Appearing in "Believe 4 of 5: Fear of the Void"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Unnamed scientist
- Unnamed Extremis subjects (Death)
- The Bride (First appearance)
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
- Iron Man Armor Model 44 (Heavy Duty Armor) (First appearance)
- Extremis virus
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Believe 4 of 5: Fear of the Void"
One year earlier, in the Paris catacombs, between walls scribbled with zodiac-like symbols, doctors struggle in vain to keep something alive.
In the present, Tony lets one of his girlfriends take off in a fast car. He pretends to Pepper that he can't tell his girls apart, except maybe her, as she's a redhead. He's tracked thirteen Extremis signals to the Paris catacombs, and reasons that since it'll be close quarters and many opponents he better don a heavy duty suit. To add to the challenge, his new A.I. is being difficult and stubborn. He enters the claustrophobic catacombs, and soon finds chunks of dead scientists - when twelve Extremis enhanced women attack him - their teeth and nails are sharp, and their bodies are carved with the same zodiac-like graffiti. A sole surviving scientist calls him to safety - the monstrous women wont cross specific symbols carved on the walls of his room. He explains they created the women as vessels for the great black infinite, and Tony can only rolls his eyes at what the men's superstition has brought them - demons. The scientist shoots him to protect the Extremis kit, but Iron Man's shields deflect the shot, breaking the protective wall. The women then killed the scientist.
Afraid he can't outrun the beasts before they tear him up, Iron Man quickly orders his suit to copy the wall symbols with a laser and cut a protective circle around himself; they passively kneel down. Iron Man contemplates the fates and identities of the women, and with a heavy heart he begins to put down the monsters, blasting the heads clean off with a strong repulsor blast. He orders the suit to kill the remaining eleven. He finds the thirteenth, sitting passively in another room, covered in dust and cobwebs. As she is not violent, he decides to have her incarcerated in the Raft's psychiatric wing.
Back home, Tony is still shaken, so bad he's eying the Scotch rack longingly. He wonders if he too, treats people like things. Pepper says it's mostly when he's not thinking - he then thanks Pepper for being in his life. At the Raft, the Extremis-enhanced woman hums to herself, happily rubbing her swelling belly.
Solicit Synopsis
• The new Iron Man heavy-duty battle-suit debuts. The least subtle Iron Man armor of all time!
• Tony’s hunt for Extremis takes him to the ancient Catacombs of Paris where absolute horror awaits him!
• Things man was not meant to know Vs. the man who wants to know everything.Notes
Legacy Numbering[]
- Based on the Marvel Legacy renumbering infographic, this issue is Iron Man #534
Trivia
- The strange writing that The Bride obeys and speaks in is in the Theban script, a constructed alphabet favored by a number of real-world Wiccans. What The Bride says in the last three panels can be roughly transliterated to: "Oh darkness, the infinite darkness, it quickens."