Please take note that most of the information here does not relate to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Extremis is a Marvel Comics storyline featuring Iron Man. Designed as a jumping on point for new readers, it takes the series into more of a cyberpunk inspired direction, exploring the Frankenstein-ian implications of technology creating super-powered beings.
Plot Summary[]
Iron Man investigates the theft of a sample of Extremis, a nanotech designer virus that rewrites a subject's genetic code, granting them superhuman powers. When the sample ends up in the hands of a dangerous extremist, Iron Man is faced with a foe who very nearly brings him to death's door.
Detailed Synopsis[]
It's the middle of the night in Bastrop, Texas, and three criminals - Mallen, Beck, and Nilsen - enter the abandoned D.R. Cole slaughterhouse. Beck pulls out a briefcase containing a syringe. With Nilsen helping to hold him steady, Mallen braces himself and tells Beck "Do it!". Beck injects the contents of the syringe into the back of Mallen's neck. At first nothing seems to be happening, but then Mallen begins having violent convulsions and vomits blood. Beck and Nilsen flee in terror, barring the door as Mallen screams.
Tony Stark is asleep in his basement when he is awakened by a phone call from his secretary, Mrs. Rennie. Tony is cranky at having been awakened, as he had a rough night, but Mrs. Rennie reminds him that it is already 8:00 AM and he is scheduled to be interviewed by documentary filmmaker John Pillinger.
In the FuturePharm office in Austin, Dr. Aldrich Killian is typing a letter on his computer. He writes that Security knows that the Extremis sample has been stolen and are actively investigating. He knows that he has let loose something terrible, and the knowledge that the act was "necessary" has done little to alleviate the burden of his guilt. Though he considers Security to be incompetent, it is still only a matter of time before the authorities trace the theft back to him, and he would not get through an interrogation. As Killian's hands begin to tremble, he prints the letter and pulls a pistol out of his desk drawer. Mournfully lamenting to himself that he will die alone and unloved, Killian puts the pistol to his head and pulls the trigger. Killian's supervisor, Dr. Maya Hansen, sees Killian's body and the printed copy of his confession letter. She orders an assistant to call the police.
In the Stark International headquarters in Coney Island, Tony looks out the window of his office while anti-corporate protestors wave signs in the streets below. He is greeted by Mr. Pillinger and his cameraman, Gary. Pillinger is doing a documentary titled Ghosts of the Twentieth Century, dealing with the controversial legacies of men like Richard Gatling and Robert Oppenheimer. Pillinger asks Tony if he would consider himself an arms dealer, specifically name checking a cluster bomb Stark developed called the Seed Pod and a landmine called the Sentinel, both of which were deployed in the Middle East and caused a significant amount of collateral damage. Tony insists that he is a technologist, and that the success of his military applications paved the way for his company to create more benevolent projects. As he is being interviewed, Tony flashes back to his time as a consultant in Afghanistan, where his team was ambushed by insurgents. The shootout accidentally detonated a Sentinel Landmine, and Tony was injured in the blast. Pillinger then asks about the military applications of the Iron Man suit. Tony insists that Iron Man is deployed for peacekeeping operations, which does not appear to help his case. As the interview concludes, Tony notes that Pillinger has been doing his exposé work for two decades. He asks the filmmaker if he feels his work has changed anything. Pillinger solemnly admits he doesn't know.
Back at the old slaughterhouse, Mallen's body is now a musculoskeletal husk, apparently re-forming itself after previously melting into a puddle of goo. Though he is too weak to move, his eyes glow red as he continues to mutate.
As Tony leaves his office, he tells Mrs. Rennie to cancel the afternoon staff meeting as he heads to his personal lab. In an audiolog, he expresses his frustration at Pillinger calling the Iron Man armor a military application, as Iron Man saves lives and he has never sold any aspect of the technology to the military. As he dons the armor, he notes that he went from being a man trapped in an iron suit to a man being freed by it. He flies into the sky, and the protestors marvel at Iron Man, believing him to be a hero even as they revile the man who wears the suit.
As he takes to the skies as Iron Man, Tony flashes back to the first time he met Maya Hansen. They briefly discuss their work, before attending a speech by Dr. Sal Kennedy, an "Ethnobotanist turned Futurist". In the present day, Maya calls Tony, telling him she needs someone to talk to. The call is patched into Iron Man's helmet frequency, and the two agree to meet.
Beck and Nilsen return to the slaughterhouse, and find the steel door badly dented, indicating that someone was pounding it trying to get out. Inside, they find a regenerated Mallen wrapped in a blanket. He tells them the experiment was a success.
