Tales of Suspense #85

Into the Jaws of Death

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: October 11, 1966
Cover: January 1967
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Pencilling: Gene Colan
Inking: Frankie Giacoia
Lettering: Artie Simek
12 pages

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Tales to Astonish #85, Story BReading orderTales of Suspense #86
Tales of Suspense #84, Story BTales of Suspense Tales of Suspense #85, Story B

From this moment on, Iron Man is more invincible than ever before!

In a plot greatly echoing a recent Daredevil story, Mandarin now believes Happy to be Iron Man, because Happy had been going around in the suit. In the Daredevil analog, Foggy had put on the Daredevil suit to impress Karen. Here, Happy was a bit more noble. He was trying to help preserve the secret identity, as the press was starting to suspect that Tony Stark was Iron Man. On the basis of the fact that it’s ridiculously obvious to anybody paying attention.

Flash Thompson has also gotten himself into similar trouble by wearing the Spider-Man outfit.

Unfortunately, Tony is still recovering from his recent heart attack. It’s not clear he’s in any shape to help Happy after the Mandarin captures him. And even wearing the armor, Happy is no match for Mandarin. He just doesn’t have the practice with it.

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Fantastic Four #12

The Incredible Hulk/Mission: Stop the Hulk!/Who is the Wrecker?/The Hulk at Last!
Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: December 10, 1962
Cover: March 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
23 pages

I read this comic in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.

Let’s review the key dates so far.

August 8, 1961 — The Fantastic Four debut
March 1, 1962 — The Incredible Hulk
June 5, 1962 — The most important day in Marvel’s history thus far: introducing Spider-Man, Thor, and Ant-Man!

It’s now December 10, 1962.

Another hugely important date in Marvel’s history. Four milestones, which we’ll be covering over the next few posts: we’ll see the debut of another iconic superhero; a superhero we haven’t seen in 6 months makes his return in the debut of his solo title; and, most excitingly, the Marvel comics start to coalesce into a universe. On this day, we get not only our first crossover of the Marvel Age, but our first two crossovers! The Fantastic Four will encounter two iconic Marvel characters on this very date.

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