Iron Man Run Part 11

Picking up with IM #7, we discover that the Maggia is almost ready to attack Stark's plant, but they've got to figure out a way of dealing with Iron Man. The Gladiator (longtime Daredevil villain) volunteers to handle Shellhead.

Jasper Sitwell is still angry over Iron Man kayoing him in the previous issue (to prevent him from getting killed by the Crusher), so mad that he forgets about security:

Meanwhile, Janice Cord and her lawyer approach Tony Stark about selling off her father's factories. Janice finds Tony charming at first:

Later, as they are touring the Cord facilities, the Gladiator and Big M kidnap Stark, Janice and her lawyer, as a ruse to get Iron Man to come save them, not knowing that with Tony a captive he can't change into his metal suit. This forces Tony to escape even though he's been warned that this will result in the death of Janice and the lawyer:

But Iron Man appears before the Gladiator can kill the pair and they have a good fight. Meanwhile, Big M and the rest of the Maggia attack Stark's plant through the southern wall. But Big M is conflicted by her romance with Jasper Sitwell, and in a flashback we learn how she became the head of the Maggia.

She had been the daughter of a very wealthy financier and lived the jet-set lifestyle among the beautiful people. She had a successful and politically ambitious boyfriend, and the sky seemed to be the limit. But when her supposed father passed away, she learned the truth; that he had been laundering money for the Maggia and, more shockingly, that her real father was Count Nefaria, the head of the mob. She initially refused to become a criminal, but when her boyfriend found out and dumped her as a political liability, she turned to her real father for training, and eventually succeeded him as Big M.

As the battle between Iron Man and the Gladiator has turned into a stalemate, the latter abandons the fight and heads for Stark's plant. Meanwhile, it turns out that Sitwell has been suspicious of Whitney Frost all along, and has prepared a trap for the Maggia. In the end, Iron Man and Sitwell defeat the Gladiator and the Maggia, but Whitney gets away:

In the following issue, a mysterious villain from China has somehow gained control of the Incredible Hulk, and sends him off to kidnap Janice Cord. We also learn that Cord's lawyer, Sandhurst, has reasons of his own for trying to convince Janice to sell her father's plants. This time Tony acts fairly bravely as she's grabbed by ol' Greenskin:

But the Hulk gets away with the girl, with Iron Man in hot pursuit. During the battle which ensues, the Hulk seems quite a bit smarter than he has in the past, using terms like "repulsor ray". In the end we learn why:

Who indeed is behind this? It turns out that the mysterious villain from China is the Mandarin. He has deduced from the fact that Tony Stark vanishes whenever there is danger just before Iron Man appears that the two are one and the same person.
As IM #10 begins, the Mandarin has prepared some phony photos, purporting to show Tony palling around with some communists. As Janice Cord and Tony are out at a nightclub a bunch of reporters and photographers burst in demanding a statement:

Tony quickly discovers that the photos of him with the communist agents were taken at times when he was on missions as Iron Man, and thus he has no alibi that he can present. He's contacted by a Chinese gal named Mei Lin, who advises him to come to her antique shop if he wants to find out why he's being persecuted. When he does so, he discovers the truth:

The Mandarin freezes him with a ray that stalls his circuits. But when he goes to unmask Iron Man, he gets a surprise:

And at the same time, Tony Stark appears on the television at an upstate hunting lodge giving a press conference. The Mandarin stalks off, needing to revise his plans for this new development, leaving Iron Man paralyzed by the rays with Mei Lin.

IM goads Mei Lin into anger by telling her that the Mandarin doesn't really love her. She leaves in a rage, slamming the door and propelling a lamp into the path of the paralyzing rays. Now free, Tony removes the mask which made him look like someone else, and reveals that the Tony on the TV was actually a robot.

IM flies to the upstate lodge where the robot Tony gave his press conference, arriving just in time to prevent the Mandarin from discovering that it's not really Stark. They have a classic battle. The reporters outside, hearing the sounds of a struggle, manage to record the Mandarin admitting that the photos of Tony with the communists were faked.

