Showing newest entries, #1 to #5 of 10, with tag #tales_of_suspense.
Tales of Suspense #48: The Mysterious Mr. Doll!
See the NEW Iron Man! This one you dare not miss! Featuring: A truly different super-villain! None can challenge the great MISTER DOLL!
Welcome to December of 1963! We're finishing of the year with a big doozy! This one promises to be a classic in the years to come, even with a bulleted list of why it's so great! It has EVERYTHING!
- A powerful, seemingly unbeatable villain!
- A super-hero who reaches new heights of greatness, as you shall see!
- Produced by a combo of comicdom's brightest stars!
And by these brightest stars, we mean that Stan Lee actually wrote the script this time, and the art is credited to "Steve Ditko and Dick Ayers." I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I'm assuming that Ditko did the main artwork and Ayers did the inking, or maybe they like... took turns? I don't know. The inking has this style of really think outlining that we haven't seen so far. Looks kinda cool.
And we're going to get to see the NEW Iron Man! He's finally starting to look like the "normal" Iron Man look, complete with Iron Underwear that he wears on the outside of his suit. And no, that's not Guts Man. Nor Quail Man. Just Iron Man.
We start off this month with Pepper receiving a call from Charleton Carter, a steel tycoon and apparently Tony's supplier, telling Stark's office that he's calling off their trade deal. Tony, of course, is shocked and worried, as Carter's never done such a thing before, and, well, he needs that steel.
As happened last episode, he goes off to visit Carter to see what's up with the suspicious behavior, telling Happy he doesn't need a ride after all, but not explaining why. Of course, we know why -- he's going to turn into Iron Man and like... fly there or whatever. Actually he just drives his own car. In the Iron Man suit. I don't know why...
When Iron Man arrives at Carter's cliffside manor, he seems some creep wandering around the grounds in a strange costume, immediately identifying him as a super-villain. You know, villains could probably get away with a lot more schemes if they just wore normal clothes, I'd bet. Well, it didn't really help The Actor, I guess. He got vine-bonded into a car pretty easily.
Anyway, the creeper goes back into the house, and Iron Man hears a cry for help from a tower window. He leaps up and enters through the window, which is conveniently open so he can hear things inside and enter without having to bust it down. If I was a villain hurting someone who was screaming out, I'd probably close the window. But that's just me. Maybe it was stuffy in there?
Upon arrival, Iron Man finds Carter being tortured by the guy in the crazy getup, who happens to have a pretty fantastic-looking low-handing handlebar mustache. The guy is carrying some weird little clay doll thing with Charleton's face on it, but upon seeing Iron Man, he quickly fashions it to look like him instead. Tony starts freaking out that his bones are pulsating or something like that. Now, if the doll controls or hurts someone based on the face it's wearing, why is it affecting Tony? Because he's wearing the Iron Man suit? So does the doll also haave to wear hats and masks and stuff to affect someone? If Tony took his helmet off, would the doll suddenly stop working? Could he like draw a mustache on Iron Man's mask and make it stop working until Mister Doll drew a mustache on his doll? It just... doesn't make sense to me... And I have a feeling it's not going to be explained any further. We'll see, I guess.
Oh, and Mister Doll was talking in third-person and half explaining his ploy aloud to Carter, so that's how we (and Iron Man) learned his name and about his doll. Though I have to say Mister Doll is... not exactly the most intimidating name for a villain.
Encumbered by the power of the doll, Iron Man ends up falling off the balcony and into the water below, sinking fast, unable to control his own body. With Iron Man out of the way, Mister Doll changes his doll's face back to Charleton's to continue threatening him, but that gives Iron Man just enough time to swim to the surface and survive.
But now there's a big problem -- all of that exertion has drained Tony's batteries dry, and he's starting to pass out. He races home in his car and just barely makes it to the outlet to plug himself in back at his lab. I wonder how far away it was? Was there not somewhere else he could have charged up that was closer? I mean, he put on a jacket and scarf which concealed that he was wearing his Iron Man suit to everyone at his lab and office, so he could have done something similar elsewhere.
Anyway, he tumbles to the floor and the narration wonders if maybe he plugged in just a bit too late. Yup. That's it. Series is over, and this episode was only a couple pages long. Bye! It was fun doing the Iron Man readthrough with you all. Sorry it didn't last longer. Guess I'll move on to Avengers or something?
Of course not. We haven't even seen the new Iron Man we were promised on the cover!
Not having heard from Stark, Pepper and Happy are worried when he doesn't show up in the morning. A disturbingly-deformed Pepper calls the lab and Stark barely wakes up in time to answer the call, telling her that he fell asleep in the lab from working too hard and not to let him have any disturbances whatsoever for a few hours. He realizes that his battery is a huge weakness (only just now?!) and worries about how it's seeming to have to be recharged more and more frequently anymore. I wonder if it's a lithium ion battery. Anyway, he decides to make some major changes to his armor to compensate for this weakness.
And he makes a lot of changes. In fact, he pretty much just scraps the whole thing and makes a new suit. The only thing remaining from the old one is the chestplate that he can't get rid of anyway because it keeps him alive, and his little golden underwear part that exists solely because they didn't want to draw him in regular underwear or show him naked.
Both of those parts get covered up anyway by a new red part. The new chestplate opens up in the front and has transistor batteries (??) inside some panels that he can reach easily. I guess these are new batteries to replace the old one? I don't really know. It doesn't explain it. But the next part is pretty cool -- he has arm and leg cuffs that act as backup generators! If the main battery is to die, the backups can kick in and help him stay alive for longer. And I'm assuming they'll alert him that the battery is low, giving him time to escape to an outlet while he's still conscious and in good condition, instead of just suddenly being on the verge of collapse every time the battery starts to run out.
The cuffs also contain the golden sleeves and pant legs of the armor. After he clasps the cuffs on, magnets in the shoulders of the chestplate and in the red undies part suck up the rest of the armor without him having to put it on himself.
Wait.
Crotchplate. I'm going to call it a crotchplate.
Similarly, he also has new shoes that are kinda like little slippers, He just steps into them and clicks his heels together and magnets suit up the rest of his boot. They also have jets in them that are "less than an inch thick" but that seems like they would burn his feet when he powered them on. But probably some transistors keep his feet cool or something lol.
He also has a new ultra-thin hood with a hinged mask that he can flip up and down. Seems kinda like a bad idea -- an enemy could just flip the mask up and see his secret identity? Maybe it sticks on with magnets or transistors though. He also says that the mask allows people to see his expression, which can give him a psychological advantage against his enemies. Now, I don't understand how that part is any different than his old mask. It just has holes for the eyes and mouth. Just like the old one... Except this one has thin slots for the mouth, while the old one was just a big hole that let you see the entire mouth, so this would seems like it would be less expressive...??? No questions, no questions...
