With an Iron Fist

• Writer - Judd Winick
• Artist - Kev Walker
• Colorist - Transparency Digital
• Lettering - Paul Tutrone
• Ass't Editor - Nova Suma
• Editor - Mike Raicht
• Editor - Mike Marts
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

Summary

  Stark doesn't believe the Weapon X team jumps realities and charges his repulsors.

  Gambit is team leader; Vision an android; Hulk an ex-bookkeeper for the mob; Angel a gun-toting assassin; Storm a 16-year-old weather witch and African ruler; Spider a man with a spider-bite and an alien symbiote for a suit.

  Weapon X says he's outnumbered, but then he activates automated gun turrets around the room, and they realize he could kill them all. Except Vision, as he points out.

  The Tallus tells Gambit that Stark killed his own father when he was 14, which nobody knows. That convinces him, and he takes them for a walk in his Rose Garden.

  Stark's forces haven't been able to break the G-barrier. Nukes might work, but he wants the Inhumans alive. Gambit knows a way to disengage it: Reed created a key in case the technology fell into the wrong hands.

  Vision zaps a guard with his eye beams, and Angel shoots another. Vision has detected then activating a neural dampener, and Stark apologizes: he failed to order them not to sneak attack. He impressed with Weapon X's initiative.

  Reed left the key with Wonder Man, who is a problem in this reality. Stark dropped a gamma bomb on the Hulk, creating so much radiation he couldn't absorb it. But Wonder Man was standing nearby and absorbed genetic matter as Hulk disintegrated. In killing one Hulk, he made a stronger one. Stark and he leave each other alone, and his companion, the Scarlet Witch, masks his location magically.

  But the Tallus knows things; Spider warns Stark not to steal it: Dr. Octopus tried it on another world and wound up as calamari. Stark warns them they can't defeat Wonder Man; Gambit says they just want to steal from him.

  In Hawaii, the Scarlet Witch asks Wonder Man about his meditations; he says he had nightmares, which may have been visions. They decide to go swimming and invite Dr. Strange, who has no legs, but he's busy translating an occult book.

  Weapon X watches from a distance; Spider says it's like a TV sitcom: a monster, a witch and a crippled sorcerer. Storm has talismans to break the Scarlet Witch's fortification spell. They enter while Strange is alone in the house, and Spider goops him, but he has a free hand and throws a beaded necklace, setting off the magical alarm.

  Vision detects anti-matter in the basement, so Gambit sends him and Angel to retrieve the key. The rest will try to outrun Wonder Man, but just then he enters and punches Hulk through the wall. He says he'll kill them; Hulk returns, and they wrestle on the beach.

  Vision phases through a steel door and brings Angel through, freaking him out. They find a room with a glowing green object.

  Gambit throws charged knives at Wonder Man, doing no damage. Storm uses lightning, but the Scarlet Witch emerges from the surf and zaps her; Spider catches her and holds a symbiote knife to her. That just angers Wonder Man, who Hulks up and swats him away from her.

  Gambit uses his "wild card": Stark's portable temporary portal to the Negative Zone. A vortex opens, and Gambit orders Hulk push Wonder Man through and Spider to throw her a tether. Spider doesn't comply, however, and Hulk threatens them as she is pulled in, too.

  Gambit realizes Spider only nerve-pitched the Scarlet Witch: he would never kill anyone who looks that good in a bikini. He asks why he didn't save Hulk; Spider says her weight would have pulled him in, and she tried to kill him during the Morlock mission.

  Colossus appears, saying he's their new member. Spider says it's Angel's turn to explain things to the newbie.

  Weapon X delivers the key to Stark.

  Black Bolt, alone on his throne, contemplates. His people are tired of running and joyless, and their children remember no other life. He's reading a book on Masada and determines not to let the Inhumans be hunted again.

  Note: Masada was a fortress in Israel, where Jews took their own lives rather than surrender to the Romans, 73 A.D.