"Sir," the stuffy woman in the Armani pants suit said. "Are you sure you can afford this?"
Abner Jenkins walked out onto the wide open patio of the penthouse apartment. He breathed in the fresh air and looked over the edge of the building. Thirty floors was a long way down. It was a good thing he had conquered his fear of heights a long time ago.
"Would I be here if I couldn't?" he replied, not bothering to look back at her.
"No, of course not, sir. It's just…you asked me to find you a high-rise location, but not in this part of town. I just assumed that you'd like to start looking here to get an idea of what the other properties would look like."
"Is this penthouse not for sale?"
"It is, but I just thought—"
"How much?" Abe was studying the landscape carefully, deciding how to best go about getting through town in his own unique way.
"A little over four million."
Abe looked over his shoulder at her and raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said. "This is New York, after all. Guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It's probably cheap, considering the location. Times Square is only a dozen blocks from here."
"And the size brings the price down," the realtor commented. "Only two bedrooms and one bath. As you can see the patio more than makes up for it. Will it be just you here?"
"Yep. Just me. Listen, why don't you go get the right people on the phone and make this happen. I'd like to take a closer look around while you go get the paperwork in order. That okay?"
"Absolutely, Mr. Simmons."
The realtor went back to the private elevator and left the penthouse suite, leaving Abe by himself to wander through his purchase. It would take some time until it was his, of course, what with closing costs and all. The recent economic downfall was largely attributed to the crash of the housing market, which resulted in more red tape when purchasing property.
In thirty days the penthouse would officially be his and he would be free to make all the necessary upgrades. It might seem small but by New York City standards it was luxurious. Once he was done modifying the spare bedroom into his workshop he would be able to continue operating as his armored alter ego.
Given his criminal history, there was no way he was going to get a large bank loan approved under the name Abner Jenkins. That's why he had squeezed an old friend, a loan provider with one of the bigger companies in the city, into approving him under one of his old aliases.
He may be a reformed criminal, but the rest of the world didn't need to know that. Especially since he was also Iron Man.
Keeping up with the mortgage wouldn't be a problem, either. Not after Mainframe had pulled through for him by sticking it to Justin Hammer one final time.
Apparently the artificial intelligence based off of the late Tony Stark's engrams had seen fit to relieve Hammer of his illegal offshore accounts before being wiped. Thanks to Mainframe, Abner was now a rich man. Half of the money was moved to a cancer research clinic, a fourth to a Stark/Fujikawa subsidiary company, and the other fourth to Abner's own offshore account.
He imagined that Hammer's face had a constant look of irritation plastered on it. Not only was he behind bars, but he was only half as filthy rich as he had been before. On top of that there was no way he could claim the theft, since the funds were unknown to the IRS in the first place, given that they were accrued through his various criminal activities.
Abe doubted that Hammer would be in prison much longer, since his a-list team of lawyers were working around the clock to get him out on bail. When he was released, he was bound to come after him. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
Looking around the penthouse, Abe realized that he was on his own again. Mainframe was gone. James Rhodes was halfway around the world. Plus, he was going to need to make some more changes to the armor if he was planning on flying in and out of here.
"Maybe it's time Iron Man made some more connections," he muttered aloud.
IRON MAN
Issue #13 written by D. Golightly
"The New Iron Age – Part One of Five"
"I'm sorry, sir, it seems we have a bad connection."
Rhodes switched off his webcam and shut his laptop with more than a bit of effort. He hated working like this, and he especially hated it when people called him 'sir.' But this was how it had to be for now.
With the potential dissolve of Stark/Fujikawa already underway, James Rhodes had to do whatever was necessary to keep Tony Stark's company from being shut down for good. Because of contract law forced by the government when Kenjiro Fujikawa purchased Stark Enterprises the company was in serious trouble.
Kenjiro was dead, and his untimely death was also a legal loophole for other companies to begin hostile takeovers. Before his death Kenjiro had put into motion several projects that might provide enough revenue for the company to buy out its own shareholders, once more making it a private company.
Unfortunately for Rhodes, those projects were being operated out of Madripoor.
Madripoor was located off of Southeast Asia. It was widely regarded as a slum country, housing criminals of all calibers because of their lack of extradition treaties with any other country. For that reason it was also cheap to operate a company out of.
Madripoor also suffered from unsecured connections, making it often difficult for him to do live web conferences with the New York office. Kenjiro hadn't finished construction of the Madripoor office yet, which was quickly becoming a thorn in Rhodes' side.
