Rumiko Fujikawa was upset. The company, her company, was under attack on all sides from reporters and various other media outlets (not to mention Nick Fury) demanding information on this new Iron Man impostor. She had been taken completely by surprise from the initial debut of the reputed “Iron Savior,” and even before they could issue an official press release there had been another sighting.
To make matters worse, the impostor was currently skating the New York skyline as part of a heated battle with the Mandarin.
“I want answers,” Rumiko ordered Pepper Potts, the company’s Public Relations specialist. “And I want them yesterday. I caught the news footage and those were SHIELD helicopters that showed up. What do we know?”
Pepper cleared her throat before answering. “The new Iron Man addressed the public and assured them of his good intentions, and was immediately interrupted by the Mandarin. A Channel Four news-copter was significantly damaged but so far no one has been injured. Our contact at SHIELD has verified that Colonel Fury has indeed unleashed a strike force to capture both individuals.”
Rumiko pinched the bridge of her nose, attempting to alleviate the building pressure she felt in her head. She hated to be in the dark about matters that directly affected her, and there was no doubt in her mind that the appearance of this new Iron Man would affect her. She had faith in Pepper’s information even if she generally disliked Pepper herself. There was just one question she had left:
“Where the hell is Rhodes?”
MARVEL REBORN PRESENTS
The Iron Mask
Part Three of Three
Written by D.
Golightly
Shattered bits of brick and mortar bounced harmlessly off of Iron Man’s armored back as another volley of energy shot forth from the Mandarin’s rings. The armored avenger flipped his boot jets up to full power and tried to put some distance between himself and the deadly villain that had decided to crash his press conference.
“Anytime you’re ready to give me some decent advice, Mainframe,” Iron Man said aloud into the tiny microphone situated inside his helmet, “I’m all ears.”
“I am processing several scenarios based upon my records of encounters with the Mandarin,” the simulated voice replied through his earpiece. “I need a few more moments to devise a course of action.”
Iron Man formed the words in his mouth to explain that he didn’t have a few more moments, but before he could utter a single syllable a heavily armored helicopter sprung out from behind another building. A symbol was emblazoned across the side of the aircraft, marking it as property of SHIELD. Iron Man swore silently as he cut his boot jets’ output in half and adjusted his anti-grav engine so that he wouldn’t slam into the chopper.
His internal gyroscopes were seriously over clocked and alarms were annoyingly warning him of the present danger. The heads-up display flashed a plethora of messages across his vision, momentarily jarring his concentration. The Mandarin, taking full advantage of the distraction, closed the gap between them and aimed the ring adorning the smallest of the fingers on his right hand.
“Whoever you are,” the Mandarin hollered over the roar of the chopper blades, “know that your death will prove the omnipotent potential of my power!”
A black shadow erupted from the ring and engulfed both Iron Man and the SHIELD helicopter. The dark energy swirled around them, completely isolating all sound and light and then expelling it with vicious force. The bubble of blackness that had formed around Iron Man closed in, concentrating its power at the Mandarin’s command. He felt woozy and disoriented, unsure of where to go in the void.
“It’s simplicity at how easily you are beaten,” the Mandarin said, his voice the only thing able to cut through the blackness. “Your predecessor would have already freed himself by now.”
Iron Man began to panic. His sensors were all registering various energy signatures but there was no way for him to know what to do or where to go. Inside the black void he was completely cut off from his standard uplinks, the most valuable of which was communication with Mainframe. He was alone, surrounded by a sea of infinity.
He took a chance and fired off a stray repulsor blast into the darkness, hoping to strike something to give him a sense of direction. Even the sound of the energy escaping his gauntlet was totally muffled by the void and the only idea to free himself dissipated with the blast.
The Mandarin laughed slightly before continuing. “When I first heard news of your presence I thought I might partake in a worthy challenge…but you have left me wanting. I had felt robbed when my foe died at the hands of another, and your death will apparently do little to fulfill that need. A shame that—AH!”
