Ultimate Iron Man II by Orson Scott Card and Pasqual Ferry

Tony Stark is the product of a genetic testing done by his mother long before he was born. She was trying to create a being whose brain was in all the cells and parts of its body. But the viral agent she was trying to use to create such a being infected her, and her son Tony was born being the sort of creature she'd been trying to create. The drawback was that the cell becomes hypersensitive to pain, and she passed away during childbirth.

Tony grew up a supergenius, but a sickly child, and to help him, his father developed a thin-layer metal armor to protect his body, Wearing the armor helped Tony be more or less normal. But Zebediah Stane, his father's competitor, wanted the nanotech armor, and seduced away Tony's stepmother, and his father's company. But he still hadn't gotten what he wanted, and so he kidnapped Tony and tortured him, but he was caught and sent to prison, and Lori, Tony's stepmother, inherited the company, along with her son by Zebediah, Obadiah.

Obadiah, witnessing his mother's cruelty and what happened to his father, began exhibiting anti-social personality traits.He joined Tony at the Baxter Building in New York, a government-run Think Tank, where Tony works with James "Rhodey" Rhodes and Nifara.

Convalescing from losing his arms and legs (they are growing back), Tony is worried that someone is out to kill his father, and he thinks Obadiah Stane is responsible. And he is: Obadiah blames Tony's father for his own father's death, and is wanting to do away with him as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the government has caught on to Tony's Iron Man armor, and they think it is a robot. They demand to be given the armor, claiming it will save the lives of US troops off fighting the terrorists.

Tony knows that they would love to get the armor and reverse-engineer it for their own, so he and Rhodey dress up in the suits and go off to do what the US wants: taking out a terrorist cell training kids and adults to be walking suicide bombers. The chopper they came in takes off shortly afterwards, so that when the "robots" get destroyed by the air strike, they can come back in and pick up the pieces. Luckily, both Tony and Rhodey manage to get out in one piece.

Obadiah Stane tries to kill Tony's father again, this time by using mind-controlled guards, but Tony's father survives the attack, but he's badly injured and ends up in the hospital. But Obadiah isn't working alone but with an arms dealer who is allied with terrorists. As Tony fights off the government, Obadiah and the men who want to throw his father back in jail, Tony is approached by the terrorists: either give them the robots, or they will detonate two nuclear devices in New York City.

Tony is forced to give into their demands and meets the arms dealer on a plane, But when Tony goes after the man, he realizes that the plane has taken off, and the second nuclear device is on board. Can Tony, without the armor, manage to defuse the bomb and save the passengers who are on the plane with him? And if he can do that, can he find and confront the force behind the terrorists before they can strike out again at him and his family?

Ultimate Iron Man is very different from the original version of Iron Man. The original Tony Stark was a very intelligent inventor who had been shot in the chest and had shrapnel close to his heart. The armor not only protected him, but kept him from dying. Ultimate Iron Man gives a reason for Tony Stark to be so intelligent: his entire body is his brain, and gives him a different reason for needing the Iron Man suit's protection. Still to protect his body, but now because just a touch causes him incredible pain.

At least this version of the hero isn't as badly out of synch as the Manga version of Wolverine is, but I'm not sure why so many heroes who once were just really gifted humans now have to become some kind of glorified mutant. I'm not sure I like that direction for stories. I, for one, found Tony Stark so interesting because he was only a gifted inventor- not because he was some supermutated thing. It's like saying that only mutants are interesting as heroes, or to be a hero, you must be a mutant, and I really don't like that.

Interesting book, interesting if somewhat repugnant story, but I prefer the original Iron Man to this version, because to me they are diluting the core concept of the character. Iron Man is like Marvel's version of Batman- a normal guy who does one thing very well and never says die. I just don't find "mutant Tony" as interesting as "Normal human Tony".