Iron Man 2

CHAPTER 1

A massive aircraft soared through the sky. Below it, lights flashed and people screamed. When Iron Man tipped himself out of the cargo door of the plane and began soaring towards the ground, an observer might have thought he was diving into a war zone. But no . . . this was more like a Hollywood movie premiere.

It was opening night of the Stark Expo, a show sponsored by Stark Industries that brought together the best and brightest minds from around the world to share ideas and new technologies.

The crowd on the Expo grounds poured into the Tent of Tomorrow. They had already been treated to a montage, on the giant video screens, of Iron Man's recent exploits: an aerial tango with a barrage of shoulder-fired missiles, a lightning raid on a pirate ship off the Horn of Africa, a head-on collision with an air-to-air missile, whose explosion coming over the Expo sound-system was loud enough to register on nearby seismometers. The crowd loved it.

And they exploded at the sight of Iron Man falling from the sky to execute a perfect somersault at the last moment and land at the centre of the stage.

Robot arms sprouted from the stage and formed a framework around Tony Stark, unlocking the invisible joints on the Mark IV suit and lifting it away from his body. From the crowd's perspective, it appeared that Iron Man had been disassembled and a tuxedo-clad Tony Stark constructed in his place. The whole procedure took only a few seconds. Tony was a genius inventor and billionaire who had created the Iron Man suit so that he could help people and fight the evils of the world.

'It's good to be back!' he called out over the tumult. He paused for a moment to get his breath. Six months earlier, when he'd turned himself into the armoured superhero, he hadn't known what a physical toll it would take. Between the explosions, the late nights and the recent problems with palladium, Tony Stark was not the man he had once been. But he had a show to put on.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he began. 'Decades ago, my father, Howard Stark, began a grand tradition. Every ten years, he would level the playing field for inventors by building a city. An idealized city. A city of the future. An Expo where for five glorious months, scientists, world leaders, and corporate CEOs could come together to pursue one goal: advancing mankind.'

The giant TV screen behind him lit up with archival footage of the first Expo. The camera panned across visions of the future ranging from the fanciful- Your Children's Flying Car Is Here Today! was one slogan that drew a laugh from the crowd - to the hard-headed and practical, all against the backdrop of the New York City skyline.

'A place to do the impossible,' Tony said. 'A place to unleash ideas.' Howard Stark appeared on the screen, shown in his workshop sometime around 1970.

'Everything is achievable through technology,' Howard Stark said in the old film footage. 'Better living, robust health, and - for the first time in human history - the possibility of world peace!' He gave the camera a nervous smile as he walked to a scale model of that first Expo. 'And everything you'll need in the future can be found right here. So from all of us at Stark Industries, I'd like to personally show you the City of the Future . . . the Stark Expo! Welcome.'

Applause from the crowd swelled over Tony's father's speech. Tony himself picked up the thread. 'Today I'm issuing a challenge. A challenge for anyone, any country, any company to prove its value. A chance to put up the best ideas, the best inventions . . . the best foot forward, in the hopes of leaving the world a better place than the one we came into.' With a bow and a flourish, he headed for the stage exit. 'That's all I've got for now. Have a good time!'

As he spoke the last words, the lights cut to black. The music picked up where it had left off, booming through the darkness as the crowd went nuts all over again. The Stark Expo, bigger and better than ever, was under way.

In a forgotten part of Russia, a flickering television screen showed Tony Stark's grand entrance at the Expo. It was quite a spectacle: flashing lights, loud music.

Ivan Vanko watched. He was alone except for the TV and his cockatoo, Irina. His father, Anton Vanko, had passed away recently. Since then Ivan had turned his small apartment into a workshop, filled with welding equipment, spools of wire and bits of metal.

His father had told him many things - and shown him many things. Ivan had learned the true stories of Anton Vanko's work and Tony Stark's crimes. Ivan had absorbed as much of his father's knowledge as he could. He had sorted through old records and plans, notebooks and loose sheaves of paper covered in diagrams and equations.

Ivan shuffled through boxes of his father's papers and brought out a cardboard tube. On the peeling label he read the English words: Stark Industries. Underneath were two names: Howard Stark and Anton Vanko. It was time for Ivan to claim his heritage and for Tony Stark to learn the bitter truth about his own. Ivan returned to the work table and spread out the blueprints in the spill of lamplight. The words 'Arc Reactor' filled him with a sense of purpose. Tony Stark believed the Arc Reactor was his own invention. Ivan couldn't wait to see the look on Tony's face when he realized how wrong he was - for that alone Ivan Vanko would have given his life. But Tony Stark was arrogant and full of pride, and Ivan didn't think it would ever occur to Tony that someone could be his intellectual equal.

At least, not until it was too late.