Iron Man Vol 4 - Issue 20 - The Hulk is looking for Tony Stark. He heads to a Helicarrier and finds Dugan in charge of the ship. Hulk offers to leave them alone if he can find Stark. Dugan lets Hulk go because there is no sure way to stop him. After Hulk leaves, Dugan discusses a plan, then Tony, a prisoner with an obedience disk contacts Dugan through his helmet. Tony tells Dugan of a Doomsday plan of planting transmitters around Manhattan that creates a portal to the Negative zone. When positive matter hits the negative matter, it will be annihilated. Tony is shut down and Dugan starts on the plan. Continued in World War Hulk.
Issue 21 - The Initiative heroes Paragon and Gadget check on an abandoned water pump facility and find Graviton. Then we go back to Stark Tower, NY. Tony awakes and thinks he sees Captain America. He attacks. Cap says the language is Malukkian (the alien dragons that Mandarin stole the rings from their ship). Tony awakes from his dream. Tony goes to the Secretary of Defense's office in Washington, D.C. and tells him the information is Malukkian and only the Mandarin knows the language. He says Mandarin is dead. Tony says that the body was not recovered but a John Doe showed up without hands a few months later and held under the highest security. Artifacts were located, 10 rings in hopes of making an alliance. But, Mandarin works alone. Tony thinks all the other things are a ruse for Mandarin to get his "hands" on Extremis. Iron Man visits Nebraska and Paragon who is in the hospital. Gadget is missing. Iron Man questions Paragon and sends out agents to where this happened. Gadget is presumably found crushed into a ball. We go to the Mandarin who is talking to an alive Maya Hansen about using Extremis to heal the sick of the world, experiments are seen going on in lab.
Issue 22 - Tony wants Graviton woken up from sedation and questioned. Iron Man as Director of SHIELD shuts down the Nebraska Initiative until more info can be gathered. Captain Ultra argues. Graviton is awake and Iron Man questions him. He talks about the dead talking to him and being taken and his power used against his will. IM believes him. We see Mandarin talking to the Secretary of Defense. Since Captain America was killed, Extremis trials, now human ones are underway to find a replacement. Iron Man looks over Gadget's room and hard drive, realizing the one behind Gadget was Paragon. He confronts Paragon, then gets attacked by Captain Ultra, and IM puts him down and Paragon escapes. Mandarin seems to be influencing all of this.
Issue 23 - Paragon's mom died, and he blames the Mandarin. They fight and Mandarin seems to have the rings embedded in his back along his spinal column. He defeats Paragon and tells him Graviton is to blame. Paragon attacks Graviton in the SHIELD facility. Graviton fights back and crushes Paragon. Iron Man comes in and Graviton dies apparently causing a cerebral hemorrhage in himself. Iron Man presents before the Commission on Superhuman Activities. Iron Man is not through with the investigation but the committee thinks he should be with Norman Osborn opposed to Iron Man. Iron Man tells how Gadget found there were more missing people than normal and Graviton was released as a distraction. Temujin tells Maya that 2.5% of Extremis survives. And, they are proceeding forward. Leonard Samson shows up and evaluates Tony Stark and recommends a leave of absence for 2 weeks with an ankle inhibitor device. Tony heads to Omaha for hunting and asks that the classic be sent to him.
Issue 24 - Tony still investigates when he sees Sal talking to him about drug development and their stages. The hallucination is gone. Sampson cannot get ahold of Stark. Sampson turns to Captain Ultra that Stark is missing and needs his help. The airborne version is not going well as if it gets into the environment, 97.5% will die of a pandemic. But, Maya programmed a cell death component that will self terminate if not coming in contact with a person. That way only the person using the inhaler is affected. Back in Omaha, Tony and Dugan have breakfast and find the missing people were abducted following the numbers that would be required for drug testing. He sends Dugan on a task to check the genetic comparisons of the missing. Tony's at the airport receiving his package, the old classic Model IV armor. He gets attacked by an Extremis enhanced person. He only has the helmet and a glove on and fights back until he gets beaten down, then Sampson and Captain Utlra comes to help out. This gives Tony time to armor up and put down the bad guy (who is a mentally handicaped person who went missing 6 months ago). They all share a genetic component, they are immune to the violent effects of the Extremis virus.