Stark Tower in New York was still maintaining basic operations, but Rhodes had to personally oversee the projects in Madripoor. They were the only shot at saving what was left of Tony Stark's legacy. He would have preferred to be back in New York, especially since that was where Abe was.
He admitted that Abe had come a long way since donning the armor. While he might not tell the ex-con that in person, he assumed that it wasn't necessary to say it out loud. Abe had done a lot to get out from under Tony Stark's long shadow, and even though Rhodes wished he was still tapped into Abe's ear piece, he knew that the man was capable of continuing on his own.
Rhodes opened his laptop, sighed, and reestablished the webcam connection. He wondered how long it would take him to get out of Tony's shadow himself.
Iron Man soared over New York City. In broad daylight, the constant flow of foot traffic would have delayed him for hours if he had decided to commute like everyone else. Instead, the open skies allowed him a clear shot to his destination. After a quick detour for some equipment testing.
"Alrighty," he said. "Let's give this a whirl."
Pulling back the throttle on his boot jets, Iron Man looped back over in a somersault and pointed his trajectory straight up. He let the anti-gravity engine take over, catapulting him up into the upper atmosphere. The gyroscopes kept him on target, ensuring that he didn't waver in his flight.
Reaching the ionosphere, Iron Man relaxed the jet burn toned down the anti-grav engine. His momentum in the thinner atmosphere would be more than enough to get him to the height he was trying to reach.
Swapping through various options in his heads-up-display, Iron Man switched on his personal force field to add more resistance to the vacuum of space. A peculiar icing problem would also stop his ascent if he didn't use the second-skin force field to provide insulation.
"That should be high enough," he said as he switched off his boot jets and floated on the fringes of Earth's atmosphere.
Iron Man diverted resources from most of his armor's systems to the uni-beam projector mounted on his chest. His HUD told him when the charge was ready, and making sure that his long range sensors told him the way was clear, he fired.
The uni-beam sliced through open space. The readings were off the scale, marking this as the most powerful blast he had yet been able to unleash. His monitors told him that he needed to drop the output immediately, otherwise his power source may rupture.
Iron Man powered down the uni-beam, cutting off the powerful energy at its source. The beam instantly dissipated into space, harmlessly hurling through the cosmos until it diminished into nothingness.
He couldn't imagine the damage if he had fired the weapon in the city. He hadn't ever come across something like it before, and his modestly wasn't intact enough not to feel a swollen amount of pride.
"Not bad," he said. "Best test yet. I could get used to having a cosmic cube in my pocket."
The cube he had confiscated from Justin Hammer was by far the most exquisite power source he had ever come across. With more modifications to the armor he might have a better chance on controlling the cosmic cube, making the tests in the safety of outer space unnecessary.
Satisfied that he had run the armor through the required testing, Iron Man adjusted his pitch and flipped his boot jets back on. He descended through the atmosphere, letting gravity pull him in at an alarming rate. If it wasn't for his force field he might risk burning up from the friction.
As it stood, the latest version of the Iron Man defensive armor that he had built was better than any of the armor he had worn in the past, both as Iron Man and as the Beetle.
It had taken him nearly a month to incorporate the tech he had stolen from Hammer to his own designs. It was all based off of Starktech, of course, which made the amalgamated armor much easier to build. Tony Stark had been nothing short of a genius and if he had a chance while the inventor was still alive he would have told Stark that to his face.
This new armor could take a turn much tighter than the previous model, and the repulsors were twice as strong because of the cosmic cube. The force field was re-definable on several frequencies. The sonic emitter that Rumiko had been developing, which was in turn stolen by Hammer, was a nice addition that he had tinkered with a bit.
On top of that he had added a few other surprises that would have to wait for his next encounter with a supervillain. Of course, even though he was on his way to see a known supervillain, he didn't plan on blasting the door down.
Unless Felix Judd decided not to let him in.
"Dude, I really don't think this is the place we need to be calling a headquarters."
A trio of teenagers stepped out of an access hatch and onto a subway platform. The dank and dark surroundings encompassed them completely, giving an overbearing sense of morbidity.
"Why are you always so negative, Patriot?" a caped youth asked. "You don't Iron Lad complaining. It's not like we can go out and buy the Baxter Building."
"That's because Iron Lad didn't grow up where I did," Patriot replied. "The guy barely ever takes off his helmet, but I'm willing to bet he's never even been to my neighborhood."
"Asgardian is right," the armored Iron Lad said. "This place will suit our needs just fine. We need to keep low until we're ready for our debut anyway."
