Featuring: Iron Man
Release: March 10, 1964
Cover: June 1964
12 cents
Written (in his magic Marvel manner) by: Stan lee
Drawn (in his famous flashing fashion) by: Don Heck
Lettered (in his smooth subtle style) by: Art Simek
13 pages
We reach a personal milestone for me in this reading. Up to this point, every story I’ve read, I’ve used some form of reprint, often a collection from one of their reprint lines like Marvel Masterworks, sometimes a later comic that happens to reprint the old story.
This comic I own. Cover barely hanging on, brown at the edges, but this is mine. That cover? That’s a scan of my copy. Most of the other covers have been taken from the GCD.
So that’s pretty exciting.
Now for the bad news. The Mandarin returns. Iron Man’s lamest villain yet (despite some stiff competition) is back for round 2.
Iron Man gets a new helmet. The face mask no longer protrudes out, making his head a smoother shape, and there are visible bolts along the mask. I get the bolts along where the facemask meets the helmet, but not sure what the ones down the middle are doing. They won’t be around long. In fact, they’ll disappear mid-story suddenly without any plausible explanation.
It’s a pretty weird look, frankly. It will be better when that middle line of bolts goes away.
For better or worse, we prematurely introduced the successor to this new look. He has a similar helmet in Avengers #6 (sans the weird middle bolts), but was not wearing it in Avengers #5, even though the narration tells us Iron Man hurried from New Mexico to New York between the two issues.
Pepper can’t find Mr. Stark, so she calls Iron Man. Nothing suspicious about that at all. No more so than Thor telling the Avengers to call Dr. Blake if they want to reach him. Later, when Tony needs a ride, he claims he’ll go with Iron Man, even though he has a chauffeur. “I wonder if Pepper ever suspects…” Well, if you keep writing Iron Man’s phone number on your business cards…
Iron Man has a hidden tunnel he takes to his office. He roller-skates down it, to save the transistor power flying would take. He roller-skated a lot in the early days. He doesn’t do that so much anymore.
“I’d like to be with Pepper always… but dare not expose her to the dangers Iron Man must face.” This is new. The status quo up to this point has been Happy asking Pepper out, Pepper rebuffing him while fawning over Tony, and Tony being too occupied with work, superheroing, or other women to seem to notice. Maybe there were subtle hints of affection for Pepper. But the new status quo will be overt thought balloons about how he longs for her but cannot be with her because of his dangerous superhero life style. The thought balloons could come just as easily from Thor or Daredevil. Same story, and always about their employee, a nurse or secretary. It’s literally the same story as Daredevil because it involves a love triangle with the other colleague.
Strangely, Peter Parker, the nerd, actually got the girl, while Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, plans to start pining about unrequited love.
Mandarin spends most of the comic telling us what a powerful villain he is. He’s not powerful. He’s lame. The comic also tells us his most dangerous power is that he knows karate. Repeatedly.
I must remind the readers that last time, Iron Man had knocked Mandarin unconscious, but then just left him there. This all could have been avoided if Iron Man had taken him prisoner then.
The only vaguely interesting thing about Mandarin is that he has these ten rings, each with a different power. We learned about two last time and two more this time.
Mandarin’s ring powers:
- High frequency wave (revealed in issue 50)
- Paralysis ray (revealed in issue 50)
- Explosive power
- Black light
The story ends with a cliffhanger. Iron Man is a prisoner, but isn’t going to die without some jingoistic sounding-off.
The most notable thing about this issue is this is the end of the weird tale backups. The next story is about an alien invader (who gives up too easily).
There is also a reprint of an old prose sci-fi tale. These will stick around a little bit longer, but the sci-fi comics are done in this title after this issue. We’ve already seen the last of them in Tales to Astonish and Journey Into Mystery. End of an era.
The other story in this comic is a Watcher tale. But these have transitioned from being light wrappers around sci/fi stories to being actual stories featuring the Watcher, just as Wasp’s stories have transitioned to stories where she actually stars.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 32/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
You can find the story in the Iron Man Epic Collection vol. 1 or Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man vol. 2. Strangely, I can’t find it on Kindle. Kindle’s digital versions seem to jump from #53 to #57. Weird.
Characters:
- Iron Man/Anthony Stark
- Pepper Potts
- Happy Hogan
- Mandarin
Story notes:
- Iron Man has secret entrance to hidden tunnel under factory.
- Armor made out of “flexible iron”.
- Happy names two of Stark’s cars: the XK-E or the Jag.
- Tony sends Happy on an inspection tour, even though Happy is a chauffeur.
- Tony admits to jealousy of Happy and Pepper.
- Pentagon has been using Stark’s “observer missiles” in Viet Nam. They keep crashing or disappearing.
- Iron Man hitches ride to Asia on ICBM.
- Iron Man’s plan is questionable: enter Mandarin’s lair as Tony Stark then change to Iron Man.
- Stark thinks Mandarin not loyal to Reds; his goals are his own.
- Last time, it was clearly noted Mandarin’s castle was in China. This one seems to be in Vietnam. It’s also possible it is in China and just located near the Vietnam border.
#198 story in reading order
Next: Tales of Suspense #54, Story C
Previous: Avengers #6