Issue 25 - Tem Borjigin meets with Maya in Nebraska at Prometheus GenTech, Inc. He tells her that the safeguards of the air born Extremis virus has to be removed or detailed and given to the Department of Defense of the US government. If not, the project will be cancelled, 400 people fired and the cure for diseases will not come to pass. She at first refuses because of the 97.5% mortality rate. But, with all in jeopardy she will consider it. Doc Sampson and Tony talk over the chances of this being the Mandarin in control of the Extremis virus and how many people are at risk if he has a biological weapon. Sampson is afraid to give Tony a release because he might be schizophrenic, because he has heard dead people's voices recently. They have given Tony information about the cases and offered new ways to look at things. And, they were right, never fantastical or unrealistic visions or harmful ones. Samson offers that it may be Extremis' way of helping Tony's brain process all the information it has already run through, and it is coming in the form of messengers that have died recently. Except for Maya, leading Tony to realize she is still alive. Maya calls Jack Kooning, Sec. of Defense and complains about asking for the removal of the safeguards. He denies it. And tells her to stand down because it is not authorized. Iron Man and Doc Sampson visit Jack and asks where is Maya. He continues to lie and say she is dead. But, they convince him to tell the truth. This was a way to reproduce the Super Soldier formula and replace Captain America who died at the end of Civil War. Tony convinces him that he's been manipulated by the Mandarin to invest in reproducing a biological weapon. Iron Man orders SHIELD to head out to Nebraska and Iron Man takes off. Maya visits the facility and finds Lab 19 with all the experimental human Extremis enhancements. The Mandarin tells her of his vision to kill billions but have millions live and remove disease and spark a new human evolution. She and others have the gene that makes them the ones that will survive. Mandarin does not but he is okay with jump starting mankind at his and others expense.
Iron Man Vol 4 - Issue 26 - Iron Man gets to Nebraska and fights the Mandarin in the classic Model IV armor. Mandarin releases the enhanced humans. And, Iron Man orders the release of a nuclear bomb (EVH) that he designed that will contain any Extremis virus and remove any nuclear fall-out. It is released. Tony tries to escape.
Issue 27 - Iron Man is thrown miles away from the blast area. The Airforce and Army escort Iron Man and the Helicarrier to an Airforce base. Maya Henson was also thrown free miles in a field. Tony Stark talks to Maya and says that the Mandarin was Tem and that everyone was duped. The Mandarin has cracked her safety net and no longer needs her, but the government still needs the code. Meanwhile Tony Stark and SHIELD are being questioned by the Security Council of the United Nations. Doc Sampson is being grilled. He tells them that Tony Stark was forced to destroy Prometheus to prevent a 97.5% mortality rate of the Extremis virus. The Mandarin is loose with a weaponized version of the virus and are wasting hours of time talking about it. And, Jack Kooning is missing since Iron Man and Doc Sampson visited him. He is now in Myanmar, Maya's being shown video of Dr. Shearing, the lead geneticist who says he cracked the safeguard. He was captured a hour ago. It has been mass produced before the attack. Tony says he needs the mapping of the virus. She does it and gives it to the Mandarin who has been manipulating her. They are in Nei Mongol Province, China. Now he has what he needs to remove the safe guards on the virus. I-Clime Labs, Inc. are producing missiles for the virus payload.
