Showing newest entries, #1 to #1 of 1, with tag #anton_vanko.
Tales of Suspense #46: Iron Man Faces the Crimson Dynamo!
It is time for ANTHONY STARK to become IRON MAN once again!! How can the golden super-hero ever defeat "the CRIMSON DYNAMO!"
How exciting! Even the questions end with exclamation points!
This month, we're starting out with Tony half-undressed on the cover itself! I'm pretty sure by now they've caught on that we love seeing naked Tony and are just pandering with fanservice at this point. "Read our magazine! Stripping mustaches inside!"
Coming to you from October of 1963, this time we have yet another Berns and Heck production. Been on a streak of Heck for a while now; maybe he's becoming the main illustrator and we're not going to see much of Kirby now? Or maybe three months in a row isn't too unusual. I don't know.
The issue starts with the comic talking to the reader: "Can you recognize the pudgy, scowling figure entering a strange laboratory just outside Moscow? If you don't then you know nothing about the Cold War! For this stocky fellow is the "Mr. Big" of the Iron Curtain!"
They don't refer to the man by name, but I'm pretty sure we're supposed to assume that this is Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (again, WHY so many H's T_T).
The story starts off with "Mr Big" going to visit a deliciously-mustached scientist named Vanko, who is an expert in electricity. Apparently Big hates him, but he's going to meet him to see some kind of demonstration of some new invention or discovery or whatever. Sounds a lot like like Vanko is supposed to be an evil version of Tony, as this is how a lot of episodes have started out with U.S. government officials going to see his demonstrations.
Vanko shows off some big red suit thing that looks like a super-evil version of Iron Man. Big says he looks like a "human dynamo," but I don't understand how he would come to this conclusion since dynamos look like this... But I guess it's a good lead-in for Vanko to say that he's indeed supposed to be a dynamo, and can manipulate electricity at will.
And basically, according to his demonstration, this gives him two main powers: the ability to remote control anything and the power to blow stuff up at will. He illustrates by manipulating and exploding an Iron Man robot and a full-sized war tank, terrifying Big in the process.
Instead of transistors, we learn that he uses instead a rheostat that is located in his hand. I'm not sure why he needs an entire walking suit to fiddle with a little control in his hand, though. In fact, he purposely leaves out explaining the details because it's above Big's head. All we know is that he just has to "line up the proper frequencies" and stuff goes boom.
We then cut to Tony's part of the world where a rocket he worked on is about to launch some guys into space. Happy and Pepper have a little argument, with Pepper commenting on how Happy has no bravery, to which Happy responds that she'd probably even find fault with Iron Man. Overhearing their conversation, Stark realizes it's probably a good idea to have Iron Man around for the launch, just in case anything goes weird.
A pretty convenient moment to think of it, too, as Crimson Dynamo is lurking around the corner ready to screw up the launch.
The shuttle launches and suddenly starts twirling around wildly in the air. The men inside worry that they're going to die, but little do they know that Iron Man is nearby to save them. Exactly as you would expect, he jumps up and catches the missile right by the nose and allows it to crash into the ground with him breaking the fall. He staggers away and everyone talks about how great Iron Man is. You know, typical everyday stuff around here.
Dynamo curses him from the bushes, complaining that he sabotaged his sabotage. But then he comments that Iron Man can't be around to protect all of Stark's inventions and assets at the same time. Which is honestly something I didn't even bother to think of before, and you'd really wonder why no villain has thought of this before. Attack two things at once and you'll succeed in at least one of them, as Iron Man can only be in one place. Especially a good idea if you plan them so that Iron Man shows up at the decoy location and your real goal is left unguarded.
I guess, of course, things would work out in Stark's favor somehow though. Like he was testing an automated Iron Man robot that went to the decoy place and then he was able to stay and become Iron Man himself for the main battle, or something like that.
Over the next several weeks, Dynamo goes around wrecking havoc in various plants and bases supplied by Tony, messing with the electricity to cause fires and explosions. So rather than attacking multiple places at once, he's just doing surprise attacks all over the place randomly. And Iron Man isn't around to stop him.
In fact, his plan seems to be even more thought-out than I had believed -- knowing that some kind of terrorist is targeting specifically Tony, the government is considering severing his contracts with them. Or rather, a senator seems to be accusing Tony of being a communist spy sabotaging himself. Since weapons dealing is Stark's main source of income, this would mean he'd lose everything! And since Tony and Iron Man's abilities come from their vast supply of materials and money, this would also mean Iron Man would be unable to keep repairing and upgrading himself. Of course, Dynamo is only after Stark, but he's hurting Iron Man more than he realizes as well!
Tony worries about his upcoming financial ruin, but Happy and Pepper vow to stick with him til the bitter end.
But then Crimson Dynamo takes the wrong step next. He chooses for his next target to attack Stark's office directly, luring out Iron Man so he can destroy him.
The fires and explosions start, causing Pepper and Happy to run out of the office, leaving Tony to safely and discreetly change into his Iron Man suit.
Iron Man bursts through the wall and confronts the Crimson Dynamo for the first time. Also, the little caption in the panel says "Next Moment..." as if consecutive panels are not intended to be the next moment after previous panels... I understand when there's a large time skip and they have a caption like "2 Weeks Later..." but why do we need "Next Moment" ????