His plot foiled, the Mandarin grabs Janice Cord as a hostage and summons Mei Lin with his flying escape craft. But as Iron Man tries to rescue her, the Mandarin makes a fatal mistake:

Mei Lin, realizing that the Mandarin doesn't really feel the emotion of love, steps in the way of a blast intended for Janice. As IM and the Mandarin battle, the plane they're in careens out of control and:

The plane crashes apparently killing the Mandarin (Mei Lin had already died from the Mandarin's blast.

However, as Iron Man and Janice return to the hunting lodge, they discover that an ambulance has arrived for Tony and he's being taken away. Will he be revealed as a robot?

Comments: Solid set of stories here, with good continuing characterization. I like that Sitwell figured out that Whitney Frost was up to no good although it does make me question then why he was so upset with Iron Man for knocking him out. Janice Cord's conflict over Tony is realistically portrayed, and her heroic plea for Iron Man not to let the Mandarin go on her account is impressive.

Although I was not initially impressed with Tuska's art, as you see see here he was experimenting with page layouts and the effect is quite pleasing to the eye.

Iron Man Run Part 10

We pick up again with Iron Man #4. Tony helps the Freak become Happy again, and Hogan and Pepper again depart the scene. Meanwhile, behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet scientists are working on making the Unicorn (last seen in an IM story way back in Tales of Suspense #56) stronger and more powerful, although they acknowledge that the treatments they are giving him will shorten his lifespan. But as usual, there's no honor among commies:



The Unicorn decides to attack a meeting of scientists from all over the world, in the hopes that they will be able to save him from the shortened lifespan that his treatments have guaranteed. Meanwhile, Tony's been noodling and wonders if he should reveal the secret of Iron Man:



But before he can act on that idea, the Unicorn bursts in. Tony finds himself separated from his armor-carrying attache case, and each time he tries to recover it, the Unicorn blasts him. But the third effort succeeds and shortly Iron Man and the Unicorn are battling it out on the snow-slopes outside the convention hotel. The Unicorn uses his heat ray to try to melt Iron Man's armor, but now the thermal coupling that Tony put into the suit does its job, recharging him. He is able to destroy the Unicorn's power belt, and tosses it off a cliff. The commie rat dives off the cliff after it and vanishes into a lake below. And Tony realizes that he's got to maintain his Iron Man identity, no matter what the personal cost.

In IM #5, Tony finds himself transported into the future, where the humans want to kill him. It seems he created a computer called Cerebrus, which gradually grew and grew in power and responsibility, until eventually it decided to take over. Now the humans are forced underground, rebelling against their silicon overlord. They have decided that by eliminating Tony, they will prevent Cerebrus from ever being built.

But before they can carry out his execution, Cerebrus attacks. Tony gets away, aided by this gal:



Krylla leads him to an old museum, where one of his suits of armor is on display. Tony dons the costume and starts his quest towards the master computer complex, the source of Cerebrus' power. He battles a few robots along the way, and eventually faces a manifestation of the computer itself:



It looks like Cerebrus is too powerful for Iron Man, but Tony has a brilliant idea:



This causes Cerebrus to hesitate just long enough to allow Krylla to throw a blast pellet into the master computer complex, destroying him. And there's a tender moment as she sends Tony back into the past:



And as the story closes, Tony muses, "... [N]o matter what challendges I meet in this age, a part of me will always be in the future... with her!"

Nice sentiments, but by the next issue Krylla's apparently forgotten, as Tony's wooing another gal:



We learn that the reason Janice Cord is not replying to the flood of flowers is because she's still conflicted over Tony being indirectly responsible for her father's death. This was a frequent plot point used by Marvel in the 1960s and 1970s; Betty Brant blamed Spiderman for her brother's death, just as Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborne blamed him for the deaths of their fathers, and Professor Warren and Ned Leeds would blame him for the death of Gwen.

Meanwhile, the Crusher, whom Iron Man had made so heavy in Tales of Suspense #91 that he sank down into the Earth, has managed to return to the surface. He is consumed with the desire to avenge himself on Shellhead. At the time I reviewed TOS #91, I speculated that he would next turn up in a Mole Man story, but as it happens he fell into the cavern of Moley's worst enemy, Tyrannus (who had amnesia and was not around at the time). The strength of the potion he'd been given eventually wore off, as did the excess weight. He was able to formulate a new potion that would not be susceptible to Tony's centrifugal force ray, and then clawed his way to the outer world again.