“—er, are you there?” Mainframe’s electronic voice blared.
The blackness suddenly evaporated into translucent waves of light before leaving altogether. “Yeah, I’m here,” he exclaimed with a sigh of relief.
He swung around in the air and saw the reason why the Mandarin had broken his concentration over the black bubble of darkness. The remaining two SHIELD helicopters were taking turns strafing their weapons at the Asian villain, pummeling against his barrier of concussive force that was erected around him.
Iron Man prepared to launch himself into the lower back of the Mandarin. “Sucker-punching son of a—”
“Behind you!”
A web of tangled energy encased itself around Iron Man, holding him in midair. He looked over his shoulder to see the third SHIELD chopper still behind him, forgotten in the quick scuffle with the void. The energy net was tethered to the lower turret under the helicopter’s hull, and it was slowly drawing him in. Had it not been for Mainframe’s warning Iron Man would have been taken completely by surprise.
He could see the face of the chopper pilot, smug and full of pride from his apparent capture of Iron Man. The energy coursing through the net was probably designed with someone like him in mind…but he was about to show them that they had never seen anyone like him before.
Through the psionic link he had with his armor, Iron Man activated the repulsors in his gauntlets once more. Only instead of expelling energy they were now inversed, drawing the power inward. Sparks traced the webbing of the net, sliding down the strands and leaping into the irises at the center of Iron Man’s palms. He smiled beneath his helmet, enjoying the brief moment of technological superiority.
He ripped the net into several pieces with a wave of his arms, its power all but diffused. He arced up into the air over the SHIELD chopper behind him, blasting its tail with twin repulsor blasts. He made sure not to damage the craft enough to make it crash, but it was now forced to leave the fight and return to base.
The pilot’s smug expression was replaced by anger. Iron Man couldn’t hear what the pilot was screaming as the chopper lazily turned about and left back the way it had come, but he was sure it incorporated a number of four letter words.
“Total and utter wastes of human flesh,” the Mandarin spoke.
Metal crunched and folded in on itself, noisily crushing those within the two remaining SHIELD helicopters. The Mandarin had given up trying to chase them away, instead opting for the simpler solution. The ring of power upon his right thumb, the matter rearranger, glowed with eerie presence as the Mandarin commanded it to shift the molecules that comprised the helicopters. Within a matter of seconds the twin choppers were converted into perfect metal spheres that no longer defied gravity. The giant balls of twisted metal fell to the ground, the bones of the crews mixed somewhere in the center.
“You slimy bastard!” Iron Man roared through his helmet speaker as he crashed into the back of the Mandarin.
The two tumbled forward through the air before Iron Man finally righted himself with the aid of his gyroscopes. Metallic armor clashed against green flesh and silk robes, juxtaposing one another like night and day. He landed a right cross against the Mandarin’s chin, but before he could follow it up with another solid blow, gravitational forces at the Mandarin’s command knocked him away. He thought he had a firm grasp on his foe but the Mandarin’s mastery over the martial arts had enabled him to break the hold easily, despite Iron Man’s enhanced strength.
“Pathetic,” the villain spat out, as if the words were laced with venom. “You aren’t half the self-proclaimed hero as your predecessor. It almost makes this undertaking not worth the effort.”
“Fine by me. Let’s just call it quits for the day and finish this up some other time.”
“Disgustingly pathetic,” the Mandarin repeated. He rushed forward, brandishing enough power between his fingers to level mountains. “There was a time when I thought that the Old Ways were the best ones. Survival of the fittest. Only the strong should lead.”
His fist smashed against Iron Man’s helmet, striking the cold exterior of the armor and rattling Iron Man’s head. “The primal strength that guided feudal Japan somehow seemed clearer to me then what you call the modern way of life.”
