Featuring: Iron Man
Release: June 9, 1964
Cover: September 1964
12 cents
Written by: Smiling Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Sparkling Don Heck
Lettered by: Sterling S. Rosen
18 pages
Interestingly, this is the first Iron Man cover not drawn by Kirby. In fact, it’s the first major cover of the era not drawn or partially drawn by Kirby or Ditko. In general, Ditko has been drawing the covers of his books, and Kirby has been drawing the covers of his own and everybody else’s. For example, Kirby has drawn very few Giant-Man stories, but has drawn every cover. Since covers were often drawn before the issue, Kirby often had a hand in the creation of the new villains, by virtue of being the first to actually draw them. But not Hawkeye. Hawkeye may be the first major character we’ve met not in any way attributable to Kirby or Ditko. He seems to be entirely the creation of Stan Lee and Don Heck.
For example, Kirby is generally not credited as a creator of Black Widow, but he was involved at the beginning, having drawn her first cover appearance. Same story for Daredevil. I see none of his fingerprints on Hawkeye, but may be unaware of some behind-the-scenes work.
When we met Daredevil, I declared our cast of original stars complete. That was an admittedly arbitrary cut-off. I could have waited just a few months and claimed Hawkeye completes the package.
I said what I said because Hawkeye is not of our stars. At least not yet. He is a just a new super-villain, one of many. Like Black Widow. Like Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch…
See the Our Cast So Far page to see how I’m breaking out the characters.
Tony and Pepper have their first date. He is in love with her but hasn’t dared ask her out because he’s on the edge of death. Also, Happy loves her too. And he has a seemingly endless list of other girlfriends across the globe. He attempts to help Happy get another date with Pepper, but accidentally invites Pepper out himself. The two go to Coney Island. Not the glamorous night out Pepper had imagined.
One of the attractions is a performer excellent with his bow and arrow, known as Hawkeye. We first see Hawkeye in a pioneer-style getup. It brings to mind the classical literary character, Natty Bumppo, who was sometimes nicknamed Hawkeye, and may be the inspiration for Hawkeye’s name. He starred in a series of novels often referred to collectively as The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper.
Dissatisfied with the carnival life and impressed by the reputation Iron Man has, Hawkeye decides to reinvent himself as a costumed adventurer like Iron Man. He designs and outfit, dons a mask, and decides to go out and be a hero and become as famous and beloved as Iron Man.
As I’ve expressed before, a letter is the worst logo. Take the “H” away and Hawkeye has a decent costume.
We get a panel layout I’ve complained about before. My rule of thumb is that if you need to use arrows to clarify what order to read the balloons in, you’ve already failed.
Hawkeye’s plan backfires when he is mistaken for a burglar after foiling a robbery.
His motivation up to this point in the story is rather interesting, unique amongst a group of heroes with already unique motivations. He wants to be a superhero, but for non-altruistic reasons. And because he’s not quite the heroic type, he doesn’t stick around to explain the situation to the police when there’s a mix-up. His instincts are for self-preservation, so he runs and becomes a fugitive.
Note Spider-Man is pretty constantly mistaken for a criminal, but doesn’t respond by actually becoming one.
His motives then take a sharp turn into the less interesting. He meets the Black Widow, immediately becomes a lovesick puppy dog, willing to do her bidding. He now becomes a super-villain at her direction. He vows to destroy Iron Man to win her heart.
Black Widow remains in the employ of the Soviets. After her first appearance and failure, she ended up on the run from the Soviets, who punish failure with death. Since then, she has failed her masters again, but apparently this time without consequences.
In a self-aware line of dialogue by the writer, Iron Man points out how every super-villain attacks his weapons factory. That has been the plot of almost every Iron Man story thus far.
Armed with an array of specialty arrows, Hawkeye fights Iron Man to a standstill.
His most destructive arrow, supplied by the Soviets (though he doesn’t know that’s who Black Widow works for), doesn’t penetrate Iron Man’s armor.
