Featuring: Iron Man
Release: September 9, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
Writer: Stan Lee
Penciller: Don Heck
Inker: Mickey Demeo
Letterer: Artie Simek
12 pages
| Previous | #431 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| PRELUDE | Weird Science #20 | |
| Avengers #22 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #22 |
| Tales of Suspense #71, Story B | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #72, Story B |
The nation asks– no, it demands to know the true identity of one of its greatest heroes! We must learn– Who is Iron Man?
Let’s start with a bit of an apology to Iron Man. His character was introduced in Tales of Suspense #39, released December 10, 1962. So we just passed his 60th birthday and failed to mark the occasion with appropriate fanfare. Happy belated 60th, Iron Man.
Iron Man returns to America and cheering crowds, having triumphed over Titanium Man. But the victory was costly, as Happy now hovers on the edge of death.
Reporters seem eager to get the scoop on Iron Man’s true identity. I don’t really think it’s that hard if you want to do any amount of investigating.
Nobody ever seems concerned how casually Iron Man walks into Stark’s office and makes himself at home.
The Countess is back and causing trouble again. She’s hired the Mad Thinker to learn Iron Man’s identity.
We’ve already done some math to suggest the Thinker isn’t as smart as he claims to be. This issue will be his biggest test. If he can’t think through Iron Man’s “secret”, I call him fraud.
Heck, even the Thinker’s “Awesome” Android is based on designs stolen from Mr. Fantastic.
I don’t really like Heck’s take on the Thinker. While Heck is versatile with faces, he seems limited in his builds. Kirby gave the Thinker a very non-typical body type for these stories, but Heck gives him a pretty standard athletic look.
I think Heck tends to be better with showing distinctive faces in close-ups. So this panel is a good rendition of the Thinker.
Senator Harrington Byrd (I think this is the first time we’ve seen his first name) plans to summon Stark to Washington to learn his identity. This plot thread will play out over a pretty long span of time and would inspire a scene from Iron Man 2.
Stark’s attache case has a fingerprint-sensitive trap. Another of those “x-factors” the Thinker couldn’t possibly predict. Despite being basically the oldest trick in the book.
Anyways, Stark was Thinker’s prisoner. Then he disappeared and Iron Man showed up. Iron Man battles the Android and rescues the Countess.
But how did Iron Man get there? Where did Stark disappear to? C’mon, Thinker. Time to prove you’re the genius you claim to be, and not just the Elon Musk of super-villains.
I’m waiting.
Pepper remains angry at Stark for not being there when Happy needed him. Tony is being intentionally cold to her for… reasons. Basic summary is they both have feelings for each other, but Tony has heart problems, and nobody with heart problems has ever been in a relationship before. So he keeps being mean to her to make her lose interest.
News comes in that something has happened to Happy in the hospital. We’ll have to return to that thread later.
We’re going to pause this issue here, and return to the issue’s Captain America story later. Attempting to read it now gets us into more trouble.
We’ll then finish up July with the Spider-Man and Sgt. Fury stories, which are nicely free of continuity complications.
The confusing reference that parallels this story with Thor’s story which had to be very close in time to the wedding is why we read this now. I think of this as the “continuity fallout” of the wedding. In fact, the last 30 posts have all been that. The wedding needed careful timing with the X-Men and Thor reading. The wedding pushed our big Dr. Strange arc forward. Dr. Strange of course shares a title with SHIELD, a series which frequently featured Tony Stark. After the wedding, I was eager to read Marvels #2, which we’ll get to imminently.
Marvels is a 1990s series I love which I’d like to frame our reading. The first issue of Marvels was set in the 1940s, prior to our reading. The second issue focuses on the dawn of the Marvel Age, opening with the Avengers first battle with the Masters of Evil, and taking us through the Fantastic Four wedding and the X-Men/Sentinels battle, ending on the verge of the Iron Man/Titanium Man battle, the Iron Man arc which preceded this issue.
The plan is to read it after an unusual detour to read our first non-Marvel comic as part of our Marvel reading.
Rating: ★★½, 49/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus vol. 1.
Characters:
- Iron Man/Anthony “Tony” Stark
- Pepper Potts
- Countess de la Spiroza
- Mad Thinker
- Android
- Senator Harrington Byrd
Story notes:
- Iron Man declines a celebration for this Titanium Man victory.
- Pepper has only contempt for Tony for not seeming to care about Happy.
- Countess hires the Thinker to learn Iron Man’s identity.
- Thinker calls himself The Thinker. Tony calls him the Mad Thinker.
- Android based on plans stolen from Mr. Fantastic.
- CIA alerted to Stark’s disappearance; as is Byrd.
- Byrd plans to summon Stark to Washington to learn Iron Man’s identity.
- Hidden electro-cells in attache case examine fingerprints and emit gas if any try to open it.
- Android can mimic any enemy; becomes an Iron Man.
- Iron Man counters rays with “reflecting mist”.
- Iron Man rescues Thinker and Countess; Thinker can’t predict where Stark went and Iron Man came from.
- Android presumably destroyed.
- Tony intentionally cold to Pepper.
| Previous | #431 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| PRELUDE | Weird Science #20 | |
| Avengers #22 | Reading order | Sgt. Fury #22 |
| Tales of Suspense #71, Story B | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #72, Story B |