And with that, the NEW IRON MAN is born! I love the concept for the new suit. Not only does it look super cool, but the concepts are pretty neat. Especially I love the backup generators in the cuffs, and the way the magnets zip the suit on after he places the cuffs. I wish I could see it animated! With music and flashy backgrounds so it looks like a magical girl transformation sequence! Complete with cute pose at the end!
The new facemask with the v-shape is pretty cool, too. I don't know how soon that is going to go away, but it doesn't last terribly long, which is a shame.
Another important feature of this armor is that it's lightweight. Before, the power of transistors helped Tony manipulate the suit despite it being heavy. But now if you get tossed into the ocean off a balcony from a rich mustached tycoon's house because a doll is making your bones throb, you'll be able to swim to the surface without draining your entire battery fighting against the weight of your own suit. Fantastic!
The police have been questioning why all the richest dudes in the city are signing over all their money to a "Mister Doll." It's pretty hilarious because that would mean Mister Doll is his legal name and he's actually acquiring wealth under that name. So he probably has a Mister Doll bank account. But shouldn't that mean he also has a Mister Doll ID and social security number and stuff? They should be able to find him easily with that identification information...
But uh, no questions. Well the police have questions. But everyone who signs over their assets to Doll seem to be so mortified that the police can figure out nothing from them. After realizing that Charleton Carter was the third richest guy around, the police suspect that Mister Doll's next victim is going to be the weapons dealer Anthony Stark!
The police schedule a meeting with him, warning him of the danger, and offer to stay guard with him. He declines the offer, saying that he has enough of his own private guard. The police leave, and Tony realizes now that his guard is on high alert (he only has one guard lol), he has to figure out a way to ditch him.
He tells the guard that he's been wanting to ask Pepper on a date and would like some alone time with her. They go to a secluded room with only one entrance and exit, so that the guard can stand out front for protection without having to worry that Stark is missing. Pepper is overjoyed that her crush wants to date her and leaps into his arms. Tony thanks her for going along with his scheme and runs off into a secret exit, telling Pepper to continue talking to herself to keep the guard tricked. Of course, this leaves Pepper bewildered, sobbing to herself as he disappears.
Tony runs off to change into Iron Man, and at least the very first thing he thinks as he changes into his suit is that he regrets having to treat Pepper that way. I'm glad he's remorseful, but it was still a super shitty thing to do, and I'm sure he could have come up with some better plan. But if Tony perhaps did realize that Pepper wasn't acting to go along with his plan (which would explain why he felt so bad about it), then now Tony realizes that Pepper has feelings for him, at least. Though considering it's Tony, we're probably just supposed to assume that all women have feelings for him so this isn't even a reveal to him.
He should have just said he wanted to date happy instead and confused everyone for a while.
Iron Man appears in front of the guard watching over the room that Tony and Pepper are supposedly in and tells him that he's arrived to take over the guard duty. What's super weird is that everyone knows that despite his radically new appearance, everyone knows it's Iron Man because they can recognize his voice. His voice! It's Tony's voice! If they can recognize it, why can't they tell it's Tony?! No questions, no questions... ugh... Though I guess that Tony could have installed some kind of transistor-based voice-altering mechanism in his suit... Though this was never addressed...
Not long after Iron Man takes over, Mister Doll appears to target Stark. Iron Man rushes to face him, but the new look isn't too worrying for Doll. He just changes the face on his doll to reflect the new look, soon paralyzing Iron Man by twisting his arm with the power of the doll.
And now I see what Tony meant about the mask showing his expression -- the holes on the mask actually change shape to match Tony's expression! Well, that's not going to work to intimidate Mister Doll now... in fact, he's going to see just how much pain Tony is in by the writhing expression on Iron Man's mask!
So I guess his expression plan backfired. And even more with Doll's next move -- he changes his doll's face to look like Stark, to manipulate him into crawling to him to sign over all his stuff. Little does he know Tony is standing right there next to him. Iron Man turns away from Doll, afraid to show his face, because he can't let Doll see how much he's suffering, or he might realize that Tony Stark is the one under the costume.
For some reason, this annoys Doll and he commands Iron Man to get out of his sight -- just want Iron Man wanted! Thanks to the new lightweight suit, Iron Man is able to fight through the pain enough to get out of the room without raising suspicion. Doll just thinks he's already terrified of him and cowering away. Escaping to his lab, Tony comes up with a very risky plan. He has an idea for a device he can create to defeat Mister Doll, but he's in too much pain from fighting the control of the doll to work on it.
He detaches his chestplate device that keeps his heart beating despite the shrapnel lodged inside. As his heart slows down, it will deaden his nerves, making him unable to feel the pain, so he can work on the new device. But he'll only be able to stay alive for a few short moments before having to plug himself back in. Now, I don't really understand how he's going to sit and build this entire device without his nervous system functioning, but... you know, no questions.
The plan seems to work out with Tony plugging in at the last minute for the second time this issue. After powering up a bit, he rushes off to face Mister Doll. He doesn't seem to be in pain now, despite having plugged himself back in and reactivating his chestplate. Though I guess Doll is using the doll to force Tony to come to him, so complying with the order shouldn't pain him. I guess that makes sense. Of course, Tony busts into the room as Iron Man, which makes Mister Doll think Iron Man has come back to try to fight him again.
He changes the doll's face to resemble Iron Man's again. This time, he threatens to drop the doll onto the floor, which apparently will be devastating. He makes it sound like it would kill him. But before he can drop it, Iron Man quickly spins toward the doll and fires his new device -- a tiny "transistor-powered force beam," which changes the doll's face to Mister Doll's own shape! NO QUESTIONS! But at that exact moment, Doll had already dropped the doll, and he falls to the ground with it, unable to get back up. So I guess he didn't die?
Iron Man alerts Happy and the guard (or maybe the police, idk) that Mister Doll is incapacitated. He returns as Tony and Happy asks him where Pepper is. I guess he just completely forgot about her being locked in that room! Teehee!
They go and find her, and she's super mad. She storms off, and Happy talks about how he doesn't understand women. Tony says he understands women, but not Pepper!
Like... Seriously??? Are you kidding me? You can't understand why she is upset? You misled her into thinking you returned her feelings, made her cry, then told her you were going to make a call and come back, but you never came back, you just completely forgot about locking her in a room by herself to cry, and now much later you let her out and wonder why she is upset?! Like, as readers, we're supposed to relate to Tony and Happy being confused about this like women are some kind of weird, funny, enigmatic alien species that are impossible to understand. But, like, having even a modicum of compassion for fellow human beings would allow you to understand what is wrong here. Are men just supposed to be that fucking dense, or are we supposed to assume women are so inhuman they're incapable of normal feelings and should be happy to be subserviently locked in a room for hours after being lied to just because it was a man that did it...? Like... what??? I can't relate to this at all, and it's unsettling that the writers would assume anyone could relate to this ending... Well, I mean, other than people who relate to Pepper, I guess.