As Tony flies to Austin in his private jet, he has a video conference with his board of directors. Tony announces that he is working on new ocular control system that can read changes and motion pressure in the eye, but the board is more interested in the unveiling of their latest cellular phone. One of the executives, Geoff, notes that Tony is out of the office more than a CEO should be, and suggest a new CEO be appointed, while Tony settle into the position of "Chief Technologist" - an arrangement that has worked perfectly fine for Bill Gates and Microsoft. Tony is uncomfortable with this idea, as he suspects that a new CEO would accept military contracts. Geoff notes that Tony has continued to take contracts for S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony insists that S.H.I.E.L.D. is an international organization, unlike the U.S. Military. Geoff insists that most of the projects they are developing will take three years to realize, Tony is throwing away a fortune by not accepting any military contracts.
Tony arrives outside FuturePharm's headquarters and hugs Maya, who is still shaken by Killian's suicide. There is no way of knowing who he gave the stolen sample to, as his computer is encrypted. Tony downloads the contents of the hard drive and sends it to a technician named Markko via ZIPSAT, a network of satellites that provide wireless broadband internet. He suggests they fly to the bay area to talk to Sal.
Beck, Nilson, and Mallen drive to Houston, parking outside the FBI field office. Mallen emerges from back of the van and walks inside to the security checkpoint. Once there, he proceeds to attack the guards, shrugging off bullets and brutally dismembering them with his bare hands. As the other personnel flee in panic, he incinerates them all with a breath of fire. He then makes his escape down an open elevator shaft as the flames engulf the building.
Tony and Maya arrive at Sal's house outside the woods. Sal expresses disappointment that the two of them are now working for the Military Industrial Complex. Tony protests, noting that he does not accept military contracts and that Maya works in medical research, but Sal disputes these specifics, both of their respective companies feed the beast in some way. Maya is "the Edward Teller of biology" and Tony is "the Dean Kamen of technology." Maya is working on military applications to get the funding and space to cure disease. Sal asks Tony what Iron Man is trying to accomplish. Before Tony can answer, his and Maya's cellphones go off. There's a news report of Mallen's attack on the FBI field office. As the reports show the graphic aftermath, Maya recognizes it to be the work of an Extremis enhancile: Whoever Killian gave the sample to, the recipient not only survived, but committed this appalling deed. Stark calls his office and tells them to prep the plane to return to Austin, and to have his Iron Man armor transported to his location.
As Beck and Nilsen watch the FBI field office burn to the ground, Mallen tells them that he is only getting started.
As Tony and Maya fly back to Austin, Tony tells her that he needs to know precisely what Extremis is. Maya tells her that it was created to be a potential successor to the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America. It's a technological virus comprised of nanobots which hack the human body's repair center, rewriting the body from the ground up. This process lasts about 72 hours. Once complete, the rebuilt body has superhuman strength and an enhanced healing factor. Up to this point, they had never tested it on a human. But during the three days when the body is being reconstructed, the recipient is supposed to be put on life support and fed nutrients intravenously. This enhancile clearly skipped that step, but they still managed to survive. Tony gets a call from Markko. He decrypted Killian's hard drive. Killian sold the sample to a cell of domestic terrorists. Tony uses the Avengers Liaison Channel to alert all relevant law enforcement agencies to this threat, and is then informed that that the Iron Man suit is ready for retrieval. Tony has a car drive Maya back to FuturePharm headquarters, while he heads into a hangar to suit up as Iron Man.
As Nilsen's van drives down the freeway, Mallen flashes back to when he was a child. His father had attempted to buy illegal weapons, but the dealer turned out to be an undercover ATF agent. Now a SWAT team has surrounded their house, demanding their surrender. Mallen's parents and older brothers are killed in the ensuing shootout. As an adult, Mallen is huddled in a corner, not unlike he was as a scared boy during the raid. Iron Man sees the van and moves into intercept. He uses his repulsors to cleave the van in two, but Mallen emerges from the back completely unharmed. Iron Man demands that Mallen surrender, but Mallen refuses. A fierce battle on the freeway ensues, with Mallen eventually gaining the upper hand with his superhuman speed. After breaking Iron Man's leg and breaching the chestplate of his armor, Mallen attempts to finish off the Armored Avenger by throwing a car at him. Iron Man fires a Uni-beam at Mallen - the only thing in his arsenal that is able to even hurt him. Iron Man depletes his reserve power saving the occupants of the car, and Mallen flees when helicopters arrive on the scene.
As firefighters and paramedics tend to the collateral damage on the freeway, a soldier tells Iron Man that Mallen was last seen heading west. Even though he was running, they clocked him at 300 mph. Iron Man asks that a MedEvac chopper airlift him to FuturePharm.
