—Lucia von BardasWhen it comes to the machinery of order, the best weapons don't shoot. They capure. They store. They accumulate. They target the foundations of freedom. Until Latveria's only choice is between Doom and America. With our homeland lost, our only tools must be America's. Yours. From Hellman Circle, the Heat will clear out the West Side of Chicago. These S.H.I.E.L.D. dogs fetched me your tools. We clear. We hold. And then, with Latverian money in the right pockets, we build. For us. How generous of America to always be for sale!!!
Appearing in "The Machinery of Order - Part Two: Destroy the Machines"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Ironheart (Riri Williams)
- The Cavalry (Melinda May)
- Iron.GPT (Voice only)
- N.A.T.A.L.I.E.
Antagonists:
- The Heat (Disbands)
- Lucia von Bardas (Leaves)
- Unnamed members (Leave)
Other Characters:
- Xavier King
- Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) (Mentioned)
- Wanda Maximoff (Mentioned in narration)
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) (Referenced)
- Saddam Hussein (Mentioned)
- Hosni Mubarak (Mentioned)
- Ngô Đình Diệm (Mentioned)
- Stark Unlimited Board of Directors (Mentioned)
- Stark Unlimited (Mentioned)
- Calumet Energy (Mentioned)
- Fred Hampton (Mentioned)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- United States of America
- Illinois
- Chicago
- West Side
- Hellman Circle (Destruction)
- Blue Line (Mentioned)
- West Side
- Chicago
- Illinois
- Latveria (Mentioned)
Items:
- Iron Man Armor Model 74 (Improvised Armor)
- Repulsword (Name revealed)
- Ironheart Armor Model 3
- Stark Sentinel
- Iron Monger Armor MK III (Mentioned)
- Pym Particles
Synopsis for "The Machinery of Order - Part Two: Destroy the Machines"
Inside Hellman Circle, Iron Man, Ironheart and The Cavalry come face-to-face against Lucia von Bardas, who has a disabled Stark Sentinel at her side. After N.A.T.A.L.I.E. detects Chicagoans imprisoned behind fences—most of them people of color—Riri rushes to free them while Stark and May engage von Bardas and The Heat's mercenaries, respectively. Tony strikes von Bardas with his repulsor sword, but she remains unscathed, flaunting her repulsor-absorbing upgrades before blasting him into a wall. May catches his fallen sword to fend off The Heat. Reeling not only from von Bardas' attack but his cumulative injuries, Tony forces himself airborne to tackle von Bardas.
Meanwhile, Riri cuts through a fence as Xavier King tells her he was abducted and violently interrogated with baseless accusations. When Heat mercenaries approach, she takes them down with a repulsor blast, then hoists the only henchman still awake into the air, demanding answers. He reveals that von Bardas backed them to "clean up" Chicago after the Kingpin cut them off in New York. Riri flies him to the ground, cuffs him, and turns her focus to von Bardas, who boasts that S.H.I.E.L.D. once sponsored her before overthrowing her. As she fires at Riri, Tony pushes her aside, taking the hit himself. Melinda retaliates, flinging Tony's sword at von Bardas and slashing her face. When The Heat encircles them, Tony summons the sowrd back to his hand and unleashes a repulsor barrage that takes them down. Furious, von Bardas unloads her firepower on Iron Man, berating him for building the tools that S.H.I.E.L.D. used against her. When he argues that he no longer makes weapons, she clarifies that she does mean tools: satellite arrays, data-mining software and surveillance tech that she claims America has used to undermine freedom, the same ones she now plans to use to gentrify Chicago's West Side with Latverian money. Riri proposes overloading her systems and supercharges Tony's sword, allowing him to release the built-up energy and tear von Bardas apart.