Issue 28 - Jack Kooning has asked Xang, an old military buddy to help him stop the Mandarin and then he will turn himself in. Wolfman Jack Kooning jumps out of a plane. He asks for 4 and a spotter to get to the Mandarin. Tientsen, China Tem Borjign's country estate. The group prepares to strike the Mandarin, then a bolt of lightning. The spotter and other support are now stone statues. The Mandarin is there and he breaks Jack's hand and has his head removed from his shoulders. Mandarin owns 700 companies around the world and 400 in China. In China, it makes it more difficult. The Joint Session of the U.N. calls them back. The Council find that Tony Stark, Dugan, Hill, are guilty of violating the Superhero Registration Act and terminates Tony Stark as Director of SHIELD. Dugan calls for trap door, and Maria Hill as the new acting Director secures the U.N. and enacts a safety protocol with the Mandarin holding a W.M.D. They remove Stark and secure the U.N. They get Tony a change of clothes. It's the Silver Centurion armor. It finds Maya in China and breaks into her psychiatric room and gets her out. Dugan gives Tony new info and Mandarin's location lets him know Jack Kooning is dead. The vision of rain, looks for climate control finds I-Clime, Inc. The Silver Armor breaks through and finds the Mandarin. They fight. IM fries two fingers off and realizes the rings are not on his hands but his spine. Mandarin gets Iron Man by the neck. Iron Man reaches his spine and plucks five of the rings out. Mandarin breaks Iron Man's arm through the armor. Iron Man knocks him down. I-Climb 200 weather rockets are launching now. Iron Man blasts Mandarin unconscious. He removes his boot to get the power dampener off. He burns off part of his foot to remove the ankle ring since it is encased in adamantium. Now he can use his Extremis abilities to find the right frequency. He reprograms them to go up into the Jet Stream where the extreme cold kill the virus. Mandarin makes one more attack to open a drum of the virus, and IM uses the Freon stream to freeze it inactivating it. Tony passes out and wakes up in a hotel room with Timothy Dugan. He is a hero again and saved most of the human race reinstated as Director of SHIELD. In Bejing, China, they cut open a husk, it is empty. The Mandarin is gone.
Issue 29 - Tony is back in the field with his normal Iron Man Extremis armor and his alpha team in Iron Man armor going in with SHIELD to Kirikhstan to hunt down nuclear devices. One of the alpha team finds one and it goes off. Iron Man finds another and defuses it. It is microscopic and takes his unique talents to defuse it. Then they get a video call from the terrorist who did it, Tony knows him as Nasim Rahimov. Meanwhile in Washington, D.C. Nicholas Weir gets access to the Overkill Horn, an abandoned device that can set off nuclear devices. He unleashes a nanobot cloudy that reconfigures the weapon but loses control and barely escapes.
Issue 30 - Tony remembers his relationship with Nasim - they worked on microcircuitry together. Then, when the Soviet Union fell, Kirkhstan was free and then the government stole his money and killed his wife. Stark used the technology for his own company. Meanwhile in Washington D.C. the Overkill mind takes Weir and adds him to it. It needs a human command. They make a deal to work together. IM takes the alpha less Gomez and go after the micro nuclear devices. S.H.I.E.L.D. Strategic, Hazard, Intervention, Espionage, Logistics, Directorate is 2 miles up. Devices contained, looking for Nasim Rahimov, when Paladin shows up claiming to be the right hand guy. He gives a holographic message from Rahimov, then zaps the Iron Man armor disabling it. Paladin didn't do it, Rahimov had access to the microcircuitry designs from long ago. Now the Helicarrier is under attack from the Overkill mind.
Issue 31 - Iron Man is out of power and the Helicarrier is calling for Stark. Iron Man uses his Extremis abilities to restart the armor. He disables Paladin and rescues the Alpha team and sends them back. Tim Dugan takes the Grunts and goes after the Overkill mind to gather intel, his Flying Commandos. The two Alphas take point and Overkill mind changes Weir to advance him and gets the Y command. It kills the pilots and takes control of their suits of armor to attack the commandos. Iron Man has secured the thumbnail nukes and made Paladin unconscious ready for pick-up. Dugan's flight pack is shot, IM rescues him. IM deactivates the armor - sends them back to the Helicarrier. IM talks to the machine. He thinks its Rahimov, but Nick Weir cries out. The other Nick is mad. IM tries to control the Overkill mind but can't because of Weir. Weir takes control of the SHIELD arsenal and sets a countdown to fire them.
