Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster Friedrich Nietzsche If he lives there’s no telling how dangerous he may be I pray that we aren’t tackling something too big for us to cope with Stan Lee Tales to Astonish 12
Prologue Have you ever had one of those days You know the kind The kind of day where you’re off doing your own thing one minute and the next you find yourself soaring over the Pacific Ocean via repulsor power in a desperate race against time to extinguish an oil-rig fire We’ve all had that kind of day right That’s precisely what Tony Stark was thinking from inside the Iron Man armor Not an hour ago he had received a distress call from the Coast Guard Captain America and the other Avengers were elsewhere engaged in a battle against a subterranean 1
creature called the Minotaur With the rest of the team busy and with no one else available to handle the emergency Stark donned his armor and took to the skies to fight fire with iron Fighting an oil rig fire may not be as fun as fighting the Minotaur Tony thought to himself But it's not nearly as embarrassing as having to tell everyone that I fought a guy who calls himself the Minotaur Up ahead he could see thick black smoke on the horizon The oil rig in question belonged to a company called Roxxon Tony had dealt with Roxxon in the past they were a shady corporation engaged in lots of shady business They had even sponsored the creation of some Super Villains like Orka and Manticore For all Tony knew the oil rig might not even really be an oil rig Maybe it a cover for some ominous experiment Nah Tony thought I'm just being paranoid But remember what they say Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you Rerouting power reserves to his repulsors Iron 2
Man accelerated toward the billowing clouds of black smoke Soon the oil rig itself came into view growing closer with each passing second Iron Man came a voice over Tony’s communications system The sudden unexpected sound startled Tony This is Iron Man I’m not here right now so if you could leave your name and number at the This is the Coast Guard said the voice urgently We’ve taken everyone off the rig except for one person They refuse to leave Can you save them Iron Man glanced at the ocean below and saw two Coast Guard cutters loaded with rescued oil workers They were heading away from the burning rig which loomed ahead of the armored Avenger flames burning brightly as the black smoke billowed upward The centerpiece of the rig was a tall tower Activating his visual scanners Iron Man could make out the figure of a person at the top of the tower waving their arms First stop the tower Iron Man said He flew 3
