In the wake of devastation brought on by Ultimatum, Earth has become a harsh place to live. Most of the world's heroes are dead or missing. New York, once the capital of the world, is now a waterlogged husk of it's former self.

But Iron Man remains vigilant. Until, that is, he learns that his advanced technology has been stolen by the Ghost, a corporate mercenary with his own modified suit of armour.

And matters go from bad to worse when Justine Hammer, the daughter of one of Tony's rivals tells Stark that the Ghost isn't the first person to plunder his base. Across the globe, criminals have brought and sold the Iron Man specs. And the only person with enough guts, charm and available cash to stop them from wrecking havoc in an already unstable world is Tony.

Tony is still a bit of lush, and spends most of the story rather drunk, but still manages to out-think and out-shine everyone. He's down to his last $100million and occasionally has to "slum" it as only Tony can.

Joining up with Justine - who has been bioengineered with nanobots into a superhuman by her father - he travels the world to find out where the stolen technology and plans are in an attempt to stop them being used by baddies. Thankfully (!) they havent been sold to too many people, so it's a fairly short arc. New York looks a mess, but London doesnt look to bad, so the devastation doesnt look as bad as implied in the blurb.

Tony gets a shock to find out who is masterminding the thefts and how the thief has managed to get through the locks he had designed. Unfortunately, the thieves have not appreciated the significance or the impact of the one small box that Tony doesn't want to open, with fatal consequences

Graphics are clean and the panels are not overloaded. As I've said the story is a little light on numbers of baddies, but then again, there is enough pathos at then end to compensate. ( )