“For the last time,” Jim Rhodes’ electronically filtered voice scolded. “Do you not understand me when I tell you to stabilize the rear gyroscopes?”
Abe Jenkins shook his head in annoyance as he soared over the Atlantic Ocean. Several miles off the coast, where Rhodes had told him he wouldn’t cause any damage, the latest person to don the Iron Man armor checked his HUD. After several long arguments and a handful of even longer training sessions, Rhodes had finally given his blessing for Abe to hit the skies with the armor again. Rhodes was back at the warehouse monitoring Abe’s maneuvers as he affirmed himself with the mechanics of operating Stark technology.
“The scopes are fine,” Abe finally answered through the microphone embedded in his helmet. “But there’s this annoying little bug in my ear…”
“Funny,” Rhodes shot back. “Just remember that even though you and that stunted computer simulation—”
“I resent that,” Mainframe interjected into Abe’s ear piece.
“—thought you could fill Tony’s boots, you still haven’t been given the green light by me. And guess what? My opinion is the only one that matters. So until you know these systems as well as me and Tony did, why don’t you keep the quips to yourself?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Abe shook his head again, but couldn’t help but feel that Rhodes was right. His latest upgraded Beetle armor was similar, but still several generations behind the Iron Man gear. He almost hated to admit it, but Stark really was a genius ahead of his time.
Abe smirked as he raised the throttle on his boot jets. Scanning through the options on his HUD, he made the necessary adjustments to the gyroscopes. He skimmed in low to the ocean’s surface, leaving a tunneling wake behind him. Rhodes had been right again. The gyros had needed to be stabilized.
If he was going to make this hero thing work, he was going to do it right, even if it meant swallowing his pride.
MARVEL REBORN PRESENTS
The House That Stark Built
Part One of Three
Written by D.
Golightly
“Where the hell have you been?”
Rumiko Fujikawa had never been known for her subtlety. It was a trait, or lack thereof, that allowed her to viciously tear apart the business world alongside her father. Tact and grace were reserved for special occasions, usually deemed necessary by desperation. Otherwise Rumiko had no problem scolding an employee, spearheading a hostile takeover of a rival company, or laying to waste to a person’s character.
They were on the roof of Stark Tower, the Stark/Fujikawa, Inc. headquarters in New York City. A gentle breeze washed over them, waving Rumiko’s hair behind her shoulders. She was still a stunning beauty, especially in the afternoon sun, although those that new her best saw not a damsel but an Amazon. A look of irritation and expectation was plastered on her face.
“Nice to see you, too,” Rhodes replied as he approached the president of their company.
“Answer the question,” Rumiko reiterated.
Rhodes nearly hesitated in his reply, but he knew better than to enter into a conversation with Rumiko and not be prepared. He couldn’t tell her that he had missed several important meetings in the last week largely because he was training Abe in the use of Stark tech. He still didn’t trust the Fujikawas, not since they had swept in and taken majority control of Tony’s company before his tombstone was even in place.
“Another problem in shipping,” he said. “Our security breach is still in effect it would seem. Whoever hacked our systems and diverted those shipments over the last year is still out there. Daedalus, as he’s known online, is still taking potshots at our network.”
He made a mental note to double check the fictitious Daedalus identity that Mainframe had created to cover their tracks. Everything had to be in place to keep the story straight in order to make sure Rumiko wouldn’t get suspicious of his connection to the new Iron Man.
“I’m beginning to wonder how dedicated you really are to this company,” she responded. “Especially after I went to your defense personally when Fury was questioning your integrity. SHIELD still has us cornered, Rhodes. They want access to our R&D, and Fury isn’t going to let up any time soon.”
“Which is why it’s important to keep on top of this security breach. For all we know Fury could be the one behind it. Ever since SHIELD was privatized there’s no telling what lengths he’s willing to go to.” *
* (Check out Marvel Reborn’s excellent SHIELD series for details! – D)
They shared a stare, which Rumiko broke first, turning her attention back to the impressive view from the top of the building. “From now on you will run all operations by me. If this breach has the potential to become a leak, I will handle it personally.”