Again his fist crashed against the helmet, threatening to actually crack the reinforced metal. “But then I realized that the Old Ways had been replaced by capitalism and politicians. Subtle maneuvers through cloaked communications were the chosen swords and spears of the present day.”
The Mandarin brought his knee up into Iron Man’s abdomen, causing him to buckle forward and expel all the air housed within his lungs. “I had a premonition. I should cast off my old persona and create a powerful visage to blanket myself in, leading the corporate world by storm like none other. I would master this newer form of warfare just as I had so many others.”
Spinning in midair, the villain slammed the back of his fist against Iron Man’s throat, sending him faltering head over heels from the momentum. “And do you know what happened then? The reason I did not accomplish this goal?”
Iron Man righted himself just as the Mandarin encased him in a thick coating of ice. When the hero was about to plummet to the awaiting ground below, the Mandarin swooped forward and held Iron Man up to eye level with another of his rings’ powers. He drew his enemy close, their faces mere inches apart, saying:
“I was given word of your return. A link to my past that I wanted to shed. For that inconvenience, coupled with my burning desire to wash the blood of my most hated foe from my hands, your life was forfeit.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?”
Iron Man’s chest plate began to resonate and glow with building power. The Mandarin blinked, realizing what was about to happen, yet powerless to stop it. The signature pentagon shape of his uni-beam suddenly erupted in waves of relentless energy, slicing through the suffocating ice and cutting into the Mandarin’s shoulder. Iron Man flexed his arms and shattered the remains of his chilling restraints, rushing forward and gripping the Mandarin by the throat.
“You have some serious issues, pal,” Iron Man said. “I ought to squeeze your neck ‘till your eyes pop out.”
“But…” the Mandarin muttered with a sinister sneer, “You won’t. You…you do not possess the ability to do what I would do. That is why you wear…you wear those damned colors and I mine. We are different.” He was slurring his words, gasping for breath between Iron Man’s fingers.
Iron Man tightened his grip, leaning closer to his rival’s face. “Two sides of the same coin, bucko.”
“Let him go, before you do something you regret,” Mainframe spoke into his earpiece.
Iron Man studied the Mandarin’s face carefully, as if seeking some semblance of himself within his features. A long, silent moment passed between them. The raging noises of the city under them faded away like the volume had slowly been turned down. Iron Man’s human eyes, behind the protected helm of his visor, looked into the Mandarin’s pupils like they were mirrors, searching for something he wasn’t sure he wanted to find.
“Not worth it,” Iron Man finally said.
He abruptly let go of the Mandarin’s neck, to which the villain quickly sucked in a deep breath. Menace and dark intent swept over his face as he angled his unhurt arm up to blast at Iron Man, but the red and gold armored hero raised his own hand first, unleashing a repulsor blast into the Mandarin’s chest.
The force of the impacting energy clobbered the villain into the side of an office building. The Mandarin sailed through the outer wall and kept going, through several interior walls and into a large conference room. Smoke and rubble momentarily filled the gap between them, blocking Iron Man’s view entirely.
Iron Man clenched his fists and floated through the hole, searching for the Mandarin and preparing himself for a surprise attack. He softly flew through several rooms before finding the spot where the Mandarin had landed. Other than wrecked furniture and horrified office workers, there was nothing.
“I’m not registering the unique signatures of the Mandarin’s power rings anywhere in the vicinity,” Mainframe said. “It appears he has left the building.”
“He’s gone,” Iron Man added, relaxing his closed fists. “The coward took off, just like they always seem to do.”
“I would suggest we do the same before SHIELD sends reinforcements.”
“Yeah,” Iron Man replied woefully. “I guess you’re right. So much for the debut of the all new, so-called invincible Iron Man…”
Flying high above the clouds, Iron Man finally cut his boot jets once he reasoned he was far enough away from anyone that might be trying to follow him. He followed the superimposed map on his HUD, dropping at just the right time through the clouds so that he would be headed directly for his destination.