I can't even just write this off with "no questions" because this is just so stupidly dense.
Let's not dwell on it, though... We'll just move on to Handsome Tonys. Chauvinist that he may be, he's still flippin' hot with his sexy little mustache. And with this episode being heavily focused on Tony, we got a lot of 'em:
Mr. Ditko seems a little inconsistent in his style for now, especially with characters other than Tony (that one Pepper... *shudders*), or maybe they really did have him and Ayers taking turns drawing panels or something...? Seems kinda unrealistic, but IDK.
But overall we got a lot of nice Tonys. The eyes are much brighter and more detailed than Kirby or Heck, with focus on different features getting more attention to detail. In particular, the noses are well-detailed, which is a delight for me. The mustache doesn't randomly disappear when Tony is further away from the point of view of the panel, either, and it's not randomly changing thickness as much as the other artists' 'staches.
And the inconsistency isn't any worse than Kirby's, and not nearly as wild as Lieber's, so I'd say this is a great style for Iron Man, and it would be nice to see more of Ditko's style going forward.
Oh, and speaking of Lieber, our side story was another comic by him called "Kraddak." Can you guess that the villain looked like? Though this may be the hottest one yet; though I did really like the guy who got sucked into space. Two different types of tastes, I guess... which one is better depends on the mood. We also had some prose called "The Pact."
With our characters getting more development and Iron Man getting his new look, it seems like going forward should be pretty promising. Until next time, keep on stachin'~
Tales of Suspense #47: Iron Man Battles The Melter!
How can a man of iron save himself from a super-villain with the power to MELT iron?? Lee, Ditko, and Heck team up to bring you... IRON MAN, greater, more true-to-life than ever as he battles "THE MYSTERIOUS MELTER!"
A promising cover from November of 1963! Our credits are a little weird this time -- we have Stan Lee credited first as always, and then following it says that the story is "interpreted by" Steve Ditko and "refined by" Don Heck. I did a little research to see what these were supposed to mean, but it seems there's no definitive answer. It seems like most likely the storyboarding and some very rough penciling was done by Ditko, with the art being refined and inked by Heck. The art style looks like what we've seen of Heck so far, and other fans seem to agree, so I'm guessing that Ditko did some basic skeleton sketching and the art was mostly done by Heck.
Look, I'm learning things about comics! Actually, this is kind of dangerous because it's going to make me want to get more into them surely. How am I go to resist the luscious likes of well-stached Doctor Strange and others? Sigh...
I'm keeping track of who draws each of the 'Handsome Tonys' so I'm going to accredit these ones to Heck, since it's mainly his style that comes through in the end.
But, uh let's get into this month's story for now.
The episode even starts out with the caption, "Let's not waste time with long introductions!" and we're very quickly introduced to the villain of the month. We're shown a couple panels of some tanks being sabotaged as if parts of them were melted, including one with this hot stache copper in it! Tony goes to check on some of the tanks, since he was the designer, and suddenly this big blue and green dude appears and thwacks him in the head.
I am particularly fond of the word "thwack" because in high school, I got fed up with a kid bullying me and hit him with a bass drum mallet, and the drum instructors bestowed upon me the nickname "Thwack" which was hilarious. I got in trouble for hitting the kid though. And a discussion on bullying is for another time. And not in this readthrough at all hahaha.
Anyway, with the thwacking done, we find this Melter guy standing over an unconscious Stark revealing his main goals by narrating his actions. He wants to get revenge on his old rival Tony and "strike back" at the U.S. Armed Forces. Melting tank parts made by Stark and used by the government seems to be the best way he can think of to accomplish these goals. He even goes as far as to drop his own name: Bruno Horgan.
We're then given a flashback to learn exactly what this guy is so disgruntled about and how he discovered his powers. Apparently, Horgan used to be a major supplier to the government before Tony joined the scene. Stark, of course, produced the superior products with superior materials, so the government revoked his contract in favor of giving one to Stark.
Then later he was messing with his inferior products that went haywire. What was meant to be an "inspection beam" started melting the iron devices it was meant to be inspecting. Horgan didn't get it at the time, but he started studying the broken product until he figured out the secrets to making a melting beam. He fits it into a compact melting unit that he fastens to his chest.
He decides to use this newfound power for revenge, becoming a super-villain capable of avoiding the thread of weapons by simply melting them before they can be used.
After our little introductory flashbacks (I thought we were not wasting time with long introductions, but that took like two whole pages), we're taken back to the point where the thwacking had just commenced and Stark is lying on the ground with The Melter walking away from him.
Pepper asks Happy to go find Tony so he can sign some documents or something, and we get a little bit of comedic banter between them. Hogan finds Stark on the ground, who insists that he be taken to a room to rest alone, declining Pepper's insisting that she call a doctor for him. Apparently being whopped in the back of the head made his battery charge go down (???) so he needs to recharge. As always, he plugs himself into the wall and comments about how a few more minutes it would have been too late.
The Melter appears near the end of Tony's charge-up time, melting through locks to reach the insides of his munitions factory, ready to start melting stuff.
Of course, even though he could get past the locks, he couldn't do anything about the alarms, so Stark is quickly alerted to the break-in. He quickly puts on his metal costume from his attache, turning himself into Iron Man. Iron Man runs down the underground tunnelways he build to reach the factory quickly, thinking to himself how convenient it is that he decided to make the tunnels soundproof, or else whoever broke in would hear him coming now!
Convenient, indeed...
Iron Man arrives quickly, but a lot of stuff seems to already have been melted, with The Melter moving in on more targets. Realizing that he has a new foe to fight, The Melter turns his beam toward Iron Man instead. Tony is a bit relieved that he's temporarily taking his focus away from the munitions, but worries about what might happen if he gets hit with the beam himself.
And right after he thinks it, the beam hits his arm and melts the entire piece of armor covering it. I guess this thing doesn't melt stuff through heat, but rather just... somehow liquefies iron and only iron. Tony worries that if he were to get hit straight-on by the beam, his identity could be revealed -- and worse -- his chestplate would be destroyed! I'm not sure you really need to worry about the former in this case, though, as it really isn't going to matter if your identity is revealed when you're, you know, dead...
He realizes he needs to retreat and come up with some kind of plan, so Iron Man throws some transistors into the air which somehow make a steam pipe thing burst open. To avoid being scalded, The Melter runs away for now, figuring he's done enough damage. I would think he could just hang around and wait for it to stop or go around and chase down Iron Man, but it's way more convenient for the plot if he runs away for now and gives Tony a chance to re-emerge and do some planning. He makes some kind of excuse like he'd rather toy with Iron Man for a bit instead of defeat him right away.