Rhodes nodded in understanding. He was treading into dangerous territory by building a stack of lies against Rumiko and he knew that consequences would be dire if he was discovered. However, in weighing that danger against the possible success of Abe…he was willing to risk it. The world was desperate for good heroes, ones that were free of people like the Fujikawas.
“So why did I have to track you down up here?” Rhodes asked, glad to change the subject. “Pepper said you’ve been heading up to the roof lately whenever there’s a lull in activity.”
“The fresh air helps clear my head,” she answered. If Rhodes didn’t know better he would almost think he had seen her shoulders relax slightly. “I know that you and I never really hit it off when I was with Tony—”
“That’s not important,” he blurted out. Why did he say that? He was passing up an opportunity to gain leverage against her.
“It is.” Rumiko watched a butterfly land easily on the edge of the rooftop, it’s colorful wings a sharp contrast to the blank grey exterior of the building. “You fought against my father taking over the company and earned your spot as the Vice President. You have been an invaluable asset both politically and internally. Half our staff respects you more than they respect me. Pepper would have surely left by now if it wasn’t for you, taking her PR talents with her to a rival.”
“Pepper believes in what Tony tried to do with this company,” Rhodes replied. He slid his hands awkwardly into his pockets, unsure of what to say next. Rumiko seemed unnerved, and instead of pressing her buttons he was actually hard-pressed not to console her. “We all know that…what the hell?”
Rumiko looked back at him quickly before following his gaze toward the sky. A pink orb was rapidly descending through the clouds, a loud rumbling noise accompanying it. It grew larger and larger and its trajectory was going to take it straight into the roof of the building. Rhodes hollered a warning at Rumiko, tackling her around the waste and rolling behind a stairwell entrance just before the pink ball impacted. Only, there was no detonating explosion or shockwave. Rhodes looked over his shoulder, wondering why the expected boom hadn’t blown them all to pieces, when he saw the last thing he expected to see that day.
“Ah, a welcome party,” the purple and black armored man called the Wizard said as he caught sight of them. The pink energy from his approach still surrounded him, but it was beginning to die down as he gently touched down on the roof. “Or perhaps I should say my first hostages.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Abe said as he paced back and forth in front of a computer console. “It’s like, Rhodey used to be War Machine, right? Only he didn’t start out that way. Stark gave him a chance as Iron Man first, right? Then eventually Stark trusted him enough to make him his own tin suit, and just like that Rhodey was a hero. One that sort of beat the living crap out of bad guys, but whatever.”
“If you are insinuating that he should offer you the same chance,” the bobbing head on the screen, Mainframe, said, “then I believe he has already done so.”
“Oh, c’mon.” Abe, no longer in the armor but instead garbed in a pair of boxers, a white t-shirt, and a bathrobe, grabbed another jelly doughnut out of the box on the console. “I’m just another scrub to him,” he added between bites. “He’s keeping me from running off with both you and the armor.”
“I am not sure I follow your reasoning.”
“I’m not a rookie! I was a master mechanic for a top aeronautics designer, with a genius level intellect to boot, and I piloted my own armor perfectly fine for years.” Abe sighed, swallowing another chunk of doughnut. “Look at it this way. He figures us out, tracks us down, practically threatens to have SHIELD arrest me, and then starts ordering me around.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that the guy is a control freak and I don’t trust him.”
“Says the supervillain.”
“Reformed supervillain, thank you.”
Abe turned away from the screen that displayed the floating armored head that had come to represent Mainframe, munching his doughnut while trying not to drip too much of the filling onto his bathrobe. When they had first met, Mainframe had been an almost perfect imprint of Tony Stark’s mind, although with every interaction the computer program had it gained a deeper sense of its own growing personality. Rhodes had vocalized his concern several times that Abe was a bad influence on the program, and given the sarcasm Mainframe had been subject to toss around lately, Abe was beginning to think the concern was a sound one.