The warehouse were he stored his secret armory was located on the southwest side of the city, right on the docks. The water provided easy access in and out of the complex but it was a remote enough location that he didn’t have to worry about prying eyes. The entire area was abandoned, except for the occasional squatter or ship jumper. It wasn’t cozy and warm, but for the better part of a year it had been his home.
Iron Man descended, readying himself to access the roof entrance and get out of the confining armor. There was a hot cup of coffee with his name on it.
“Wait,” Mainframe said, breaking his concentration. “I’m showing someone inside the perimeter…oh, no.”
“What’s going on? Is it—”
Before he could finish the complete thought he was in range to see for himself who was standing out in the parking lot of the warehouse, leaning casually against an expensive, black sedan. If the helmet hadn’t stopped him he would have rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Waiting like a father for his son was Jim Rhodes.
“Shit.”
He knew something like this would have happened eventually. He had just hoped it would have gone a little longer than just two days. Deciding the best thing to do would be to graciously meet the man face to face, Iron Man descended right in front of Rhodes with a soft hiss as his boot jets allowed him a gentle landing.
Rhodes was the first to speak. “You got some nerve.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got balls the size of boulders to be walking around in a suit like that. You need to make this easy on yourself, whoever you are. One phone call from me and not only will SHIELD be crawling all over this place, but so will Stark/Fujikawa security, and trust me when I say you don’t want to mess with the Fujikawas.”
Iron Man pointed an accusing finger at the intimidating black man. “You’re the one who’s got the nerve to come over here and—”
“Look,” Rhodes said, cutting him off. “I’m not talking to the mask. I give you my word that I’m not here to bring you in. That suit you’re wearing comes with my trust…for now. I know how you helped those people today, so that buys you the benefit of the doubt. But first thing’s first, if you want my help, I need to know who you are. I’m not doing this while you have the helmet on.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’m not surrounded by SHIELD agents with guns pointed at your head.”
Iron Man lowered his arm, thinking his options over. He could just ignite his boot jets and fly away, maybe start over again and learn from today’s mistakes. But he knew that wasn’t what a real hero would have done.
Slowly raising his arms to the edges of his helmet, he unclasped the sides and lifted the bulky piece of armor off of his face, revealing his face to the man who had tracked him down.
“My name is Abner Jenkins,” he said. “I used to be the Beetle. Now I’m Iron Man.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah…mind if we do this inside?”
“Spill it,” Jim ordered.
Abner, or Abe as he preferred to be called, took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled it. They were now inside the large warehouse, safe from whoever might want to spy on them. The majority of the Iron Man armor was still encapsulating him but his facemask and helmet had been removed so he could look Jim Rhodes in the eye.
Behind him was a row of sophisticated computers, several of them displaying a digital facsimile of the helmet Abe had shed. The computer-generated image shifted back and forth as if uncomfortable.
“If I may—” the image said.
“I don’t even know what the hell you are,” Jim said, cutting the computer program off. “So, no. You may not. Keep quiet while I figure this out. I’ll get to you when I’m done with him.” He punctuated the last word with a finger jabbed toward Abe, who instinctively flinched back a half step.
“What do you want to know?” Abe asked.
“Are you kidding me? How about everything?”
Abe pulled in another deep breath and collected his thoughts together into some type of coherent explanation. It had all seemed so simple when things had first begun, but in the last few days it had spiraled out of control. He decided that starting at the beginning would be the best thing to do. He knew he wasn’t sweating because of the armor’s cooling intakes, but he still felt like it anyway.
“Okay…obviously, I’m not really Iron Man. I mean, I’m not Tony Stark.”
“No shit.”
“Right, uh, well…Look, I’m not taking his place, man. I don’t want that. I’m just trying to, like…atone for my past, ya know? Last year Mainframe bumped into me and sort of convinced me to—”
“Who?” Jim asked as he crossed his arms over his chest. One of his eyebrows was raised higher than the other, the rest of his face equally questioning the man before him.
