It was seven o’clock and Tony Stark was dressed in a black tuxedo with a bow tie on. He was in the basement of Stark Solutions and he was late for the Maria Stark Foundations Charity Ball for the homeless. He was supposed to be there with a robot double of Iron Man, to raise money for homeless shelters. His day was spent with his latest one night stand, Anastasia Swift, a night of hot sex and hotter love. When he looked at his watch, knowing that he would be late, he told her that he had to go and he would meet her at the Charity Ball.

Right now, he sits in his lounge swivel chair in his basement laboratory and talks with his sentient computer/ artifical intelligence and another current love interest who satisfies his every sexual fantasy.

He presses a stud on his computer console and Jocasta comes to life.

“Hello, Master Tony, what shall I do for you now?” she asks him, appearing before him in a tight business suit, sitting on his lap.

“I need to test the newest Iron Man armor for his combatant. I need War Machine.”

“|Right, Master Tony. As always, Tony.”

The image kisses him on the lips and then discorporates into the computer mainframe. She appears on the screen and begins the process.

Tony realizes, breathes in and out, and places the VR equipment on his head. He plugs it in.

There is a large explosion in the other side of the basement wall and War Machine appears. The robot warrior is clad in his usual grey and white armor. He points his arm at Tony, who is by now asleep, and extends his machine gun at him.

“I’m sick and tired of being second string to the high and mighty Iron Man! Now my pain ends. Now yours begins! Die, Tony!!”

Before the ersatz War Machine can pull the trigger of the big machine gun, an amber and crimson hand reaches out from the darkness to grab his and twists it to the ceiling above him. The weapon discharges and punches a hole into the ceiling.

‘Jim Rhodes is way cooler than you.”

The newly arrived armor of Iron Man punches War machine squarely in the jaw, downing him. War machine writhes on the ground in mock pain and injury until he eventually dies a robotic death.

“You did good, boss,” Rhodes says, as he enters from the darkness and the soot and dirt that the battle causes. “|I particularly liked the part where you said I was cooler than the present War Machine.”

Tony took off the VR equipment and unhooked it. “I thought you might. Now we might as well get on to the benefit.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“I’ll get it, boss.” Rhodes answered the red emergency phone. After a quick conversation, he hung up the phone and turned to Tony.

“What was that all about?”

“You are not going to believe it.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, Remember that guy Psi-bot that was part of the Drug Mutants under the fatherly wing of the King Snake in Harlem. It seems that after his fight with the Thing, Code :Blue, and Crisis and Sonik he went to the Vault with the rest of the Drug Mutants and soon escaped. He is tearing up the city. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll go as I.M. immediately. I want you to go to the benefit with one of my LMDs. No reason why Stark shouldn’t be at the benefit.”

Iron Man flies over the skies of New York, making his way down to Harlem where Psi-bot and the rest of the Drug Mutants are headquartered. He knows that this will ensue in a fight, a battle or clash of titans, but he also knows that it is inevitable. He sometimes relishes in the thrill of the hunt and the fight itself.

Hitting Harlem through its south side, he sees a trail of debris that shows him where the path of destruction’s origin is. He turns on his infrared scope to see where Psi-bot may be. He scans left and right, north and south, but he finds nary a Psi-bot.

The one person or persons who may know how to fight this Psi-bot is Crisis and Sonik but they are busy battling Klaw and his new team of super criminals. *

(*See Cap #14—shameless plugging Gregg.)

He does though see a bunch of figures entering and some exiting a what he thinks is a crack house. Those that are exiting are drugged out teens and the ones that are entering are members of the special task force, Code:Blue.

“This does not look good,” Iron Man says to himself, as he makes a swift left arc and lands in the street. “I better see what this is all about. This may lead to Psi-bot and the rest of the Drug Mutants.”

As he approaches the crack house, a young drugged out African American teen trips over himself and slams face first into Iron Man’s iron clad armor. The Golden Avenger picks him up, sets him right, and asks for an explanation of what is going on here.

“Can’t you tell, suh?! It’s a war between those Drug Mutants and Code: Blue. Where are Crisis and Sonik to save us from this senseless bloodshed?”

“Don’t worry, I’m here. I should be enough to handle these mutants.”

Iron Man points to a Red Cross truck pulling up as the teen goes looking for medical attention and he runs into the crack house. There is a loud, large explosion and then, seconds later, Iron Man is propelled out of the building and slams against a couple of idle vehicles.