Whitney Frost, the leader of the Maggia, has been pursuing her seduction of Jasper Sitwell. Arriving at Stark Industries shortly after the Crusher attacks, she discovers the factory being abandoned, and takes the opportunity to try to steal one of Tony's weapons. She gets caught in the middle of the battle and the Crusher seizes the opportunity to use her as a hostage:



Iron Man has to kayo Sitwell to prevent him from committing suicide by Crusher. Then he agrees to turn over the centrifugal force ray and submit to being bathed in it. But:



Iron Man then lifts the Crusher into the air, but he breaks free and falls into the waters off Long Island, apparently to drown (just like the Unicorn in IM #4). As the story closes, Sitwell is furious with Iron Man.

Comments: A solid series of stories, marred only by the flighty emotions of Tony Stark from IM #5 to IM #6. The situation with Whitney Frost looks to be building to a climax. George Tuska took over on pencils with #5, although Johnny Craig remained the inker.

Iron Man Run Part 7--End of the Tales of Suspense Issues

As ToS #95 begins, an intruder has gotten into Stark's main plant. Tony's response?



My response would be more along the lines of "An intruder within those walls? What is this, like the 50th time that's happened?" I haven't kept track of it, but I pointed out that between ToS #52 and #63, the only issues that didn't feature an attack on Stark's facilities or one of his weapons were #58 and #62.

We discover who the intruder is here:



Sitwell was an amusing character. On the one hand you can see him as a poke by Lee at the DC Boy Scout heroes, but on the other hand, who was he really mimicking but Stan himself with the "Don't yield! Back SHIELD!" boosterism?

The villain for the issue is the Grey Gargoyle, an old Thor foe who can fly and turn people into stone for one hour. But when he turns Iron Man to stone he decides to kill him by tossing him off the roof of the factory.

In the next issue, we find that Sitwell, despite his rah-rah attitude, knows what to do in an emergency and saves Iron Man by driving a convenient nearby truck filled with sand under him to break the fall. In a crucial battle, Sitwell intentionally touches the Gargoyle, having seen that the building was about to collapse and he would die if he was not turned into stone. It's a nice little bit of characterization for Sitwell. Iron Man short-circuits the Grey Gargoyle's abilities, even though this incapacitates him.

And Sitwell behaves a little nutty, trying to blow Iron Man's helmet off:



Meanwhile, Morgan Stark is in trouble with the gamblers once again. But after learning that Iron Man is incapacitated, Morgan realizes that he can pay off his debts by delivering Shell-Head to the leader of the Maggia. He bluffs his way into the factory by pretending to be on a mission from Tony, and with some help from the guards gets Iron Man into his car. Fortunately, it's a car with a cigarette lighter in the back seat that Tony uses to charge himself up a bit while being delivered to the Maggia's waiting ship.

Tony tries to capture the hoodlums, but he gets caught behind a sliding door with a new villain called Whiplash. I know, how can a guy with a mere whip beat Iron Man? But it turned out this is a special kind of whip:



Meanwhile Sitwell has finally discovered that Iron Man has been kidnapped by Morgan Stark. He also finds himself confronted by a bevy of Stark's girlfriends, which flusters him. Sitwell eventually tracks down Morgan and learns that Iron Man is on the Maggia's ship (which doubles as a gambling casino. So Sitwell pretends to be a gambler to get on board.

Iron Man manages to defeat Whiplash, but he has run out of power and his heart is giving out again. As the head of the Maggia (Big M) prepares to examine his suit of armor, the ship is attacked by AIM, another criminal syndicate that had battled SHIELD in the past. Water is rushing in and Iron Man is stuck to a magnetic table. How can he survive?

After Tales of Suspense #99, the magazine was changed to Captain America. The story here is continued in Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1, a stop-gap issue before Iron Man #1. But since this is the final TOS issue, it's a good breaking point.

Comments: Having married off Pepper and Happy, Stan apparently forgot about them; they last appeared in TOS #91. An extended honeymoon? They did eventually return, but eight months is a pretty long absence. It is also around this point that the Marvel Universe really began to interlock. There'd always been connections between the various characters and villain crossovers, but now it became more difficult to read a single Marvel character without being familiar with the other series.