Black Panther, Captain America and Iron Man are attacked by an armored opponent who tries to goad them into killing him. They defeat the madman, who is unmasked as Tony Stark’s business rival Jason Beere. Jason says he is dying and boasts the world will die with him. As a precaution, Iron Man hooks Beere up to an old Iron Man chest plate to sustain his heart, and a quick investigation indicates Beere has planted four bombs around the world set to destroy the planet when his heart stops; supposedly the only way to disarm them is to physically interlock them. Given a month to live by his doctors, and embittered by his wife divorcing him and taking their children, Beere wants the world to die with him. Captain America flies to a Peruvian temple where he retrieves one of the interlocking devices, defeating Peruvian cultists paid off by Beere. Black Panther retrieves a second device from the Arctic Circle, besting a huge polar bear. Iron Man retrieves a third device from a Moscow museum, combating Russian soldiers whom Beere had warned of a foreign intruder. When the three heroes reunite and lock their “bombs” together, a recording of Beer’s voice gloats that these three bombs were duds designed to delay the Avengers and that the real bomb will go off when his heart stops beating. Having suspected trickery, Iron Man is prepared. They cannot surgically remove the bomb without detonating it, but Stark’s chest plate will keep Beere’s heart beating, and as an added precaution Iron Man seals Beere in a cryogenic chamber that will preserve him indefinitely while slowing his heart rate and other bodily functions.