"Exactly!" the teenager called Asgardian exclaimed. "Plus, through these old tunnels we have access to most of the city! We can get around without being spotted." He moved to one of the walls, lifted a staff he rarely ever set down, and cast a blue glow over the wall. "We just clean up this graffiti, get some couches down here—"
The African American teenager called Patriot scoffed. "Sure, plus a Playstation and fifty inch flatscreen, right? Dude, this isn't an apartment. It's a superhero HQ. Grow up."
Asgardian shot Patriot a dirty look, but then doused the soft, blue flame at the tip of his staff. Iron Lad walked by them both and went to the edge of the platform, looking down the long and empty subway tunnel.
He raised his arm in front of his body and a holographic display appeared in front of him. His tapped at the air, signaling the display to run through various scans of the platform. Information scrolled by, casting a green hue over his red and white armor.
"Most of the access ways are sealed off from here," Iron Lad said. "That's good. It means a train won't barrel through here while we're working. We'll open our own entrances to the main tunnels." With a flick of his wrist the hologram disappeared and he turned to face the other two teenagers again. "Good work, Asgardian."
"So what's our first move, fearless leader?" Patriot asked. "Let me guess. You already have it planned out."
"Just about, yes. Once we get our headquarters up and running then the world will be ready for its newest breed of hero."
"Good," Patriot replied. "We already came back in time to find out that we were too late, and now we're stuck here. I'm willing to stick this out with you guys, but we need to get moving. This world is just as bad as the one we left. Worse even. If we're going to make a difference then it needs to be soon."
"Agreed," Iron Lad said with a nod. "I'll get to work immediately."
Asgardian raised his staff up over his head, saying, "Hell, yeah! Bad guys everywhere are going to be shaking in their boots when the world meets the Young Avengers!"
The villain called The Ghost was a hard man to track down. After Iron Man returned to New York he resumed his initial flight path. There were several locations that Felix Judd, aka The Ghost, could be hiding. For a man who had the technology to literally disappear and walk through walls, he was virtually impossible to find.
Abe had a few connections left in the underworld, though, which meant he had some possibilities to work with. Since learning about The Ghost's involvement in the kidnapping of Pepper Potts and the framing of Happy Hogan for her murder, Iron Man had been wondering if he could actually trust Felix Judd.
After all, he had let him go.*
* [All this came out at the end of IRON MAN #9 – D]
Iron Man hoped that simple fact would be enough for Felix Judd to trust him. The man was a literal mystery amongst supervillains. He had been a saboteur for hire and had never been unmasked before Abe came along. Since he let him go after discovering his involvement, he prayed that would allow him some common courtesy from The Ghost.
The Ghost's cloaking technology would be perfect for Iron Man to sneak around the city without worrying about SHIELD or Justin Hammer trying to track him down. The more he got into this hero thing, the more enemies he had gunning for him.
He recalled Tony Stark using similar stealth technology but didn't have the schematics for it. With Mainframe gone and Rhodes indisposed, he had to work this out on his own. Although, breaking into Stark Tower to retrieve the data was pretty tempting.
Not that he would ever do that. Not now. He was a different person. A whole new Abner Jenkins. Wasn't he?
The derelict building below him was coming up fast. The first of two locations that The Ghost might be hiding in, Iron Man proceeded carefully. He had been on the run before and knew that if a superhero came anywhere near him he might panic. He landed on the roof, fell into a kneeling position, and pressed his knuckles against the hard top.
One of the little gadgets he had incorporated into this new armor were remote drones. He had tinkered with something similar when he was The Beetle, modeling them after his green armor. The drones could take readings for him and sneak into areas he could never hope to get. In theory.
A pneumatic press hissed at the top of both of his gauntlets. Two tiny remote controlled drones shot out of the gauntlets and stabbed through the concrete roof. They punched into the building, one only a few floors and the other reaching into the basement.
Once at the correct depth, they relayed video feed back to Iron Man's HUD. "Nothing on visual," he said. "Let's try a biometric scan."
The drones spun in place, scanning the majority of the building from top to bottom. If The Ghost were hiding there, even if it was between solid matter, the scan would uncover his DNA. It was easy to bend light around you compared to hiding your own biology.
"Crap," he said. "Nothing."
He recalled the drones, which shot back up the chutes they had dug. He reconfirmed the information once they were reconnected in his gauntlets, although the result was the same. The building was completely vacant.
"That just leaves stop number two."