He shook his head, preparing himself for the inevitable discussion about Abe’s need to trust Rhodes. The fact was that Abe felt like he had been cornered when all he was trying to do was the right thing. He had reformed, why wasn’t that good enough? Why did he have to undergo all of Rhodes’ badgering instruction when he had already proven himself by holding off the Mandarin? * One of Tony Stark’s worst enemies, possibly the worst, had threatened countless lives and Abe had successfully come out on top when all was said and done. For a first outing as an honest hero, he felt he had done pretty well.
* (Last two issues. – D)
“Abner—”
“I don’t want to hear it, circuit breath…wait a sec.” Mainframe only ever called him Abner when it was time to get serious. “What’s going on?”
“As you know,” the computer began to explain as it scrolled information across it’s screen, “I periodically access the Stark/Fujikawa computer cores, masking my presence as the Daedalus persona.”
“Yeah, it let’s you poke around and grab whatever info we need. So what?”
“I have just been booted from their systems somehow. Just before I was discovered and removed, I captured this piece of footage from a security camera. You will want to see this for yourself.”
Another screen next to Mainframe’s flashed to life, showing a crystal clear, black and white scene of an empty hallway. The walls were bare except for a single horizontal stripe down the one side, a designer’s attempt to flush some life into the otherwise dull corridor. Abe watched intently, waiting for something to happen. After a few heavy moments, a shadow finally graced the edges of the floor, growing larger and larger. The figure stepped into full view to reveal an older man, probably in his late thirties or early forties, dressed in a familiar costume that had bulky padding. His trademark goatee made him instantly recognizable.
“The Wizard,” Abe muttered as he watched the scenario unfold.
The man on the screen caught sight of the security camera digitally recording him, and smiled. Raising a gloved hand, bright light enveloped the lens before static blanketed the screen.
“Where’s Rhodes?” Abe asked eagerly.
“After our morning session he went there to catch up on a meeting he missed. All communication with the building has been cut off, from phone lines to internet connections.”
“Download, upload, or reload whatever it is you need to,” Abe said as he shed his bathrobe and made his way to where the red and gold armor was stored. “I’m suiting up and we’re going in.”
“I don’t need to tell you how vital this mission is, soldier. Screw this up and we’ll be lookin’ for new ways to throw in with the bureaucratic thugs up on the Hill.”
Nick Fury had been called a lot of things in his career, but a jokester was not one of them. That’s why the special agent standing at attention in front of him simply replied with an affirmative to his comment instead of laughing from how cliché it all seemed. SHIELD, an elite police organization the spanned the globe, was directed in all operations by Fury, who had been in the thick of the action since the second World War. Given his age, it wasn’t too surprising that he would sound like he was still in the trenches at times.
“I understand, sir,” the agent responded.
“The breach at Stark Tower is just the opportunity we need to get in and learn what they’ve been hiding from us,” Fury continued as he cut off the tip of a fresh cigar. His office constantly smelled like cinders, a complaint from nearly all who entered, but no one would dare comment to him on the stench. “Reports are coming in from all over that the building is sealed off. Rumiko isn’t stupid. She hasn’t been playing ball with us for the better part of a year, and that makes me nervous. Stark/Fujikawa is still one of the world’s top weapon designers, and I can’t risk having their designs fall to the other side.”
“Parameters, sir?”
Fury lit the cigar, sucking on the end a few times to make sure the tobacco ignited. “We picked up the Wizard on the spy satellite we had perched in the upper atmosphere, suicide bombing Stark Tower. Now it’s like a dead zone. Nothing is going in or out of there, and the feed the satellite is sending us isn’t making any sense. Infiltrate, recover whatever intell you can concerning their transactions over the last year, and get out. If you’re discovered your story is you’re part of a rescue op. Everyone but Rumiko will probably buy that.”
The female agent nodded and turned to leave. As she pulled open the door to exit, she paused, looking back over her shoulder at her director. “What’s my window, sir?”
