In Iron Man #12 we finally found out 451’s plan for Tony Stark. The reason Tony loves piloting armored suits? He was born to do it!
No, seriously. He was genetically engineered to be able to pilot a giant suit of armor (which graces the cover of this issue.) Not just any suit of armor though, but one that was able to do battle against, and decimate, The Celestials. Yes, The Secret Origin of Tony Stark continues in this issue and we find out some more juicy nuggets of information and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
While Tony gets a tour of the 5 mile tall monstrosity, we learn that The Celestials, while few in number now, used to have a populace that rivaled the stars in the sky. This single killing machine was able to slaughter them down to the numbers they exist at today. If it were able to be powered up once again they would not be able to put up a fight.
451’s goal for The Godkiller though, is to keep Earth safe with it. Sure he’s only had to completely kill at least 1 race and lie to Tony Stark and his parents in order to be able to pull this off. It’s a plan that has been years in the making but it’s something he feels that he has to do as humanity is vital to the future of all. Also he feels that right now, humanity will not be able to keep itself safe and since they are the only hope for the Universe they really have to survive. With The Godkiller as their guardian, no one would be able to threaten the planet.
While that’s all well and good, Tony is going to be the one piloting this machine and the good news ends for the pilot right there. It’s an extremely long life of not having any will of your own and just being an interface to the machine.
That doesn’t sound like something Tony is going to want to agree to. Fortunately he might not have to as just as things are progressing for the worst, someone intervenes on his behalf and it’s not one of The Avengers. Death’s Head is back!
Death’s Head isn’t coming to help for Tony’s good. When turning in another bounty, he learned that there is also a bounty on 451’s head from centuries ago. The Bounty is so high that he had to take his time and track down 451 to collect and that was the plan, at least until 451 hacked Death’s Head’s systems and shut him down.
While Tony is able to temporarily escape his armor, it told him he’d better make his last plan count since he won’t be Tony for much longer if it didn’t succeed. I don’t think we have much longer to find out the finale of this confrontation, and while I’ll be happy to see it conclude so that Tony can go on to lead into the Infinity story line, I’m going to miss Death’s Head. He’s a character I really wish they could figure out how to incorporate into the larger universe. Possibly the Guardians of the Galaxy could hire him for awhile?
IRON MAN #13
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Greg Land