Tony returns to human form and commands his workers to all work triple shifts (for triple pay) to clean up the mess. I mean, if you have that much money, why not just hire more people to do it instead of making those poor laborers work all damned day long...? It's not like it's their fault, and triple pay doesn't really make up for having to work like that...
Out of costume, Stark returns to his office and tells his staff to cancel all his appointments and to not let him be disturbed. He spends a lot of time moping around his lab and worrying about how The Melter is a dangerous opponent for him, but he doesn't seem to actually accomplish anything other than recapping what we already know. We then cut to the next morning, with Tony arriving early, surprised to see Happy and Pepper there as well. They tell him that they never left, staying overnight because they thought he might need them. I guess Pepper had a change of clothes at the office because she's wearing a different outfit now.
Pepper gets a call from congress requesting an urgent meeting with Tony. He declines Happy's invitation to drive him, because he's really going to just turn into Iron Man and fly there. Well, he flies to some random cottage he keeps just for this reason and then drives to the meeting place.
Inside, some congressmen scold Tony about how his production is slipping and a bunch of his stuff is faulty. Particularly the head of chewing Tony out seems to be this super hot pencil stache senator, which is very great. According to some sources this is supposed to be the same senator who accused Tony of being a communist spy in the previous episode, but he doesn't look anything like him, and that particular senator becomes a recurring character, and later appearances maintain consistency with the appearance of the senator in TOS#46, so I'm going to say that possible this is not who will become known as Senator Byrd. The entire group of congressmen are scolding Tony here, and this guy says Tony has an untarnished record, when Byrd was accusing Tony in the last episode. Of course, you could say that according to the timeline of the series, this could come before issue No. 46 chronologically, but... I think that's putting way too much thought into what is most likely just a generic senator.
Anyway, congress threatens to withdraw Stark's contracts again if this stuff keeps up, and they also seem to not believe that The Melter even exists. Tony decides his next step is not only to stop The Melter, but to bring back proof of his existence and interference. Seems a lot like what he had to do last month. If they were going to look back on these two plots and choose a look for "the senator that doesn't trust Tony," they should have chosen this one. Though I guess the one from last issue is the one who actually expressed explicitly that he thought Tony could be a spy.
And now I'm the one thinking too much about a one-off generic senator. But... LOOK at him...
Anyway, Stark gets a sudden call saying there's an emergency back at his plant, and he has to flee from the senators' scolding. He returns to find everything melted, with the damages so bad nothing can be used anymore and must simply be removed and scrapped. He changes back into Iron Man (there's a lot of changing back and forth in this one!) and starts to help clear out the melty rubble. But before he could leave the scene, The Melter notices Iron Man as he spies from some trees to make sure his job was done. He decides to stay and battle Iron Man instead.
A guard tells Pepper and Happy to evacuate since The Melter has appeared. Happy suggests Pepper run while he tries to find the boss, but Pepper instead tells him that he "couldn't find a tree in a forest" and runs off ahead of Happy to find Tony herself. Which is pretty awesome that she not only told off the strongman but took initiative herself. Pepper is a BAMF.
They run to the place where Melter is. I don't know why. Maybe they didn't know he was there? But they arrive while Iron Man is carrying some rubble away.
Even though he could easily defeat Iron Man right there, The Melter decides not to; he likes toying with him. Actually I think that was part of why he escaped earlier, too. He instead demonstrates his power by re-melting all the melted stuff that Iron Man is carrying, causing it to coat him in a big iron cast. Of course, Iron Man has the power of transistors, which makes... go away.
This makes Melter super mad and he decides he doesn't want to toy with him anymore (lol) and shoots his melting beam at him...
But nothing happens! Even at maximum intensity, the beam doesn't seem to melt Iron Man's armor for some reason. The Melter panics and notices that there's a crane carrying a boulder (why?) nearby, and decides to melt the crane part so the boulder will fall and smash Iron Man. But there's a big flaw in this plan -- Iron Man isn't even underneath the boulder. But I guess luckily for the Melter, Happy and Pepper are, so Iron Man has to take his attention away from The Melter to rescue them.
Melter runs off while Iron Man is busy, but since Tony knows the layout of the plant so well, he easily catches up to him, locking various doors and stuff with his transistors to trap Melter in a room with him. Melter gets the genius idea to try to melt the reinforced iron floor under Iron Man (it's... very convenient that almost everything around here is made of iron, even the floors...) but Iron Man just floats with his transistor jets. He then hilariously grabs the iron floor and yanks a sheet of iron away like it was a carpet, sending Melter tumbling off the rafter or whatever the heck it was they were even standing on.
About to crash into the floor below, Melter notices an iron covering over the sewage passage. He melts it and dives into the waste disposal waters (ew) and swims away. Iron Man has exhausted a lot of his batteries and can't really afford to go after him, not knowing if he drowned or escaped. It's then that Tony narrates to himself the big reveal -- the reason that Melter wasn't able to damage him this time is because he wasn't actually Iron Man, but Aluminum Man! He hopes that if The Melter is to return that he doesn't discover the secret and find a way to use it against him.
With The Melter likely to rear his ugly melted head again, we finish another issue of the tales of Iron Man. Definitely things picked up with last episode; this one was pretty good, too. We've established a couple good supporting characters now. And we've also started to see there are other weaknesses to Iron Man -- not just in being melted or whatever, but in that Tony requires government contracts to keep going, and he's starting to walk on thin ice with congress. The world is starting to have some shape to it, and we even seem to have some potential recurring nemeses for Iron Man, too, with both Jack Frost and The Melter getting away at the end of their issues. We also have Doctor Strange from before, if he ends up not being just Prototype Strange.
So, now that we're done, let's look at our collection of Handsome Tonys from this month! There was a lot of time spent out-of-costume so there are a lot of Tonys:
Look... at all... those mustaches... I... I'm melting...
OK, I... I gotta go... 'Til next time, keep stachin~...
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~
Tales of Suspense #45: The Icy Fingers of Jack Frost!
Straight out of September 1963, The ICY FINGERS of JACK FROST are reaching out for IRON MAN!
This month we're in for a treat -- not only do we get another "exciting" adventure, but we see the debut of Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts (... I only just now realized their names are both alliterated, which makes them even cooler!)
The cover claims that these two are "destined" to become two of our favorite supporting characters. I actually love both of them, so the prophecy was right, at least for me! Actually, with a couple supporting characters to balance out the maybe-a-marty-stu Stark, things should start to get quite a bit more interesting.
