WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Iron Man #1, by Christopher Cantwell, CAFU, Frank D'Armata and VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
Tony Stark has always been something of an obsessive futurist, constantly focused on pushing himself to develop the next, big futuristic advancement. This single-minded drive, coupled with Tony's underlying egotistical nature, has led to him playing an inadvertent role in creating many of his greatest supervillains. This trait is apparent in the comic books as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and, even though Tony has taken on a more stripped-down, basic-to-basics approach to his personal outlook and superhero career, he appears to have repeated this same mistake despite his change in status quo.
Following the events of Iron Man 2020, which saw the proliferation of artificial intelligence in the Marvel Universe and the restoration of Tony after his long-lost brother Arno Stark held the mantle of Iron Man, Tony decided to swear off all advanced technology in his life. Content on letting sentient machines handle the development of the new tech that he had spent his life devising, Tony traded out his brand-new fleet of sports cars and bleeding edge Iron Man power suits for vintage muscle cars and a classic suit of Iron Man armor from the earlier days of his superhero career. However, Tony may have overstepped his boundaries during a housewarming party for his new Manhattan brownstone.
With the party filled by boorish businessmen and annoying tech entrepreneurs, Tony is constantly forced to schmooze and hobnob with his guests. Among those that approach him is Fuller Teilhard, a tech visionary with a plan to store the raw energy from lightning bolts to harness into a pure, clean fuel source. While admitting he's a little intrigued by the possibility, Tony ultimately dismisses Fuller with everyone else, retreating to his new home's basement with Patsy Walker. Privately revealing that he had a timed EMP set to fry the devices of all his party guests as the main reason he invite them, Tony and Patsy leave the premises just in time to evade the EMP. As a lightning storm rages over Manhattan, Fuller glowers from his window, visibly angry that Tony discarded and humiliated him at the party.
In the MCU, Tony's overconfidence and boisterous behavior has led to the creation of plenty of supervillains. Incensed by Tony's public announcement that he was Iron Man, Ivan Vanko created the supervillain persona Whiplash in 2009's Iron Man 2 to seek revenge. After being blown off at a New Year's party similar to Fuller in the prologue to 2013's Iron Man 3, tech entrepreneur Aldrich Killian instead developed the Extremis superweapon and became the supervillain the Mandarin. It was Tony and Bruce Banner that created the murderous android Ultron in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron believing they were, in fact, protecting the world. And in last year's Spider-Man: Far From Home, Tony's disgruntled former employees banded together to help Quentin Beck realize his revenge as the evil Mysterio.
It's unclear what sort of revenge Fuller will enact on Iron Man but, given his expertise and interest in harnessing the power of lightning, there is sure to be an electrifying retribution waged against the Armored Avenger.
Now relying on his throwback Iron Man power suit, Tony might find he needs bigger guns to be able to weather the storm as a man he once again underestimated and dismissed may come back to haunt him in the not-so-distant future.