“Mainframe,” Abe answered with a wave over his shoulder toward the computer station. “He’s an artificial intelligence matrix that Stark created in case he ever went missing for a prolonged period of time. See, about a year ago I met up with Baron Zemo and—”
“Zemo’s involved in this?” Rhodes barked out. He looked around the warehouse, making sure they were alone and he hadn’t walked into a trap. “What the—”
“Will you quit interrupting me already? If you want an explanation then shut your trap and let me talk!”
“As I was about to say—”
“You shut up, too,” Abe said over his shoulder. He raised his hand to rub his eyes from the aggravation but stopped once he realized that the bulky gauntlets were still covering his fingers. He shot a look at Rhodes to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted again, hoping against all else that he could form his explanation into something he wouldn’t go to jail for. He wasn’t sure, but he doubted that impersonating a sanctioned superhero was legal.
“As I was about to say,” Abe finally continued, “the Mainframe Initiative was put into effect once the media outlets started reporting that Stark was pushing up daisies. Mainframe is a complex artificial intelligence that was developed using an imprint of Tony Stark’s own brain waves. You might say that Mainframe is the result of Tony uploading himself into cyberspace.”
“A crude explanation, but more or less correct.”
Abe cleared his throat to regain Rhodes’ total attention. “You may have noticed that he’s a little more arrogant than Stark ever was. I’m tempted to learn how to mess with his algorithms.
“Anyway, like I said, Mainframe bumped into me during a meeting with Zemo. See, Zemo had this crazy idea to reform the Masters of Evil again and take the world by storm. Just after all that Onslaught crap, after all the Heroes were killed, the country was in bad need of some new capes to look up to. With Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and all the others gone Zemo figured that gaining the public trust would be real easy if we created new, heroic identities.”
Jim snorted his disapproval. “Heroic, huh? So Zemo wanted you to impersonate Iron Man?”
“No, not at all,” Abe replied. “He wanted us to become completely new Heroes. He had contacted several of the old Masters and gotten them to commit…he just had to convince me to turn in my Beetle armor for something he called the Mach One armor. I was supposed to be this entirely new guy, and part of a new super-team to boot. Moonstone, Fixer, Screaming Mimi, Goliath…he wanted us all to put on smiles and become the next generation of Avengers or something. ‘Cept he called us the Thunderbolts.”
“That never would have worked,” Rhodes blurted out. The look on his face accompanied his disbelief for such a crazy, but well thought out, plan.
“Wouldn’t it?” Abe countered. “Think about it. The most powerful and revered superheroes on the planet suddenly die. It’s like a friggin’ sign of the apocalypse! It’s total chaos out there, man. People need something to look up to, even if it’s handed to them in the biggest Trojan horse ever dreamed up. I bet it would have worked out beautifully. The Thunderbolts would have blindsided the entire world.”
“So why didn’t they?” Jim asked cautiously. He still wasn’t sure how much validity Abner’s story held.
“As been pointed out twice already,” Mainframe responded coldly, “because I intervened during Baron Zemo’s session with Abner. When I was first activated my primary programming took effect, which was to replace Anthony Stark. I had shipments deviated from Stark/Fujikawa to this warehouse, where I quickly amassed a private armory compiled of prototype armor that I doubt even you were aware of, James. It was my intent to replace Stark myself. ”
Jim looked around the warehouse again, this time more carefully. Instead of peering into the shadows to see if one of the Masters of Evil was about to jump him, he took steady inventory of the crates, containers, and sealed chambers that lined the walls haphazardly. He had been so focused on Abe when they entered that he had completely missed the large amount of equipment stacked throughout the warehouse, including familiar chest plates, helmets, boots, and gauntlets. Pieces were strewn throughout the warehouse floor like toys, gleaming in the subtle ambient light.