Berns is still doing the writing and we have Don Heck on the illustration again. He's still playing catch-up on the Handsome Tony Race, so maybe we'll get some good stuff this episode.
The inside cover page gives a bit of a spoiler for the plot of this book -- it shows Iron Man fighting Jack Frost with a thought bubble telling us that Tony actually knows the secret identity of Frost. Now, sometimes these covers contain things that don't even happen in the story, but something like that... at least we're probably going to see Tony knowing the identity of Frost as part of the storyline at some point. It reminds me of the terror that came with watching anime DVDs back in college; you had to be sure to skip the preview for the next episode because it would spoil the entire plot. You even had to close your eyes and ears when the title call told you the episode title because the episodes would literally be named stuff like "(Character) Dies in this Episode!"
Anyway, it's not like the plots of these older mags are particularly phenomenal, so I'm not too disappointed.
This month, we start with Iron Man blasting down the highway at 200MPH. At first, some cops start to chase him, thinking it's a "stripped-down rod" (which I'm guessing means like, a motorcycle with some parts removed to make it capable of reaching higher speeds? I don't know; I'm super ignorant about this kind of stuff), but they somehow just realize it's Iron Man and let him be, figuring he must have a good reason for going so fast.
We cut to Iron Man who explains with his thought bubble that he really didn't have an emergency -- he was just trying to get to the Indy 500 quickly because he was late. He also assures the readers that what he was doing was safe because in the case of a potential accident he could use jet propulsion to shoot himself up in the air and jump over a car or something. Now, even at 40MPH, people don't have the reaction time to stop sudden accidents from happening, but Tony thinks he can do it at five times that speed? Lol... It reminds me of those people who don't wear their safety belts because they can just "stop fast and put their arms up" if they get in an accident. Tony, you're a danger to drivers everywhere...
Anyway, it's cool that Tony's going to Indianapolis, my hometown. In other issues he goes to generic places like "somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean" or "Children's Hospital," but in this one we're specifically visiting ol' Indy for the 500. If you don't know, car racing is a thing here. Like, a big thing, and the Indy 500 is a major event every year, with the entire town of Speedway being converted into some kind of wild campgrounds and fairgrounds for people all over the world to visit. It's super bizarre, but kind of fun. My husband likes to go drive through the town every year a couple days before the race just to people-watch. It usually fires up my anxiety but you see some interesting stuff. Last year I saw an old man approach a young woman and offer her a teddy bear if she'd flash him, which she did, giggling with her friends as she walked away with her new teddy. And this was just, you know, in the middle of a residential area. But it's like, overrun with people wandering around drunk. It's so funny.
But yeah, high-class Tony is here for... that! Well, he's going to be actually driving in the race, it seems. We get a very handsome flash of a smile from him as he gets set in his "crate" (they refer to various vehicles as "crates" throughout this issue) and talks to his pit crew.
Not long into the race, Tony realizes that in his rush to get here late, he totally forgot to charge up his chestplate. He starts becoming weak and can't control his car anymore, crashing it... into the air for some reason. Actually, race car crashes are generally pretty nasty so that's not too crazy, I guess. I originally was going to comment that it seems unrealistic to forget to charge your battery when it will kill you not to do it, but I guess it's not any different than forgetting your insulin or inhaler or something. You eventually stop forgetting that, but when it's somewhat new but past that 'constantly paranoid about it' stage, it's easy to forget stuff like that.
The situation is looking pretty dire for Tony -- not only is he incapacitated by being pinned under his crate's wheel, but he also can hardly move because he's out of batteries which causes his heart to slowly stop working. Now, if he could eat a battery before to regain energy, why can't he just like... suck up some energy from the car or something...? I guess it's not electricity, though, but... I mean... a flashlight battery... IDK, just... NO QUESTIONS.
But now we get our introduction to one of our new supporting characters!
A man from the crowd rushes toward the car, with everyone else trying to stop him because it's too dangerous. With seemingly superhuman strength, he just pulls the car parts apart to unpin Tony and drag him from the car before it explodes. What's cool is that he doesn't try to save him because it's Tony, but just because "someone's in there." In fact, he seems to not even know or care who Tony is!
Tony begs him to take him to the nearest motel room and lock him inside, no questions asked. The big dude suggests rather going to a hospital, but Stark insists that he has to go to a motel and treat his condition himself. The guy complies. We get an even more dramatic battery-charging scene, with Tony struggling to reach the socket on the wall ("... Just a few inches more...!") before he completely passes out and lies down doomed.
After a bit of a charge -- actually, I wonder how long it takes to recharge his battery? I'm sure they've mentioned it at some point saying like "minutes later" or something, but... Actually, once he plugs himself in, we're interrupted by some adverts, so it's kinda like he's charging during the commercial break. One of the adverts is for the first issue of The Avengers (should an entire series be written in italics or with quotation marks...?) which featured Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Ant Man. Despite Wasp being on the cover as well, she's not mentioned in name anywhere. The top of the cover just has the four men's names printed largely. Kinda annoying because she's one of my favorites of the original Avengers. Even though I know hardly anything about them and most of my knowledge comes from picking up random bits of information relevant to Iron Man and from playing HeroClix and other games lol.
Anyway, after charging, Tony meets up with the guy who saved him to give him a reward. He writes him a check for fifty-thousand clams. I'm going to assume that one clam is equivalent to one dollar, and it's not slang for some higher amount (like a grand is a thousand or whatever). Adjusted for inflation, that would be over $400,000 in 2018 money, it seems. Anyway, the dude asks Tony if that's all he thinks his life is worth, and Stark thinks he's trying to get more money, so he offers to double the reward. But the guy just rips up the check and says he wasn't doing it for a reward, but just acted on natural instinct.
They get to talking and we find out the guy's name is Harry Hogan, but he got the nickname "Happy" because no one's seen him smile. But he seems to be a softie -- it seems he gave up his boxing career because even though he was a good fighter, he never had the heart to finish his opponents off. It seems that now, because of that, what he needs is a steady, safe job. Upon hearing that, Tony realizes that it wouldn't be had to have someone around like this all the time in case he needs to be rescued like that again, so he hires Happy on as his personal chauffeur-bodyguard.
What's particularly interesting about Happy is that not only does he seem to not really know who Stark is beforehand, he doesn't seem to really care. Or the not knowing is part of the not-caring act. But for example, when Tony is listing off all the fancy cars he has, Happy says those cars will do for a start, acting unimpressed. I guess it's less like he "doesn't care" and more like he doesn't worship Tony like every other person in the series seems to so far, instead opting for teasing him, which is a huge relief and change of pace. It's also great how Tony seems to appreciate this senese of humor and doesn't get upset or anything -- though I'm probably guessing this is a nice relief to him, too, to just be treated like a regular dude and not some kind of demigod of money or whatever.
