Appearing in "War of the Iron Men Part Two"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Zmaj
- Darko
- Commission on Superhuman Activities
Other Characters:
- Howard Stark (Mentioned)
- Edwin Jarvis (Mentioned)
- Svarog (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Deputy Foreign Minister Roskolov (Mentioned)
Locations:
- Transia
- New York City
- Stark Industries Headquarters
- Latveria (Mentioned)
- Rwanda (Mentioned)
- Bosnia (Mentioned)
- Cambodia (Mentioned)
Items:
- Iron Man Armor Model 32 prototype
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "War of the Iron Men Part Two"
Iron Man continues to operate illegally in Transia while a Tony Stark LMD back home attempts to fool everyone into believing it's the rogue actions of his bodyguard. He receives shelter from a Romani woman living in the ruined countryside and hides his ship in her barn. She tells him about the Zmaj militia that's using his technology and begs him to kill them for what they did to her family, but Iron Man tells her he doesn't do that before he heads off to fight them with his new subterranean armor.
Iron Man finds the Zmaj attacking more civilians fleeing to Latveria. He discovers that the Zmaj Iron Men are remote-controlled drones and that they are equipped with more of his stolen tech than he realized. They overwhelm him, destroy his armor, and capture him. Stark, captive at the Zmaj camp, attempts to pass himself off as "Howard Jarvis" when the militamen don't recognize him at first. He learns that the Zmaj have been emulating the Iron Man legend by forcing captured scientists to build for them, killing hundreds of them in the process. As 'Jarvis' asks just how many were killed in Stark's name, one that recognizes him for who he is steps forward to correct him that it would be in "your" name. The man claims to be Svarog, the Slavic god of the forge, come to lead his people to glory.
Solicit Synopsis
Notes
- This story is set between Iron Man (Vol. 3) #50, the debut of the Model 20 "Tin Man" armor, and Iron Man (Vol. 3) #55, where Stark reveals his secret identity to the public. At this time Iron Man is operating under the cover story of being Tony Stark's bodyguard.
- The cover features a new Iron Man armor design, but it does not appear in the story, which is set in the past.
- The brown subterranean armor Stark uses in this issue seems to be an early version of the "Digger" Argonaut that would later appear in Iron Man (Vol. 4) #7–12. That version was supposedly never used prior to that story. The version in this issue has not been identified with a separate Model number, and as it was destroyed in its only outing, it may be considered a prototype.