way and gets caught in the blast, but not before admitting that he still doesn't recall reforming the Cube, which means there is still another Tony Stark out there. In a fit of rage, Deola uses her powers on the satellite cannon to destroy the alien ship. Maria Hill and She-Hulk descend behind Deola as kneels in front of Tony's broken and empty helmet.

Solicit Synopsis

• An old, forgotten (SILVER AGE) foe returns. They crave the destruction of IRON MAN and the subjugation of EARTH. To defeat them, IRON MAN seeks out help from an unusual place – a superhuman prison.

• Follow IRON MAN on his quest to protect EARTH as he builds a planet-protector cannon, trades brutal blows with SHE-HULK and makes a new friend along the way.

• This episode is set in the current era of Iron Man, is the grand finale and is a love letter to Iron Man fans.

Notes

• Deola is a technopath who debuted in writer Murewa Ayodele and artist Dotun Akande's first work for Marvel, the story "So White. Yet, So Dark." in the anthology comic Moon Knight: Black, White & Blood #1. The story guest-stars Spider-Man, who the Cube's warden, George, mentions Deola almost killed.
• As he is arguing with Deola over prison food, Iron Man points out that he has never been to prison. However, Tony Stark has been imprisoned by the International Criminal Court in Iron Man vs. Whiplash #2 and by the Mandarin in Invincible Iron Man #521–524.
• Deola mentions that Tony has imprisoned some super heroes himself. She is alluding to Civil War, during which Iron Man and the pro-Superhuman Registration Act forces used Prison 42 as a holding cell for rogue super heroes.
• When Deola inquires Iron Man about his countermeasures against her powers, he sardonically replies that it's transistors. In the early days of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense, transistors were the cliche technobabble term to explain the abilities of Iron Man's armor. Iron Man subsequently makes a reference to Magneto, citing "Omega-Level Mutants who can control metal in their sleep" as a reason for having countermeasures against magnetic powers.
• Ayodele has clarified that intent of this issue's ending is to hint that the "last-man-standing" Tony Stark who reformed the Cube is the one featured in Gerry Duggan's Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5).

Trivia

• One of the Tony Starks in this issue's cover is wearing a wedding ring, repeating the same subtle design element present in the future Tony Stark from I Am Iron Man #1.
• A scrapped cover for this issue depicted a group of Iron Man suits surrounding the corpse of Tony Stark, with the body and the two armor holding him recreating Louis-Ernest Barrias' sculpture of The First Funeral. This cover was meant to reflect the fact that a Tony Stark dies at the end of this miniseries.
• Despite this comic being the finale of I Am Iron Man, this issue's script was the first that Murewa Ayodele wrote.
• Ahead of this issue's release, Ayodele posted a "bingo card" in social media, teasing the involvement of the Model-Prime Armor, a polar bear, the original Gargantus, and a fight between Iron Man and She-Hulk, and prompting readers to guess which three of the four options were going to happen. They all did, as they corresponded to the other backup clone that Iron Man takes down (which is wearing the Model-Prime Armor), the Cube's warden George (who is a humanoid polar bear), the enhanced Gargantus (being the successor original Gargantus), and She-Hulk's involvement in the S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team that attacks Iron Man, respectively.
• According to Murewa Ayodele, the theme of this issue is second chances:
  • It illustrates Iron Man's habit of giving criminals second chances, with Deola as a case in point (this issue also being her second ever apppearance).
  • The issue's enemy, is the second incarncation of Gargantus, who was Iron Man's second ever villain in publication history.
  • Iron Man gives himself second chances via his backup-consciousness system.
  • Sick kids are occassionally given second chances by Tony Stark, as he uses his technology to provide biosyntethic organs.
  • A prison being one of the primary settings of the issue is also an echo of this theme, with the Cube being the second iteration of the prison.
• Ayodele's goal for this issue was to see artist Dotun Akande "illustrate sci-fi stuff," and for both to rely on some of their shared computer science background.
• As George switches his belt for a tie to enter Deola's cell with no metal, his pants briefly slip down, revealing Spider-Ham-themed underwear.
• Ayodele was once kicked out of a WhatsApp group because he disagreed in an argument that DC's Cyborg would beat Iron Man in a theoretical fight. He wrote I Am Iron Man "to give Iron Man fans ([himself] included) [canon] stories to defend themselves against Iron Man haters." One such example being this issue explicitly portraying Iron Man's armor as proofed against technopathy, this ability being one of Cyborg's trademark powers.
• When the story shifts to Iron Man and Deola refueling the space cannon, it transitions to the middle of a conversation, in which Tony grumbles about Deola making a "'head' joke" when he asks her to "give [him]" the fuel capsules. The implication being that Deola is joking about "giving head."
• Before exploding, Gargantus briefly speaks in binary. His lines are partially cut off as they are not made to fit the speech bubble. What can be made out is "__000101 01100001 01110100 _0100000 01110011 0110100_ ___01001 01110100 0010000_," which would most likely fully read "01000101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110100 00100001," as it translates to "Eat sh*t!"

See Also

• 36 image(s) from I Am Iron Man Vol 1 5