Tony takes Happy back to his lab/base/office thing and introduces him to his secretary, Pepper Potts. And here we have our other new character! Though from the way she was introduced, I guess we're supposed to assume she's actually been working here for a while; this is just our first time seeing her.
The first we see of her is her making an I'm-going-to-puke face upon seeing Happy, complaining that of all the eligible bachelors Tony could have hired, he decided to go for this ugly brute. Albeit funny, I have a little complaint about the way she goes about it -- she says she would have preferred a "Rock Hudson" instead of a "Bela Lugosi." Now, this is from 1963, so she's talking about generic conventionally attractive Hudson, not lucious pornstache Hudson nor 80s zaddy Hudson. And she's implying that she'd rather have that boring version of Hudson over the intriguing and certainly more handsome Lugosi? As a connoisseur of unconventionally attractive men, I have to say I'm quite disappointed in Pepper's tastes.
But anyway, what's awesome about Pepper is that she's sassy as hell. Not only does she talk about how ugly Happy is where he can hear her (which, BTW, I disagree with as well! Look at that adorable lug!), but she also has all kinds of quick and witty comments to shut him down with, like "you wouldn't be my type even if you were my type." And when she admits she has a crush on Stark (your bad taste in men has been redeemed, child) and Happy refers to it as a 'love triangle,' she says the only triangle in the situation is his head. They even go as far as to put decorate some of her speech bubbles to look like they have hanging icicles or something to show how cold she can be; it's hilarious!
She's full of sarcasm and wit, and quickly stands up for herself, which is super refreshing for a female character in the 60's, and especially considering the women we've seen so far in this series.
We only get a brief introduction to her, though, as opposed to the several pages worth of introduction we got for Happy. But if you know much about Iron Man, you'll know that Pepper ends up becoming the more iconic and lasting character in the end, being a primary character of the more recent films and everything.
We cut back to Tony hanging out in his office alone, deciding to check up on his Iron Man suit by wearing it for a bit. Because I guess he just does that sometimes. And then suddenly someone is trying to break into his vault of "vital materials" and the big munnies. Pretty convenient he just put on the suit, huh?
Iron Man rushes to the scene to find that one of his most trusted scientists Professor Shapanka is the one tampering with the vault.
Iron Man pretty much just beats him up, then he goes back to his office and returns to his normal Tony form. He comments to himself that he's going to have to cover for Iron Man's departure and Tony Stark's sudden appearance at the scene, but that... never happens. He doesn't make any excuses and no one even questions it. I guess the thought of him having to cover was even enough now? We can't even be bothered for the cheesy excuses?
When Stark returns to the crime scene, Shapanka is being held by some of Tony's guards, with Happy standing in front of them. Shapanka assumes Tony is going to call the police and have him locked up, but Tony decides to let the guy go thanks to the work he's done in the past. Shapanka taunts him. I wonder who the main villain of today's issue is going to be? Hmmm... I guess that thing on the cover wasn't too spoilery after all.
Later we see Shapanka testing some kind of weird cryo-beam thing on a cat (ouch, animal testing?!). I guess it's nice that it works out harmlessly -- with his new invention, he's able to freeze the cat and thaw it back out with his zappy beams without hurting or affecting the cat at all.
With the secrets of cryogenics all figured out, Shapanka decides to make an 'ice suit' that will lower his body temperature to freeze himself but he won't be frozen... or something... I don't know. Basically he's gonna become kind of ice man thing, who for some reason also has powers to turn nearby things to ice, too, by like... blowing on them? It's not really explained but... this is more background than we've been given to any of the villains so far, so I guess that's pretty cool.
Oh, and all of this came from the fact that Tony said something about having "cold feet" while Shapanka was around, which gave the professor this epiphany to create all this. We're then interrupted by an advertisement for these creepy Disney latex toys. I really couldn't continue the story without showing you guys this. I always tease my husband being a kid in the 50s/60s and playing with rocks and sticks because they didn't have proper toys like us kids in the 80s/90s, but I guess they had crap like this which only makes the whole joke funnier.
With his new powers thanks to his nonsensical ice suit, Shapanka starts rampaging about town, stirring up news where people start calling him "Jack Frost." He thinks it sounds stupid but decides to keep the name anyway.
After what I assume was some practice terrorizing the town by doing stuff like robbing banks, Frost decides to finally seek revenge and go steal all of Stark's crap like he was originally intending to do, and turn Tony into a human Popsicle while he's at it. From his previous escapades (icecapades?! XD) we learn that ol Frosty now freezes stuff with beams from his hands instead of an ice breath like in his vision. Things nearby him freeze instantly, even quickly enough to stop bullets by turning them into snowflakes before they can hit him.
He busts up the front of the place, freezing Pepper and Happy in the process, talking about how he hated Pepper all along, and making way too many ice puns.
Frost reaches Stark's room where he finds, instead of Tony himself, Iron Man is waiting. Iron Man pushes a button on the wall which opens a trap door that is conveniently located exactly where Frost is standing. He starts to fall into the "underground labyrinth" (who has this under their office...?!) below, but before the door can even fully open and drop him all the way, he freezes the "mechanism" that opens the door to the chute. What's even more amazing than this impeccable response time is that he manages to narrate what he's doing alongside it! How fast must those words have been said? Could Tony have even understood someone speaking that fast? Well, he's at least able to recognize the voice as Shapanka, so...
We also learn of another scary power that Frost has. Iron Man stomps on Frost's hand as he's trying to climb back up into the office, but Frost just creates many more arms and hands from ice! It seems not only can he freeze the nearby visible objects, but he can also utilize the water in the air around him to quickly sculpt nearby ice things like arms and hands. I'm not sure exactly how he manipulates them to grab onto things and stuff considering they should be just solid blocks of ice, unless he's rapidly freezing and unfreezing the air in a way that it just looks like it's one continuous solid object moving. I wonder how many FPS he gets with this? But yeah, no questions...
He uses the hands not only to climb back up, but also to grab onto Iron Man's legs. Tony realizes that he's starting to feel icy even from being touched on the outside of his iron suit. For some reason, these illustrations alone lead Tony to believe that Frost is almost unbeatable. He says there's only a one-in-a-mullion chance to defeat him, and it will only work if Shapanka doesn't know that Iron Man is actually Tony Stark on the inside.
I'm not exactly sure why that's relevant in any way, because all he does is stun him with a heat beam from his chest and then builds a "miniature furnace" while Frost is immobilized, commenting about how convenient it is that he just so happened to have all the components he needed to make his little invention on him at the moment. Now, I realize that 'making little transistor thingies' is Tony's shtick, but I don't understand how Frost would have been able to stop him from doing this simply by knowing his identity. I mean, the zappy beam completely immobilized him, and I don't see how knowing who Tony was was going to undo that.
