-Tony is traveling to Japan. He wants to introduce a new clean source of renewable energy with an ARC Reactor project to spearhead a global peace initiative. He flirts with the projects leading scientist. Pepper is also in the series and communicates with Stark via video conferencing. Tony feels Japan is a country that can help realize his dream for world peace. Tony Stark in this series is also publicly known as Iron Man.

-There's a bit of culture shock with Tony and Japan. Tony likes to take the spotlight and act outlandishly which can put some people off. The Japanese people are also curious if Tony's intentions are legitimate.

-Tony announces that he's retiring as Iron Man, and he's picked out three new pilots to lead an Iron Man DIO armor iniative. The DIO is a mass produced Iron Man armor to be worn by hand-picked upstanding soldiers and guided by the military and Stark Industries. Tony however upstaged the 3 candidates and debuts the DIO armor in public himself. The armor however malfunctions and Tony crash lands after the ceremony. It's possible the malfunction was caused by an outside source that took control of the armor.

-Another one of the pilots is testing the armor and it goes berserk again. The pilot appears to go catatonic or loses control. Tony takes up the Iron Man armor again and forgoes retirement. He dispatches the crazed DIO armor, but is attacked by an armored beast or possibly a robotic cyborg called the Zodiac. Stark beats the Zodiac, but the DIO armor disappears.