Once Iron Man arrives at FuturePharm, Maya has him wheeled to the medical lab. After revealing that Tony Stark and Iron Man are one and the same, he asks to be injected with Extremis. He says that all the work he has put into upgrading the response time of the armor proved useless against this new opponent. But with Extremis, the armor might function as a second skin. And without it, he is likely dead anyway due to his severe internal injuries. As Maya prepares a sample, Tony looks at the HUD playback on his helmet. He notes a discarded map from the wreckage, with Washington DC circled in red. He knows where Mallen is going.
As Mallen runs across the countryside, he sees a goth girl smoking a cigarette underneath a road sign. The two start talking, and the girl says that she wrote a black comedy about zombies attacking her school for a creative writing class. The teachers considered it "terroristic writing" and suspended her. Mallen thinks he has found an anti-establishment kindred spirit, but this quickly proves not to be the case, as she proves to be a left leaning atheist who is disgusted by Mallen's white supremacist views. Angered by her comments, Mallen decapitates her.
Back at the lab, Maya brings in a briefcase containing a new set of prototype Iron Man armor, the Model 30. It is lighter and faster than his old armor, and with Extremis in his system, it will eliminate the need for the undersheath and complex control systems. Maya warns that one mistake could kill him. Tony tells her they need to make sure not to make any mistakes. As Tony is prepped for the procedure, Maya suggests he call his fellow Avengers. Tony insists this fight is his to finish, alone. But if he does not survive the procedure, Maya will alert them. As Tony muses about being a test pilot for the future, the Extremis dose is injected into his system. He violently convulses and loses consciousness, and Maya fears that he has died.
As Tony loses consciousness, he flashes back to Afghanistan, after he was nearly killed in the landmine explosion. He awakens on a hospital bed, where Dr. Ho Yinsen tells him there is a piece of shrapnel lodged next to his heart. It could not be removed without killing him. They are now both prisoners at a POW camp, and their captors want them to build a weapon they can use against American military forces. Tony insists he cannot give them a weapon. Yinsen tells Tony that the shrapnel is slowly inching its way to his heart, within a week he will be dead. Tony suggests a magnetic field generator could keep the shrapnel in place. He eyes the raw material their captors have supplied them, and proposes that they build a wearable weapon that will enable them both to escape. With that, the first Iron Man suit, the Mark I, is born. Tony uses it to destroy the terrorists, but Yinsen is killed by a stray bullet.
In the present day, Tony awakens and asks Maya how long he has been out. She tells him 24 hours, much faster than their calculations. Tony reveals that he made some alterations to the program while she was out. The process has effectively turned Tony into a cyborg. The Iron Man armor's undersheath is now super-compressed and stored in the hollows of his bones. The process has completely retooled his genetic code, regrowing organs, healing old wounds and making him stronger than he has ever been in his entire life. He is also able to interact with electronic equipment. Using magnetokinesis, he summons the pieces of the Iron Man armor and sets out to find Mallen. Since he now has the ability to interact with electronic communications, he knows precisely where the madman is headed.
Mallen arrives in Washington DC to find that it has been completely evacuated. There he is greeted by Iron Man. The Armored Avenger gives Mallen an ultimatum: Surrender or be destroyed. When Mallen refuses, Iron Man throws a car at him, which Mallen destroys with his own bio-repulsors. Mallen attempts to blast Iron Man with an electrical attack, but the Extremis upgrades enable Iron Man to effortlessly dodge the attack. The two combatants eventually end up at construction site. Mallen eventually overpowers Iron Man and attempts to strangle him. Iron Man is forced to defend himself by firing his Uni-beam into Mallen's chest. While Mallen is stunned, Iron Man fires a fully charged double repulsor blast at Mallen's head, effectively vaporizing it. As Mallen's decapitated body crumples to the ground, Iron Man muses that there is still one more thing he has to do, and this will be more unpleasant than this fight.
At FuturePharm, Maya heads to the lab, where she is confronted by Iron Man and a team of soldiers. Iron Man notes that the Extremis vault required two keys to open it, so Killian had to have an accomplice. He knows it was her, and he knows why she did it: The Department of Defense was about to cut their funding, so they decided to arrange a live demonstration: Dose a terrorist with Extremis, then call Iron Man to deal with him. Once the public saw an Extremis enhancile dominate a fight against the most enhanced combat system on the planet, the climate of fear would prompt the DOD to renew their funding. Maya notes that the atomic bomb had to be used once in anger in order for it to never be used again. She would have used the renewed funding to get out of the arms race: More than fifty people die in car accidents each day, technology like Extremis could save their lives. She does not see any difference between what she has done and the more ruthless actions Iron Man has taken in the pursuit of peace. Iron Man tells her that while he might not be any better than her, he at least tries to be.
Notes[]
- First appearance of the Model 30 armor.