As the dust settles, Tony offers Melinda a seat back on his Board of Directors, but she declines, instead laying out a plan to give displaced ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. mercenaries a better alternative, and suggests becoming his head of corporate security. As Tony turns to Riri to continue freeing prisoners, he reflects on von Bardas' words and accepts the responsibility for putting his surveillance tech on the market. Suddenly, the inactive Stark Sentinel's eyes flicker, and Tony turns around when he hears von Bardas' continued repoach come from the robot. The heroes scramble to evacuate the warehouse as the von Bardas-possessed Sentinel begins tearing through the neighborhood. Using leftover Pym Particles from her last encounter with a Stark Sentinel, Riri grows to giant size and trades blows with von Bardas while Tony and May finish clearing out Hellman Circle. She then sprays the Sentinel with the remaining Pym Particles, shringking it down to pocket-size, ending the fight. As the locals celebrate, Riri stops Tony from destroying the empty warehouse, insisting they should handle it themselves. She has N.A.T.A.L.I.E. eject her repulsor disks to empower their makeshift weapons, while Tony charges them with his sword—now christened the Repulsword by Riri. Watching Hellman Circle burn, Tony reflects that pulling his company out of weapons manufacturing is just the start. But first, he needs to upgrade his Improvised Armor.
Solicit Synopsis
WELCOME TO CHICAGO’S OWN LITTLE LATVERIA!
Where the streets are clean and the rent is always rising! Now that The Heat is here, you can be assured of the absolute protection of private property. And if you hear the occasional scream, that’s just the price of safety. If your neighbors disappear, don’t ask where they’ve gone, ask when renovations will start. And when do-gooders in suits show up, just stay away from the flames. Guest-starring Ironheart!Notes
- When she flaunts her repulsor-absorption upgrade, Lucia von Bardas gloats about learning "after fighting you iron people." She is referencing her previous encounter with Ironheart in Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 4) #8–10.
- The members of The Heat interrogated by Ironheart explains that before von Bardas staked them, "The fat man found Jesus and cut us off." Although an editor's note cites Wilson Fisk in Daredevil (Vol. 8) #2–10, the specific remark that he "found Jesus" refers to the events of Daredevil (Vol. 8) #13, when Fisk becomes repentant after being exorcised from possession by the devil Greed. In the following issue, it is revealed that he subsequently disbanded The Heat.
- Ironheart quips about being technically Queen of Latveria. This happened in her previous encounter with von Bardas, when she overthrew her and declared herself monarch in Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 4) #9, abdicating shortly afterwards to pave the way for free elections.
- When Riri recalls the last time fighting a Stark Sentinel, an editor's note cites the issue in which it happened, Invincible Iron Man (Vol. 5) #12. In that issue, Riri used Pym Particles to shrink down a Stark Sentinel and stomp it to pieces alongside Emma Frost. She had acquired the Pym Particles for Tony Stark to use them on a copy of the War Machine Armor to sneak it into the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, where Jim Rhodes was imprisoned at the time.
Trivia
- For his variant cover for this issue, artist Whilce Portacio was given the direction by editor Sarah Brunstad to do "a full shot of the constructed armor emerging from the lab. Armor looking big and bulky and scary in a classic way. With some Frankenstein feels." When Portacio did all three variant covers, she wanted it to tell a story: "So not connecting covers exactly, but three covers that folks will want to collect."[1]
- When Lucia von Bardas explains that she was once sponsored by S.H.I.E.L.D. before they turned against her, she compares herself to the real-life dictators Saddam Hussein (of Iraq), Hosni Mubarak (of Egypt) and Ngô Đình Diệm (of Vietnam).
- As she charges up the makeshift weapons assembled by Hellman Circle's former detainees, Ironheart expresses, "it's like Fred said...power to the people." She is referencing Fred Hampton, the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, who used the slogan "All Power to the People."
See Also
Links and References
References
- ↑ Portacio, Whilce (February 28, 2025) Whilce Portacio on Instagram: "Hope you get the chance to grab Iron Man... Instagram. Archived from the original on March 1, 2025. Originally retrieved on March 1, 2025.