What If... Iron Man Had Been a Traitor?

Almost four years after the original What If? series ended, this Special comes out without fanfare. Penned by Peter Gillis who wrote for the original series a lot, it seems like an inventory story, only now drawn by the current Marvel homme à tout faire, Steve Ditko, in order to keep the copyright for the title. Still, it feels of a piece with the original stories, focusing on a Marvel hero's origin, and using a celebrated artist to do it in a double-sized format. Sadly, the stories that last What If? promised (by Stan Lee, Jerry Ordway and George Perez) never saw the light of day.

What If Special #1 (June 1988)
Based on: Tales of Suspense #39
The true history: Tony Stark gets shrapnel in his heart and is captured by communist agents in Indochina. He agrees to build them a weapon, but in reality turns his life-saving vest into the Iron Man armor in order to escape. Fellow prisoner Dr. Yinsen runs out to buy Tony time to charge up and the rest is history.
Turning point: What if Dr. Yinsen had not bought Tony Stark enough time?
Story type: Deviated origin
Watcher's mood: Inscrutable
Altered history: In this reality, the commies run into the room before the suit is charged up and they take Tony's helmet away, preventing him from controlling the thing. He is then sent to Chen Lu, who in our world, would have become the Radioactive Man. But this project is more interesting. Using remote control to stop Stark's heart if he doesn't betray his country!
The reds then let Stark be found in the jungle, and he soon unveils the Iron Man to shore up his dropping stock value. Iron Man then goes on to make friends with other heroes and fight various villains, just as he did in the original stories. However, one man doesn't trust Stark's little stay in Southeast Asia: Pre-eyepatch Nick Fury!
Nick's seen The Manchurian Candidate and is on the warpath. When the U.S. government decides to create SHIELD, they ask Stark to build its weapons. When he sees that Fury is about to be named director, that information is beamed back to Chen Lu, and from Chen Lu, goes right to Hydra.
Nick gets away, but ends up in the hospital where he asks Reed Richards to investigate Stark Industries. Reed does discover foul play in the form of radio wave emissions, while Chen Lu is privy to Tony Stark's new interest in meditation.
Reed knows too much now, so Chen Lu sends Iron Man to kill him. Iron Man attacks the Baxter Building while the rest of the Fantastic Four are away, and bulldozers through the defenses.
He leaves a tape behind, the "kind used for ultra-slow recording". It contains a message that reveals the secret behind Stark's meditating.
Reed manages to shut down the armor, with some sly help from Stark himself, and the latter is wheeled into surgery.
Not that Reed is much of a medical doctor, as he freely admits. Though he removes the armor and the shrapnel, Stark's heart is gone. He'll have to stay on life-support machines until artificial hearts are invented (in the Marvel Universe, about a week and a half). As for the Iron Man armor, well, Reed sends it back to Chen Lu...
That is hardcore, Reed. Hard. Core.
Books canceled as a result: I'm not convinced an Iron Man series couldn't come out of this anyway. Stark makes a new plastron that keeps him alive, then a new armor, and Iron Man is back. Just so long as he doesn't wait for Reed Richards to make a new heart for him. (See his schedule for turning the Thing back into Ben Grimm.)
These things happen: Iron Man has turned out to be a traitor before, most notably as a sleeper agent for Kang in the Avengers story arc "The Crossing". And then there are those times that all depend on what you consider "treason" (i.e. Civil War). Ultimately though, Iron Man isn't even really a traitor in THIS story.

Next week: What if the Avengers Lost the Evolutionary War?
My guess: Today, we'd have half a dozen Defenders titles instead.