“That may not have been one of my best strategy moves,” Iron Man said.

Suddenly, Psi-bot charged out of the crack house with a couple Code: Blue agents close behind him, obviously with one thing on their mind. To kill Iron Man. He had erected his machine gun in one of his robot hands, aiming it at the Golden Avenger’s heart. Iron Man may not have as many heart troubles as he did before but Psi-bot was certain to make sure he did now.

Psi-bot aimed the weapon again and fired it at the torso of Iron Man. It seems that Iron Man was injured from his previous attack and this only confirmed it.

“What—what did you do to me?” Iron Man managed to get out, stuttering a little.

“Simple, my dear Iron Man. I transfigured an explosive device on the tips of the bullets of this machine gun so that when it struck its target, that’s you, you went kablooey!”

Iron Man’s armor needed repairs quickly before he comes locked within that armor forever. Or he shatters his heart again. And the only place where he could get people to repair it or repair himself was back at Stark Solutions in Manhattan. Harlem was a long way off.

Iron Man hit his jet thrusters and he was off towards base. And all Code: Blue and the innocent citizenry of Harlem could wonder was how could a super hero abandon them in their time of peril?

Later, at Stark Solutions…

Tony Stark had by now taken off his battle-ridden armor and was applying the final touches on repairing it. He had rolled in a huge machine into his basement factory and pressed a computerized stud on its mainframe console. Then, a laser escaped the gaping hole in it and started to literally sew up the damages to the armor plating that protected him from foreign attacks.

“Any luck, Tony?” Pepper Potts said, entering the enclosed room along with Harold ‘Happy’ Hogan, ex-boxer, ex-chauffeur to Tony Stark. Behind both of his dear friends was Jim |Rhodes, who went by the nom de geurre, Rhodey. He used to be War Machine but had given up the life, since then. Now, a new, more pompous black man had taken up the mantle of War Machine.

“Sorry, Pepper,” Tony said, after the laser had done its work on the armor, as he had lifted up the safety protection goggles that prevented him from feeling the backlash of the laser. “None so far. I have been able to repair is far more severe. It seems that this Psi-bot character has been packing the acute weaponry of a small army in his arsenal. Where did he get the money for these weapons and where was he able to get it?”

“I don’t know, Tony,” Rhodey said. “You said that he was a part of a larger group that fought the Thing of Fantastic Four fame called the Drug Mutants. It’s only logical that he made his money, selling and using drugs to minors.”

“We may have to contact Crisis and Sonik who have encountered these people in the past and enlist their aid in capturing them.”

At his penthouse apartment, the King Snake is surrounded by beautiful, naked women, all prostitutes. They were crawling on his large expansive bed, tasting his love.

When they were done having sex with this one man, the King Snake heard the door bust open. It was Iron Man, Crisis, Sonik, and various members of Code: Blue, including their leader, Stone.

When the King Snake saw the gig was up, he pulled his mink fur over his naked body, jumped out of bed, and flew out the window. The prostitutes scrambled for safety, some escaping, some not so much. There was one woman who was only wearing a gold watch and was apprehended by Crisis.

“It’s over, miss,” Crisis said, “you’re going downtown.”

“What should we do about the King Snake?” Sonik asked.

“Iron Man, if you would please,” Crisis said.

Giving the heads-up sign, Iron man used his jet thrusters to fly out the broken window to go after the King Snake. When he was in the open air, he used his vision to spy the King Snake standing on one of the roof tops, carrying a rifle and shooting blindly at the Golden Avenger. Iron Man fired his lasers at the rifle, shattering it into a million pieces.

Then, Sonik fired a sonic burst at the King |Snake, grazing his skull. Dazed, the drug dealer and pimp fell to the waiting earth below. Surprisingly enough, he landed on both feet.

Iron Man started to make a left arc to go after him, when he distinctly heard Crisis’ voice ring in his neuro-transmitters.

“Leave him. We’ll get him next time. We got what we came for,” Crisis said.

Iron Man nodded and returned to the apartment. He saw that Code: Blue were carting the unnamed female back to the station and Crisis and Sonik were left to clean the mess up.

“So, that’s it. No closure, no resolution,” Iron Man said.

“Oh, there will be closure but not now. You can’t expect to win them all.” Crisis led Iron Man and Sonik out the door. “So, I.M., what are you going to do now?”

“I have a date with a supermodel. And if I’m correct, she will be very disappointed if I’m late again.” Tony Stark frowned underneath his mask.