Iron Man places the mini-furnace on the ground next to Frost, which starts to blast the office full of heat. Stark grabs still-frozen Happy and Pepper and carries them outside, one in each arm, as the heat continues to rise, eventually bursting stuff inside to flames. Frost's outer ice shell thaws out, leaving only a scorched Shapanka stumbling out of the office. This time, Iron Man doesn't allow Shapanka to go free and hands him over to the authorities.
And we have finished a really great episode of Iron Man! The introduction of the new characters was great; we really get a good feel from their personalities even from such a limited interaction with them. And the sarcastic boxer and sassy secretary make the perfect contrasts to debonair Tony, so we're going to have great supporting cast moving forward.
The battle between Frost and Iron Man was pretty well-developed, too. We got a little build-up learning about Shapanka's motives and Jack Frost's origin, and the final showdown featured Iron Man actually getting bested for a moment before finding a solution. It was pretty exciting, especially compared to what we've seen so far, where the conflict is resolved almost as soon as it appears by some ridiculous idea of Tony's or whatever.
This seems to be a turning point for the series -- we're adding characters and the writing is getting a lot more serious and involved. Well, hopefully that will continue as we move forward.
And Don Heck has blessed us with a few Handsome Tonys this time around, too!
Look at all of those :D And some of them are really great, too. The dashing smile as he's about to race in the 500 and the stern glare as he decides to let Shapanka go are my favorites.
After the main comic, we have only a single side-story this time, another Lieber short involving yet another mustachioed villain that seems to be designed to fit my tastes all too well. We also have some advertisements for other Marvel mags, including Strange Tales which contains stories of Spider Man and Human Torch, the popular Fantastic Four, and the all-new debut of X-Men. Specifically these are ads for the 72-page Annuals, yearly big releases with tons of content loaded inside.
And with that, we've finished with Tales of Suspense No. 45. I hope you have enjoyed and are looking forward to the next episode. Until then, keep stachin~
Tales of Suspense #43: Iron Man versus Kala, Queen of the Netherworld!
Never has Iron Man faced so deadly a foe as... wait. That's not very threatening-sounding. I mean, he's faced less than a dozen foes at this point, and half of them were weird stuff like some animals at a zoo or a make-up artist who can do mustaches, too. I mean, when you have a zappy beam that can destroy an entire metropolis, are your foes really that deadly? And if worse comes to worst, just eat a battery.
That's right friends, we're back again, hot off the presses from July of 1963! This month, it looks like Iron Man is going to be facing off against a woman for the villain this time. We already learned that in the Marvel Universe, women are masters of fashion and can choose colors that make giant robot suits go from terrifying to adorable with just a coat of spray paint. But how do they stack up as evil masterminds? We'll have to find out! (Please don't be a seductress, please don't be a seductress, please don't be a--)
This month's episode is illustrated by Jack Kirby again, so we'll get to see if the CREEPY FACES come back. Spoiler: they don't! I guess that really was some kind of time-management issue, or just... a really rough month for poor Kirby or something. Faces are looking normal again, and the albeit less-detailed Tony faces are looking handsome as ever and giving Don Heck's art a run for its money. Berns is yet again on the writing, and Heck is doing the inking again. I'm not sure if inking includes coloring or if the work goes back to Kirby for colors. These days inking would mean the black lines only, or at least that's what it means to me, but they don't list colorists in these things, so... no clue.
This time we start off at Stark's laboratories again. There's some kind of wind tunnel with a giant missile inside of it, where they're... performing... some kind of test. But the control panel explodes for no reason!! And tornado-class winds are bursting out of the tunnel! In fact, they send the missile crashing into a mountain in the distance, blowing up the whole thing. And even though these winds can pick up an enormous, heavy missile and fling it across the countryside, it apparently can't blow people very far, because they're hanging onto poles and stuff and managing to stay together pretty well.
One of the workers calls up Stark, who of course "calls up" Iron Man. And by that I mean he gets naked and puts on the Iron Man suit. Ah, yes, the reveal I've been waiting for! We now learn that not only does Tony carry around his Iron Man suit folded up in his attache case, but he actually takes his regular clothes off in order to put it on! That means, for us mustache enthusiasts (which should be everyone, honestly), we are gifted with the realization that Tony strips for us every single episode of these comics. Kehehe.
So after our little striptease, Iron Man rushes out to the wind tunnel, which doesn't seem to affect him at all. I doubt he's heavier than the missile that blew away earlier, so I'm guessing this is another miracle thanks to TRANSISTORS. And this isn't the only miracle we're going to witness. Everyone knows that the only way to stop a tornado is to throw an opposite tornado at it, so Iron Man hops into the air and just starts... spinning around. Yup, he becomes a "human fan!" The power of the two winds blowing at each other causes a huge explosion which somehow stops the problem.
8)
Afterward, Iron Man rushes off to change back out of his costume (and yes, we get another stripping scene, from a little closer up so we can also see Tony has pretty hairy arms lol) so he can run back to everyone as Anthony Stark so that no one gets suspicious. Because Iron Man and Tony always immediately running away and then the other appearing isn't suspicious at all.
And since one disaster was just solved, Tony makes the 'logical' decision to leave his attache with Iron Man's suit stored inside behind in his office, because it's a law of the universe that two disasters can't occur within 17 minutes of one another or something like that. I don't know. But guess what's going to happen! Wah-wah!
Pretty much as soon as Tony arrives on the scene, people start disappearing. Everyone's screaming and no one seems to know what exactly is going on. First Jim, then Evans...
And then a weird thing appears around Tony! No one has any idea what it is, not even the readers.
Whatever this polygonal thing is, it can't be broken, and Tony seems to be trapped inside. It even starts sinking into the ground! The workers nearby pick up their conveniently-placed sledgehammers and start whacking at it, but it won't bust open. It's a good thing it wasn't fragile, or they would have just smashed Tony in the process. They even try shooting at it with a gun (who even knows where the bullet ricochets to...) but no dice. The thing keeps sinking until Tony is completely underground.
Tony compares the phenomenon to being aboard a super-natural elevator. And indeed, as he continues to descend into the Earth, he finds not lava or anything like that, but... a weird laboratory!
Tony is greeted by Kala, Queen of the Netherworld. Tony seems surprisingly calm with the whole thing, just thinking it's pretty neat that there's a civilization in the core of the Earth. He may be a technological genius, but I guess he's dumb as rocks when it comes to geology.