“I’d say anytime between now and when the shit hits the fan,” Fury answered. He puffed out a plume of smoke and steadied his cigar. He had tried to quit again a few weeks ago, just before the trouble with a certain armored ‘hero’ and the Mandarin. * The whole fiasco had nearly been enough to give him an ulcer. This Iron Man had been off the radar for a week, but now…
* (Read the first three issues for the full story. – D)
“Agent 13,” Fury said, “dig up whatever you can on the Iron Man defensive armor. I’m sure that imposter is going to poke his face into this situation. Make him your first priority. Get me everything from armor specs to the identity of who’s piloting it now. I want it all…remember we still have a warrant for that shellhead, and if he shows up you do whatever you have to in order to bring him in.”
The water had dried off the armor in less than a minute after Abe had breached the water’s surface. The warehouse was planted right beside the Hudson, allowing him a private underwater exit to keep away from prying eyes. Once he was a few thousand feet in the air he burned his boot jets and made way for his destination. The warehouse wasn’t fair from downtown New York, at least not the way he traveled. It wouldn’t take long to get a bird’s eye view of the situation.
He liked being in the armor. It didn’t have quite the same level of steering that his old armor had, but it made up for it in other ways in spades. When he was the Beetle he had gotten used to shedding the secondary skin as soon as he could…but this. This armor felt like it was almost a part of him.
“What do we know so far?” he asked.
“Practically nothing,” Mainframe answered into his ear piece. “Other than the fact the Wizard seems to be involved, we are pretty much flying blind. Are you acquainted with the former ‘Wingless’ Wizard?”
“We’ve met on occasion. He might owe me twenty bucks, now that I think about it. Never worked with him before in my past life, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“There is still a blackout interfering with the building…and long range scanners have just presented an interesting answer to that specific problem.”
Abe activated the visor of his helmet to adjust, allowing him to zoom farther ahead. He was coming up on Stark Tower quickly, and the visor gave him an eyeful of what lie in wait for him.
Stark Tower was gone, replaced by a large, pink prism of solid energy.
“Shit,” he swore. “What the hell am I looking at?”
Mainframe paused before answering as the data processed. “My first guess would be a force field of some sort surrounding the building, which would account for the blackout of information. It doesn’t appear too powerful, apparently it’s only purpose is to cut off communications.”
“Guess we’ll find out in a sec,” Abe replied. “Hold onto your motherboard.”
Pushing the throttle up to full blast, the new Iron Man cycled through the options on his heads-up-display as his velocity increased exponentially. A shimmering white projection quickly solidified in front of his outstretched arms, forming a force field of his own. The translucent shell was mere inches from his body as the rushing air whirled around him.
“Abner—”
“Not now!”
Iron Man smashed into the pink prism of energy, his momentum careening him into the construct with little care. The white force field surrounding him bent, but ultimately held as his body was pushed through the pink field. He suddenly popped out of the other side, crashing through the bare wall of Stark Tower. His force field deactivated as he hit the floor, smashing through an office chair and work desk. He rolled several times before coming to a stop against a potted plant.
“See?” he said. “Nothing to worry about. We’re in.”
“That was unnecessarily reckless!” Mainframe scolded. “What if I had been wrong in my analysis of the force field? What if your own electromagnetic field hadn’t been able to withstand the pressure, which was nearly seven hundred pounds per square inch, by the way. What if the polarity had been inversed and—”
“Chill out. It worked out for the best, okay?”
Iron Man leaned on his knee to stand up and walked over to the hole he had created. The truth was he really had been reckless and he knew it. Mainframe was right…and maybe Rhodes had been, too. Looking out of the hole to see the punctured pink prism he realized that this new hero gig meant having to think before you acted, something that supervillains didn’t typically do.
“The girlie field is starting to reform,” Abe commented. “Must have a generator keeping it intact somewhere. Any clue where I should start looking, circuit breath?”
“—zz- apply the syst -zz- to locate -zz—”
“Mainframe?”
Iron Man tapped the side of his helmet, but the distortion continued. He glanced out the hole again and saw that the pink force field had now completely sealed itself, meaning that communication with the outside world would probably be impossible. He swore, wishing he had thought things through more.