Dynamo starts fiddling with some dials on his belt to adjust his frequencies or whatever so he can blow up Iron Man, but Tony has already been thinking ahead. From the evidence of the origin of past explosions and problems at his plants, he realizes that his enemy must have control over electricity, and he's prepared... with TRANSISTORS!
Dynamo sends his electrical waves at Iron Man from his hand rheostat, astonished that he didn't suddenly explode. Iron Man explains to him that he used his transistors to create a forcefield of static that interferes with the electricity that he's sending out.
Iron Man asks Dynamo if he's the one that's been sabotaging Tony's plants. He even refers to them as "my plants," which you think would give Dynamo the realization that Iron Man is actually Tony Stark, but I'm guessing this was just an oversight in the writing. Dynamo not only explains that he's been sabotaging the plants, but gives away his identity as Vanko freely, much to the delight of Iron Man who has a tiny ultra-sensitive tape recording device on his belt. Convenient thing, that.
I guess Tony recording the "confession" to prove he wasn't the one blowing up the plants to use it to keep his contracts, though they don't actually show him doing this. I guess it goes well, because we keep getting plenty of issues after this!
Anyway, Tony gets a brilliant idea next -- he realizes that Commies all distrust each other! And what do you do when you have a great epiphany like that? You start... chopping down trees... Yeah, he just starts uprooting trees and hacking them down with his hands and stuff, going nuts all over the place, while Dynamo just watches in confusion. Thankfully, he just continues to stand around and be confused, allowing Iron Man to build a tree fort around him, trapping him. He then flies away to go grab a radio, taking several minutes to return.
I... can't even believe this was his plan. Why didn't Dynamo just... run around while he was picking up trees and tossing them? It looks like Iron Man could only carry two trees at a time, so it wouldn't be that hard to just... move away... why would you just stand there and let him pile up so many trees around you? And during that entire time he was gone trying to find a radio, couldn't you just climb out??? What kind of plot is this??????
Anyway, Iron Man returns and picks Dynamo up and starts carrying him around. Again, why couldn't you just do this from the beginning? Well, I mean, I guess he needed to go get the radio, but considering he always has everything else conveniently on him or can just build new items out of nowhere, I really think it's weird that a radio of all things is something he didn't have.
Iron Man threatens to drop Dynamo into some water, which obviously will fry him, but he tries to convince his foe not to do it because the electricity will shock them both. Iron Man responds that it's a worthy sacrifice to get rid of Vanko and Dynamo, but I don't understand why he couldn't just... you know... drop him... why would have have to go in the water with him? I mean, they're flying...
So yeah, Berns was really not having a good day when he wrote this script, I think...
Anyway, Dynamo starts whining that he doesn't want to die, and so Iron Man lets him listen to the radio instead, by giving him some "ear plugs." Of course, Dynamo is still wearing his helmet, so he doesn't have exposed ears... and we just see these weird pink things with all kinds of weird shapes sticking out of them stuck to the side of Dynamo's helmet. Iron Man hijacks the airwaves to intercept a transmission from Mr Big telling his Comrades to machine-gun down Vanko when he returns, as he doesn't want the threat of Dynamo turning on him in the future.
But then we learn that he really didn't go get a radio, he just went away and recorded the message himself. So it wasn't even hijacked airwaves, it was just him talking into his stupid tape recorder. He doesn't even say that he learned to speak Russian or that he imitated the voice or anything. It sounds like he just went and talked in his normal voice in English on this tape recorder and Dynamo believed it was Khrushchev. Then Iron Man congratulates himself on such a great plan, commenting that it obviously worked because everyone knows how treacherous all communists are!
Berns... Come on, man...
Dynamo gets mad that he was tricked, upset that communists can't be trusted. I guess if it had actually been a real intercepted transmission, he would have heard a similar thing, but in this case, it was Iron Man who tricked him. So Iron Man is the one who is lying and shouldn't be trusted, right? Iron Man then offers him a job working for Tony Stark as an electrical engineer. But I don't know why Tony would want Vanko to work for him, since he just got done explaining that his plot was guaranteed to work because no communists can be trusted.
I... don't know. We'll just go with it 8) No questions...
And yeah, it just ends like that. That would be cool if Vanko showed up again as a recurring character, because he has a fantastic mustache. And speaking of fantastic mustaches, let's check out our Handsome Tonys for the month:
... Yeah, only two this time. Mostly just because Tony hardly appeared at all, but at least when he was around we did get to see some nice images. Ascot!Tony makes up in quality for our lack of Tonys in quantity.
We get two more side-story comics and another written story this time. I think the prose was entitled "The Utopia?" I'm not sure. I don't even care to go check. The first side comic was about some gargoyles and the second about "Mr Flubb's Flashlight," neither drawn by Lieber, so we don't get any sexy long-faced mustached villains this time. The second, though, has the art credited to Sol Brodsky, whom I don't remember seeing credited before, so that's kinda cool. His faces look a lot more round and vibrant, almost even manga-ish compared to the art style we've seen with the other artists so far.
Promised in the caption at the end, we're getting an 18-pager next month where Iron Man will face off against "the Mysterious Melter." Look forward to that! Until then, keep stachin~