We find out that Kala was attempting to summon Tony here because she needs the power of TRANSISTORS to get back to the surface of the Earth. Apparently her people were once the people of Atlantis, which sunk so far it actually sunk into the Earth's core (????) and they've been living down here ever since. They seem to be more technologically advanced than the surface-dwellers of Earth, except for Tony, who's more advanced than anyone ever. They have all the tech they need to destroy and conquer the surface once they reach it, as well as the ability to destroy the surface from within the core if they wanted, but the one thing they can't do is actually move from the core to the surface. And that's what they want to do the most.
We also find Jim and Evans -- I guess their tech is kinda buggy because they were brought down by mistake when they were trying to bring Tony to the core. I don't know why they didn't just use the instant-teleport thing on Tony, too, but for some reason he got his own special impregnable crystalline elevator thingy. Well, I don't know about impregnable but it's bulletproof and unsledgehammerable. But yeah, that's never really explained.
Kala tells Tony that if he doesn't help them build a transistor device to reach the surface, she'll kill him, Jim, and Evans! And even worse, if they don't get any help, she has a device that can make the Earth's orbit messed up so only the people in the core can survive on the planet anymore or something. Evans says to Tony that he thinks Kala is lying about the second part... but how would he even know? Like, there's no evidence to really base any assumptions on right now except for the whole... she teleported you from the surface to the core of the Earth in seconds thing... which, uh, hints toward phenomenal power in my opinion, but... I guess that's none of my business...
Anyway, so Evans says she's lying and that the three of their lives are worth far less than the lives of the entire human race, so Tony shouldn't help her build an elevator to the surface. Tony says he disagrees and wants to help out. Kala just knew he would be quick to turn his back on his own people to save his own life! Tony says all he needs is a lab with lots of tools and materials and absolutely no interruptions.
So it seems like Kala didn't end up being the generic seductress type after all! Maybe Marvel was even listening to the struggles of women back in the 60's, like Gene Roddenberry and friends were.
Just kidding, they're as ignorant as ever. Kala's top commander Baxu escorts Stark to his new lab. Tony sees it as the perfect opportunity to get inside Baxu's head, because obviously a man would not normally take orders from a woman! And simply because she exists and is hot or something, he must also "love" her, but it seems that they're equating "love" here with "finding her beautiful" with absolutely no distinction.
Now, you'd think if Baxu belonged to this entire society of people led under a matriarchy... maybe, just maybe... he would have different values and thoughts regarding women compared to the surface-dwelling misogynists...? But no. And Tony doesn't even bat a (beautiful) eyelash when responding, "Why should you?!" when Baxu complains about having to take Kala's orders.
Uh, but Baxu has a beard with a prominent mustache, and in some panels only the mustache is detailed. So that's good, right...?
Anyway, let's continue our story. Tony's life is threatened and he has no way out but to build some instrument of death for his foe, who for some reason gives him all the tools and stuff he wants with no supervision whatsoever. This sounds... like something I've heard before. I wonder what Tony will really end up doing in that lab? He's certainly not ready to sacrifice the entire surface population of Earth to save himself, right?
Well, as you probably expected, just like the story a few issues ago, he uses the free secret lab to build Iron Man. Again! This time it's a replica. You think maybe he would have worked in some upgrades or something, but he didn't... at least he remembered to do the spray paint!
Well, I guess he should make it as similar to the original as possible, since he's trying to trick everyone into believing that he actually went to the surface and told Iron Man to come down to the core while he was in the lab. Yeah. Everyone buys it, too! Like, running away and coming back as Iron Man wasn't suspicious enough, but now he's saying he literally dug through the entire Earth to call Iron Man and people are just like, "okie, makes sense!"
Anyway, Iron Man has a little confrontation with Baxu, but instead of defeating him, he says that Tony spoke highly of Baxu. They had only one exchange, and it was just "wemmen are stooped and I don't want to take a orders!" and that's what got him on Tony's good side...? I mean, I guess he's still trying to manipulate the dude but really whyyyyy in our first episode with a female villain did the key to victory have to be sexism...?
So they tussle for a bit, and then Iron Man comes out into the open to face Kala. She tries all kinds of tricks on him like using a GIANT disintegrator ray (But does yours fit in a flashlight, Kala? Didn't think so!), shooting some homing missiles, and more. Iron Man just TRANSISTORS them all away, though. He then throws a bunch of tiny mirrors on the floor which somehow activate his kage-bunshin no jutsu and he confuses the crap out of Kala. With her mind blown, he grabs ahold of her and takes her to the surface by using a pair of clippers that look like sheep-shears or something to just... cut his way up to the surface! While flying! There's some other fail science like the entire underworld being contained in a glass dome, and no problems coming from busting open said dome to drill out of the core, but... at this point we really need to stop questioning things.
And just when you thought this story couldn't get even worse, Iron Man reaches the surface with Kala and... she turns OLD! Dun-dun-dunn! Oh, she's like the crypt keeper! Yup, apparently the "different atmosphere" makes her turn old (?!) which Tony somehow hypothesized would happen. So seeing that Kala and her people have the opportunity to explore and understand an entirely new world and culture, befriending the surface-dwellers and exchanging ideas... she decides it's completely not worth it because she won't ~look pretty~ here.
Kala "learns her lesson" and goes back to the underworld, where she begs Iron Man to stay and be her King so he can rule instead, but he says instead she should marry Baxu. And then he tells Baxu to rule wisely and stuff as if he's already the ruler and Kala is suddenly a pointless side-character in this episode.
So the moral of this story is that the only value women have is in their beauty, and that only exists when they are young. And if they somehow succeed in any other way, it's because they did something wrong and forgot that their beauty and submission to men is the most important aspect of their entire existence.
To top it all off, we get a man and woman talking about Tony once he's back, saying at least since he was trapped in the Earth's core (yes, everyone learns of this and just accepts it as reasonable fact) it kept him away from the ladies for a while. Tony's fixing his tie in the foreground and thinking, "that's what you think, bub!" so we solidify the idea that even Kala was just to be interpreted as another object of Tony's sexual conquests or something...???
But yeah, what seemed promising for a second at the beginning completely fell apart into this crap.
But there's one redeeming thing here -- not only did Kirby show us he doesn't always have to draw creepfaces, but he drew us a whole slew of Handsome Tonys to look at!
Look at all those! A total of 9 hot Stark Staches in a row. And if you count the two-fers, there's a grand total of a whopping eleven! A new record! Kirby's gone beyond redeeming himself, and I'd say he's got me lusting over Tony even more than Heck and his facial detail. Granted, Heck didn't get much of a chance with last month's script hardly having any Tony in it, but still. At least in the hot stache dude department, things are looking up for this series. As for the writing and character development and stuff... uh... maybe we'll see Carla again in the future? Kinda doubt it. Oh well, mustache fanservice. Let's just keep chugging forward! Until next time, keep stachin'~
