The terrorist organization known as Hydra has terrorized the Marvel Universe for nearly a century, hatching plans to conquer the world that could only be foiled by the Avengers and their allies... but not all of those plans are winners. In the pages of Rescue 2020 #2, Pepper Potts, aka Rescue, stumbles onto Hydra's newest weapon in the war on democracy: the fully sentient Hydra-Bot. Hydra-Bot is equipped with powerful tentacles, a deadly arsenal, and a brilliant mind... but it doesn't take a brilliant mind to see that this plan was doomed from the start.
Rescue 2020 #2 is the second half of a two-issue miniseries. The chapter is written by Dana Schwartz, with art by Jacen Burrows, Scott Hanna, and Pete Pantazis. The story follows Pepper Potts as she dons her own version of the Iron Man suit, named Rescue after its focus on emergency services, and tracks down the DNA of Tony Stark in order to bring him back to life. Rescue 2020 ties in to the Iron Man 2020 event, in which Tony Stark's company and superhero name have been taken by his morally vague brother Arno. As a result of Stark's work with artificial intelligence, all AIs on Earth have become self-aware and independent. This means everything from military drones to smart toasters have joined up with a robot revolution, turning against their human masters with violent results.
The final stop on Pepper's genetic scavenger hunt is a Hydra lair where Tony Stark's biological father works. She pretends to be a robotics specialist to get through the door, only to be ushered to an important department meeting. There, a scientist unveils his latest project: a massive automaton styled after the Hydra logo, consisting of a skull with tentacles radiating from its cranium. He describes Hydra-Bot as "strong enough to bring down an aircraft carrier", precise enough to perform dermatological procedures, and "completely unmanned". "Where others see difficulty" in the life-threatening failure of Hydra's robotic assets, the scientist explains, he "sees opportunity". He then activates Hydra-Bot and gives it a command.
If you can tell what's about to happen now that Hydra-Bot has been activated in the middle of a global robot uprising, congratulations: you are smarter than the inventor of Hydra-Bot. The tremendous green skull amputates the inventor's arm to stop him from pressing the power button, then shows off that it was trained to think like Hydra by deeming all humans "lesser beings" and subjugating them. Rescue is able to snatch a hapless intern from its tentacles, leaving the villainous engineering lab to deal with their own creation. Her target, assuming she's there to kill him, threatens to shoot the aforementioned intern, thus alerting the automated security. Rescue takes him up on the latter, firing his gun into the air. In crashes Hydra-Bot.
The intern, proving that he has very un-Hydra-like heroic instincts and very Hydra-like incompetence, hurls a pocketknife at the robot's eye, which misses and lops off Tony's father's fingertip in the effort. In a flash, Rescue finds a clever solution: she makes Hydra-Bot notice that her technology is more advanced. The pinnacle of fascist engineering realizes that it is itself a "lesser being" and promptly conquers itself via activating its self-destruct.
What did the inventor think would happen when he built a robot during a robot revolution? What was Hydra-Bot supposed to do when it inevitably met Iron Man or another high-tech hero? Who signed off on this? Since Hydra-Bot blew up the base that created it, the world may never know.
Rescue 2020 #2 is available now from Marvel Comics via local comics stores and digital providers.