“I monitored certain channels of communication and determined that Baron Zemo had been recruiting the Masters together again. I chose to debut at the same time Abner met with Zemo, coincidentally. I remotely piloted the armor myself and crashed into the building I had tracked them to. It did not go well.”
“He means I kicked his ass,” Abe whispered to Jim.
The simulated helmet on the computer screen flinched awkwardly, mimicking sarcastic disdain. “Something along those lines.”
“Zemo took off during the fight like he always does. After I was done pummeling Mainframe, who I thought was the real deal; I moved in for the kill but hesitated.”
“Why?” Jim pondered aloud.
“Honestly? I had pretty much reformed by that point, even before Zemo told me his ideas of pretending to go legit. I was tired of never coming out on top, never amounting to anything but a loser bad guy. I was ready to give the Beetle persona up entirely when I had gotten the call from Zemo. I was fifty-fifty about signing on with him again and tussling with Iron Man brought all those memories of jail back into focus.”
“I realized that I could not replace Anthony Stark myself,” Mainframe continued. “After Abner defeated me we conversed. My instruments told me his motivations for reforming were sincere, and he obviously had experience with Stark designed armor.”
“I spent the time between then and now learning how to become Iron Man,” Abner finished saying for the computer simulation.
Rhodes shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But that doesn’t explain the fight between the Beetle and Iron Man the other day. Or the security codes used to access Stark/Fujikawa, Incorporated that only Tony and I had access to.”
“Well,” Abe replied while turning his head to one side, “I was piloting the Beetle armor while Mainframe ran the Iron Man rig. We staged the fight so that no one would suspect that I was taking over as Iron Man. I’ll admit we got a little carried away, but it had to look real. Mandarin sticking his ugly head in wasn’t part of the plan, but at least he’s dealt with.”
“As for the security clearances,” Mainframe added, “Those were part of my memory when I as originally compiled. However, I do believe that Ms. Potts has discovered someone using the codes and could likely discover us.”
“That’s how I found you,” Rhodes said bluntly. “In fact, that was the only lead I had. If I can do it, Pepper can do it.”
“So where does that leave us?” Abe asked.
“The way I see it, you have two choices. You can either turn yourself into the police and get this whole mess straightened out…or you can continue doing what you’re doing.”
A quizzical look splashed across Abe’s face. He had never tangled with Jim Rhodes during his War Machine days, but he had heard through the grapevine how intolerant he was with supervillains. Even though he was reformed, he felt like Rhodes still looked upon him with harsh eyes. It was unnerving, to say the least, to see Rhodes act against his initial impression.
“You said it yourself,” Rhodes continued, “People need something to look up to. Since the Heroes died the world has become a pretty crazy place. We need Iron Man flying again.”
“Let me get this straight,” Abe countered. “You’re giving me your blessing?”
“Yes, with one condition: you run everything by me, no questions asked. You’re on a tight leash, Jenkins, so don’t step out of line.”
“What about Pepper and the others that are sure to poke their noses around?”
“You just let me worry about that.” Rhodes turned his back to Abe, taking in the gargantuan warehouse once more. He cracked his knuckles, enjoying the reverberating noise it caused to bounce off the starch walls. “Keep your head down, listen to what I tell you, and we won’t have any problems getting Iron Man back where he needs to be.”
Abe felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off of his armored shoulders. He hadn’t realized until then how much importance he had been putting into their conversation. He figured that if worse came to worst that he would just fly away and work out a solution later. As he began removing his gauntlets it donned on him that a true hero would never take that course of action. Heroes put the greater good before their own sense of pride.
He had big, metal boots to fill. A smile spread across his face as a strong sense of conviction overtook him. For the first time in his life Abner Jenkins, alias the Beetle, alias Iron Man, knew that he was doing the right thing
NEXT ISSUE: The second arc in the brand new Iron Man ongoing series kicks off in “The House That Stark Built!” Now that Abe is unmasked, where do things go from here? Who can he trust, and what will he do when the Frightful Four come a’knocking?