However, the ricochet from his failed attack injures Black Widow. Hawkeye escapes with her.
Long before Hawkeye, the superhero world already has a famous archer; the DC superhero Green Arrow was introduced over 20 years earlier.
Hawkeye is not the only pop culture icon to borrow his name from Cooper’s classic hero. A few years later, a Korean War surgeon Captain Benjamin Pierce will adopt the nickname in the novel, MASH: A Tale of Three Doctors, by Richard Hooker. The character would show up in a popular film and television adaptation.
Today, if you referred to Hawkeye without context, it would not be clear which of the three icons of popular fiction you’d be referring to.
The scans above are taken from a reprint in Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics #17 (1968). The reprint colors his uniform mostly purple, whereas I think there was more blue originally, as on the cover at the top, which is original. Here are a couple pages from the digital version you can compare to the above scans.
And here’s a page I found through Google that looks like it might be the original.
Coloring just varies so wildly across reprints, and the coloring process at the time was imperfect to the point where you’re not always certain of the relationship between the colors that were printed and the colors that were intended.
Rating: ★★★½, 61/100
Significance: ★★★★★
Astute readers will notice this is the highest score I have given an Iron Man story since his own introduction.
I read this story in The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus vol. 1. You can find it in the Iron Man Epic Collection vol. 1 or Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man vol. 2. Or on Kindle.
I would guess I first read this story when it was reprinted in Thunderbolts #39 (2000). Unfortunately, my copy of that comic is in storage with about half my collection. I’d have much preferred to use it for the scans for this post.
Characters:
- Iron Man/Tony Stark
- Happy Hogan
- Pepper Potts
- Hawkeye
- Black Widow/Madame Natasha
Minor characters:
- Parker (Stark employee)
- Charlie (Stark security guard)
- Pete (Stark delivery driver)
Story notes:
- Parker is a Stark employee; no known relation to Peter Parker.
- Happy hasn’t had a date with Pepper in weeks.
- Stark tries to encourage Pepper to go out with Happy but she mistakes it for an invitation.
- First date of Tony and Pepper: Coney Island.
- Hawkeye an attraction at Coney Island, described as “World’s greatest marksman”.
- Hawkeye repeatedly referred to as “Hawkeye, the Marksman.” A semi-official nickname.
- Flying pinwheel goes out of control. Iron Man saves the day.
- Iron Man’s feat inspires Hawkeye that he needs a colorful costume disguise.
- Each arrow has a specially fitted tip of its own: suction-tipped arrow (with spring pulley device); explosive arrowhead; chemical-tipped arrow (chemicals stiffen Iron Man’s armor); demolition blast warhead (different from explosive one apparently).
- Hawkeye foils jewelry store heist, but is mistaken for criminal.
- Black Widow manipulates Hawkeye by playing on his affections; she conceals that she is a red spy.
- Black Widow enlists Hawkeye to defeat Iron Man, but not to harm Stark, which Hawkeye interprets as affection for Stark on her part.
- Pepper agrees to go to murder mystery at drive-in with Happy to make Stark jealous.
- Communist-provided lab helps Hawkeye make more specialty arrows.
- Hawkeye steals discarded pieces of Iron Man’s armor.
- Iron Man doesn’t recognize Hawkeye, even though he hasn’t changed his name.
- Ending note that the Marvel Tales Annual now on sale reprints the origin of Iron Man.
#229 story in reading order
Next: Tales of Suspense #57, Story B
Previous: Amazing Spider-Man #16
In the first German editions I read of these stories, published by BSV/Williams, they painstakingly redrew the H in each panel showing Hawkeye’s costume into an F, as they had translated the name as Falkenauge. While “Falke” means “falcon” and “Habicht” would be hawk, the translators at Ehapa Publishing also translated Hawk-Man as “Der Falke” over at the Distinguished Competition. I never figured out why, but I’m a psychologist, not an ornithologist, dammit.