Iron Man #10

Issue Details

Synopsis

Russia. The battle is still going on. Only this time, the space station has itself joined the fight. As it rains down fire upon the heroes, Black Widow and the Winter Guard continue to fight Mandarin’s forces. This is when the Avengers enter the battlefield. Captain America deploys his soldiers around the area and asks Scarlet Witch to summon Wonder Man back from the dead. As she does it, Cap instructs Wonder Man and some other superheroes to break into the Mandarin’s ship.Inside the ship, Mandarin has Tony unmasked, and secured in place with metal bonds. He rouses Tony from his coma. Tony asks him how he escaped death. Mandarin answers that the last time they clashed, Mandarin was trying to control the mystic Heart of Darkness. But Tony infected him with techno organic virus, which caused the Heart to reject him. Mandarin thought that he himself had died, but found himself in the position of a lowly janitor inside the Stark Industries. Now that his memories have returned, Mandarin wants to take back China to imperial days, an era of ruthless domination and slavery. Tony asks him why he has chosen Russia. Mandarin says that it will serve as his power base and also ruling the country would be fitting. Tony thinks what might be Mandarin’s real motive, but fails to get it.Elsewhere, Madame Masque works inside her command centre when she is most rudely interrupted. A woman points a gun at her and shoots her at point blank range. As Masque falls, the assailant picks up her face plate and dons it herself.Back in Russia, the battle rages in full force. Below, on the battlefield, Captain America and some of the Winter Guards carry on their attacks on the armed vehicles, while above them, other Avengers and Winter Guards assault the mothership. Most of the Avengers’ attacks fail to blemish the ship. Even phasing superheroes don’t fare good against the ship’s defense systems. Vostok, Winter Guard android, is hit by a blast, but before he falls, he reports that Mandarin...