Just before Iron Man switched on his anti-grav engine to lift off the rooftop, his HUD blared an alarm. He fell into a defensive position and switched on his force field, sure that the drones had made a mistake. Apparently all the effort he had put into them was misplaced.
The display inside his helmet told him that a foreign energy signature had been calibrated to his position. He looked around, but the source of the signature couldn't be determined. He swapped through different light spectrums, but no trail emerged.
"Where the hell…"
ZZZ-WAP!
An explosion on the roof knocked him back a few feet, but he remained balanced and upright. He shielded his visor from the sudden blast of light, but his sensors told him that the energy wasn't able to penetrate his force field.
A shape slowly emerged out of the light, stalking toward him. It stepped out of the energy vortex, and as soon as the person had both feet on the roof, the energy vanished.
A portal. It had to be. Someone had just teleported in front of him, an unknown person that had yet to declare their intentions. Iron Man charged his repulsors, ready for a fight.
Until he saw who was standing in front of him.
"Hello, Iron Man," the armored figure said. The person stood just as tall as him and, amazingly, he wore armor very similar to his own. "I'd introduce myself, but I don't think you'll believe me."
Whoever this person was, he was wearing a version of the Iron Man defensive armor. A version he had never seen before. The signature hot rod red was there, but the gold color had been replaced by solid black. The uni-beam lens was shaped like a rectangle, and the helmet only had eye slots instead of the usual nose and mouth slots to accompany them.
"Try me," Abe replied. "You might be surprised."
"It's something you have to see rather than hear."
The newcomer reached up to his helmet, lifted the links in the side, and removed it. A shock of dark hair fell over his now bare forehead, just above his deep blue eyes. He had a mustache that matched his hair, and amazingly, Abe recognized the man.
"What's going on?" Iron Man demanded to know. "Who are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the newcomer said. "I'm Tony Stark."
As much as Abe wanted to refute the man's statement, given his appearance, it was hard to argue. He looked exactly like the man that Abe Jenkins had battled so many times, and had since come to replace.
In a world where it was just as common to come across your clone as it was bump into your neighbor, Abe was still skeptical. Tony Stark was dead. He, along with sixteen other people, had been killed during the altercation with Onslaught.
"We've learned that it's easiest to come to a new world by making contact with someone we can trust first," Stark said. "We tried it a few different ways, but trust me, after I show you what's next you'll start to understand. I know this is bizarre to you, because the information we recorded about this world says that Tony Stark doesn't exist anymore. Yet, here I am."
"We?"
Tony Stark replaced his helmet, sealing it back on with a hiss. "There are a few people I'd like you to meet. Iron Man 213 to the Citadel. Two for transport."
The same enigmatic energy that birthed the newcomer suddenly wrapped around both of them. Iron Man felt himself pulled in two different directions at once, but his armors sensors didn't seem to recognize an alarm.
His stomach flopped over and then in the blink of an eye the portal was gone. He shook the nausea from his head and looked at his new surroundings.
New York City was gone, replaced with what looked to be an operations center. A dozen armored individuals were spaced throughout the center, all of them wearing similar versions of Iron Man's armor.
"Holy shit," Abe muttered.
"Indeed." The black and red armored Iron Man stood beside him. He extended his arm toward the rest of the center as if ushering Abe into the facility. "Welcome to our ship, the Citadel."
"Ship?" Iron Man asked.
He turned around to see a huge view screen that had Earth centered in it. Empty space engulfed the planet, which meant it also engulfed him. He was in space, apparently on board a vessel that had a multitude of Iron Men.
"What, exactly, is going on?" Abe asked.
A bulkier Iron Man in gray armor stepped up to them. Magnetically attached to the back of his chestplate was a huge sword that Abe bet could slice through his armor with one strike. There was sense of aristocracy hanging around him, like he was accustomed to having his orders followed.
"We have journeyed from afar to save this world," the bulky Iron Man said. "I am called Ironheart. I believe you will find that you are amongst friends here. Please, relax, and let us explain."
"Explain what?"
"We're a collection," the red and black Iron Man said. "We each come from parallel dimensions, and it's our goal to save the world before it's destroyed."
"To this effect we have contacted you," Ironheart said. "You are invited, sir. Join us in the rebuilding of your world in Iron Man's image, and usher in the New Iron Age."
NEXT ISSUE: It's the beginning of the New Iron Age! Abe is introduced to various alternate versions of Tony Stark, all of whom share one single goal: to remake Earth in their own image! But what are their reasons, and can all of them be trusted? Plus, the Young Avengers hatch a plot of their own!