Suddenly, his HUD switched on a radar image behind his visor. A proximity alarm chirped in his ear as he threw himself to one side blindly, hoping to evade whatever his systems were trying to alert him to.
Splat!
Iron Man charged his repulsors and targeted the spot where he had been standing. His outstretched gauntlets centered on a gooey substance on the floor that was slowly expanding. “What the hell…” he muttered.
“Perfect,” someone said from the other side of the room. “I saw you on the news last week. Figures you would find a way to get by our containment shield.”
Iron Man turned, keeping one gauntlet focused on the congealing blob. He saw a man standing in the doorway wearing a costume made of what looked like riot armor. On his back was some kind of bulky equipment that was attached to a gun in his hand by way of a wrapping hose. Abe recognized him immediately from his early days as the Beetle.
“Paste Pot Pete,” Iron Man acknowledged. “Still shooting prematurely I see.”
“It’s Trapster now,” the criminal replied, “and you have no idea what you’re in for, hero.”
Twin coils wrapped around Iron Man from behind, clasping his arms to his sides. He strained the servos in his armor to break free, but the coils just wrapped even more tightly around him. The bands holding him in place appeared to be made of some kind of dense metal, even denser than his chest plate. The coils scraped against his armor, tightening more and more.
“You said it, Trapster,” a voice behind Iron Man, belonging to his captor, said malevolently. “Our first job and we get to take down someone who just came back from the dead.”
The long coils picked Iron Man up into the air and twisted him enough so that he could see the one that had snared him. The black bodysuit had an orange pattern down the center, mimicking the snake that the villain had taken his name from.
“Constrictor,” Iron Man said. “What are you doing hanging around with this bum? You used to have some class.”
“Oh, me and Pete go way back,” the Constrictor answered with a sinister smile. “We’re practically family, you might say. But you’ve got bigger things to worry about, my friend. Like…her.”
Constrictor, with his mastery over the coils that jetted out from the tops of his arms, forced Iron Man to spin back around and look dead on into a fist smashing into his helmet. The strike was powerful enough to make him loopy for a split second, even through the protection the helmet offered. He was sure the punch had dented the helmet slightly.
“At a girl!” Trapster cheered.
Iron Man, still a little groggy from the unexpected hit, looked up to see just who exactly had struck him. From the strength of the impact he had expected to see the Hulk standing in front of him, but instead he saw a goddess on Earth. She had to be at least seven feet tall, with an athletic build that most women would kill for. Her purple costume was barely covering her, and made her look more like a dominatrix than a supervillain.
“Titania, baby,” Constrictor said, “you’re the best thing to come into my life in a long time.”
“Don’t mention it,” Titania replied as she cracked her knuckles. “Seriously. Don’t mention it again or I’ll rip those phallic symbols right out of you.”
“Children, children!” yet another person said as he strode into the room. “My thanks for dutifully securing our intruder in a hasty fashion, but please…keep the squabbling to a minimum.”
As soon as the last person entered the room he finally figured out. This wasn’t some hodgepodge of bad guys that had decided to storm Stark Tower. No…these four characters all had one thing in common: they were all once a part of the Frightful Four. Abe felt like he was going to start sweating regardless of his armor’s cooling systems. Things just went from bad to extraordinarily worse.
“Now, as first order of business,” the Wizard said, “I move that we exterminate this so-called ‘hero’ and peel back the tin suit to see who’s actually in there. Of course, we have a job to do…but there’s always time for a bit of fun.”
His head was reeling, he was immobilized, and he was cut off from the outside world. There was no cavalry coming. He was on his own with four villains that were known for being vicious enough to tear apart their opposition.
Abe Jenkins almost wanted to take his helmet off and tell them who he was…but with the look the Frightful Four had on their faces, he doubted it would make any difference. They were out for blood, and like a deer in headlights, he was in their sights.
NEXT ISSUE: Why have the Frightful Four taken over Stark Tower? And what happened to Rhodey and Rumiko? Plus, don’t count out Agent 13!