H.A.M.M.E.R. Joins the Battle!

When Director Daisy heard there was gold, her dejection vanished without a trace, and her mourning for Odin was tossed beyond the Milky Way. Where was the gold? How much was there? What was its purity? She fired off a whole barrage of questions.

These days, even flattering someone required extensive preparation. You could not just walk up and lay it on thick. Baldy was quite experienced at sucking up; knowing the Director was interested in such matters, he had done plenty of prep work beforehand and now explained everything in detail.

The more Daisy listened, the more puzzled she became. "Why does this gold sound so much like Baron Strucker's hidden stash of gold...?"

She had been thinking about this for a long time, and now she had finally found a lead. Baron Strucker had asked Doctor Doom to safeguard his gold? The odds were nearly nonexistent. More likely, Doctor Doom had been digging up ancient treasures all over the mountains and plains and happened to unearth it along the way.

After marveling at Doctor Doom's absurd luck, she gave Baldy his instructions for the next stage.

"Dig out all the gold he has. That belongs to Hydra... I remember there's a Hydra weapons depot in Albania, right? Sell him everything except nuclear bombs at a high price. Send someone to find out where he's hauling all that gold from. We'll... forget it. You probably can't beat him."

Daisy had initially planned to have her people rob him, but when she considered that Hydra probably could not defeat Doctor Doom, she abandoned the idea. She was too busy to deal with Doctor Doom right now. They could conduct a few normal transactions first.

Nuclear bomb technology was not actually difficult for Doctor Doom. His scientific expertise was sufficient; he