Featuring: Iron Man
Release: November 11, 1965
Cover: February 1966
12 cents
Story: As only the fabulous Stan Lee can tell it!
Art: As only the fantastic Adam Austin can draw it!
Inking: As only the flamboyant Gary Michaels can delineate it!
Lettering: As only the frantic Artie Simek can scribble it!
12 pages
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Somehow– I feel as though my whole world is crashing down around me–!
Jack Abel returns under the Gary Michaels pseudonym. He’ll be the regular inker for a period of time.
Recall Happy had been badly injured during the battle with Titanium Man in issue 71, and last issue he was kidnapped from his hospital by the Black Knight. Iron Man rescued Happy and the Black Knight fell to his death, but now Iron Man is out of power.
To add a bizarre but strangely common wrinkle to the relationships, Pepper now decides she loves Iron Man and hates Tony. It used to be the other way around. Tony loves Pepper but can’t be with her because he has a bad heart, so he’s been intentionally cruel. Happy loves Pepper, but Pepper couldn’t love him back because of Tony, but now she’s over Tony and in love with Iron Man.
Senator Byrd isn’t backing down.
An untested Stark technology is the only thing that might save Happy. But there may be side-effects.
Indeed, Happy is turned into… the Freak!
Colan’s layouts are very different from Kirby’s or Ditko’s. Focused on larger panels with frequent single page spreads, as opposed to neat 3-row grids. As a side effect of the larger panels, much less story happens in these 12 pages.
I’ll note some math from within this comic, as the Captain America story has Kirby layouts. The Iron Man story has 47 panels over 12 pages, an average of about 4 panels per page. Whereas the Captain America story has 49 panels over 10 pages, an average of about 5 panels per page. Both have an opening splash page, but Colan has another splash page as well, and Kirby has no other pages with fewer than 4 panels, and only one page with 4 panels. Whereas Colan has three 3-panel pages.
Here are the distributions of panel counts. For each possible page numbering, we list how many pages used that number of panels from each artist. Keep in mind the Iron Man story is 2 pages longer. But Kirby still used more total panels!
| Number of panels per page | Colan Count | Kirby Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 5 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | 0 | 1 |
Most of Kirby’s pages are in 3-row grids, with each row having 1-2 panels, hence the 5/6 panel pages. The 7-panel page is the final page, with the final row having 3 panels. The one 4-panel page is a nice grid as well.
As an aside to all this, when the pages were nicely arranged in 3 rows of panels, I felt that one row was the perfect size for the feature images at the top of these posts. I struggle to get a good third-page image out of Colan’s layouts.
We have reached November 1965. Let’s take a walk around the newsstand with the help of the Grand Comics Database and Mike’s Amazing World.
Note the date is a somewhat arbitrary marker I keep as we often shuffle around when we read things. But I try to put things with the date they came out, or move them if they’re part of a story arc. So by my marker it’s now November. Though we’ve read several November comics and noted this is one of the single best months in Marvel history. The finale of the Master Planner saga in Amazing Spider-Man. The climax of the Inhumans saga in Fantastic Four. The finale of the Sentinels saga in X-Men. The finale of the Hydra saga in the Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD stories of Strange Tales. The climax of the Eternity saga in the Dr. Strange stories of Strange Tales. Still to come are the introduction of Hercules to the modern era in Journey Into Mystery and the start of John Romita’s run on Daredevil. It’s an incredible month and a strong contender for the best month of Marvel ever.
Let’s just peek at what the competition is up to. I’m no expert on the other publishers, but it seems like a pretty big month for DC as well. It’s the debut of Dial H for Hero. I see the Spectre makes his triumphant return after being absent since the 1940s. And the recently introduced team of sidekicks the Teen Titans get their own series. Other genres still going strong at DC include their war and romance lines, each getting 5 titles this month.
- Adventures of Jerry Lewis #92
- Girls’ Romances #114
- House of Mystery #156
- Our Fighting Forces #97
- Showcase #60, DC
- Teen Titans #1, DC
Meanwhile, Charlton introduces a new superhero, Petter Cannon Thunderbolt.
- Archie #160, Archie
- Army War Heroes #12, Charlton
- Thunderbolt #1, Charlton
- I Dream of Jeannie #1, Dell
- Walt Disney’s That Darn Cat, Gold Key
- Wendy the Good Little Witch #34, Harvey
Significantly, Jules Feiffer put out The Great Comic Book Heroes, a book reprinting a variety of notable 1930s and 1940s comics from several publishers, including the origins of Superman and Captain America. With commentary on the historical and literary value of the selections by Feiffer. This was an era where older comics were hard to find. Marvel and DC were more and more putting out specials reprinting select old comics, but this was the first bookshelf format book to reprint old comics, a now ubiquitous practice. The book was an early step toward American superhero comics gaining mainstream recognition for their literary value.
Jules Feiffer is a famed artist across all mediums, from comics to prose to stage to film. He’d already won an Academy Award by this point and would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize. I got to meet him at a comic convention near Washington DC about a decade or so ago. Pretty amazing man.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
I read this story in Iron Man Epic Collection vol. 2: By Force of Arms.
Characters:
- Iron Man
- Pepper Potts
- Senator Byrd
- Happy Hogan/Freak
Story notes:
- Iron Man’s transistors out of power. Enough juice to send out radio call to lab. Picked up by Pepper.
- Pepper has distrusted Iron Man in the past, but now is mad at Stark for hogging Iron Man’s glory. She realizes it’s Iron Man she loves.
- Emergency charging wire fits into dashboard cigarette lighter.
- Happy back in hospital; using Stark’s experimental Enervator to save him. This worries Iron Man for it was never tested. Enervator needed to power Cobalt Ray machine.
- Iron Man directs Pepper what plugs to hook him up to.
- Iron Man warns too much energy in a Cobalt apparatus can change a human body into a Freak.
- Byrd wants facts about his armored power for his military committee, and plans to come to New York with a subpoena.
- Happy Hogan turns into a Freak. Raging, his mind not his own, as strong as Iron Man…
| Previous | #453 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #73, Story B | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #74, Story B |
| Tales of Suspense #73, Story B | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #74, Story B |