Issue 32 - The Helicarrier has a denote signal going off in 2 and 1/2 minutes all nuclear and biological weapons. Iron Man is fighting the Overkill Mind. He goes further and further and finally finds Weir as integrated into the nanomachine. IM talks to Weir who seems drugged, not aware. But then the nanomachines talk to Stark. They can't get to him and he can't get to them due to the human element they control. IM begins to hit Weir trying to get him to respond. He does and tells the Overkill mind to disengage. It argues but complies. Iron Man cuts him out of the nanobots. Paladin has turned back to SHIELD and so has Weir, he wants to help. Iron Man and the two Alphas left begin to evacuate the area and Tony goes to the Rahimov family mansion now a husk of its former self. Nasim is in a wheelchair. The thumbnail nukes are at the mansion and at 3 other sites: the courthouse, the plaza, and the Stalin building. He plans to get revenge on his tormentors and then take himself out. Around his wheelchair is an electronic dead zone the IM cannot touch. So Tony calls SHIELD to go scorched earth and the Overkill Mind detonates Rahimov's nukes at the house. Iron Man survives, Rahimove does not.
Issue 33 - Tony's in the Savage Land and a Stark Tech virus is activated and anything with Stark Tech begins to fail including Iron Man, SHIELD, and other technologies. Rhodey gets a message from Tony Stark telling him that he's the only one left with armor that is working - War Machine, everything else has failed. The Skrulls have replaced key humans and superhumans. He cannot trust anyone. He heads to space but is attacked by a Super Skrull (Comet Skrull). He shakes him into reentry and into the Skrull ship. Then Rhodey heads back to a space station. He meets Suzi Endo, the new Cybermancer. Cybermancer hooks Rhodey into the satelite and it transforms into a giant robot.
Issue 34 - The Skrulls begin to combine. The satellite War Machine fights back. He defeats the Skrulls but one gets away. He has to go after it in his War Machine regular armor. Rhodey heads out. He reaches the ship and blows it away. He is over Russia where the Winter Guard is having trouble keeping Skrulls away from a nuclear weapons depot. Rhodey helps the Winter Guard, but they don't want the help. They have orders to take care of it alone. So, they leave Rhodey alone to fight. Rhodey gets taken out by the Skrulls and is taken to a lab to be dissected.
Issue 35 - Rhodey is a cyborg from a lot of past injuries, half his face, his arms, and his legs are all mechanical. The Skrulls finally have removed the armor and begin to dissect him. Rhodey fires a laser from his right cyborg eye. He blasts them and uses his mechanical hands to break the restraints. He pulls himself to his helmet and chest piece as the alarm sounds. They burst in and the War Machine blasts them. Then he contacts Cybermancer, and she has deciphered enough commands that Rhodey getting to a terminal may be able to stem the tide. The Skrull ship controlled by Rhodey/Cybermancer take out two Skrull ships. And, the other Skrull ships take out the one controlled by War Machine. Crimson Dynamo and Darkstar see three ships destroyed in minutes and ignore Russian orders. They join War Machine now. Darkstar has an idea. Crimson Dynamo and War Machine fly through her power and break through the ships in the sky. It has freed the area. There are two Super Skrulls with Nazi super powers beating Ursa Major and Red Guardian until War Machine and Crimson Dynamo join the fight and defeat them. This rallies the Russian troops. One of the Skrulls turn to energy to set off the nuclear warheads. War Machine absorbs all his energy then escapes into space, exploding. War Machine released the power and is back in Russia. The Russian Air Force want to take him into custody but Crimson Dynamo turns them away and sends War Machine on his way.
