Iron Man is Born!
by
Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Don Heck
Inside a secret location within the United States defense perimeter, a 24-hour guard has been set up to protect millionaire, playboy, scientist-engineer, Anthony Stark. Under a government contract, Tony has created miniature transistors that are able to increase the power flow of various devices; in this case, a magnet. He shows off the magnet’s increased power for a visiting general; the transistor energizes the magnet, making the magnet’s pull so strong that it can force a 6-inch thick, locked, steel door to come crumbling to the floor. Astounded, the general agrees the transistors will help them in Vietnam.
In South Vietnam, Wong-Chu has taken over a village in the jungle. The tyrant challenges any man in the village to a wrestling match. If they can beat him, he will release the village from his capture. After beating every able-bodied person hand-to-hand, Wong-Chu commands his men to plunder the town. On the outskirts of the same jungle, Tony Stark has landed with a group of soldiers to protect him. He is here to witness his invention being used first-hand. The transistors are to help the infantry carry more weapons with ease through the jungle.
The American soldiers spot enemy combatants as they stride through the jungle. After they chase the Vietnamese guerrillas off, Tony Stark stumbles over a booby trap. He walks right into a small wire running near the ground, which triggers a bomb to detonate that knocks him out. Minutes later, one of Wong-Chu’s men discovers the prone form of Tony Stark and takes him back to the village. As Tony recovers in a hut, Wong-Chu discusses with one of his men that they found his identification papers. They know he is a famous American inventor. They would keep him as a POW to work for them, but he has too much shrapnel lodged near his heart from the bomb to survive for more than a week. Wong-Chu connives that they will trick him into working for them, giving them all kinds of inventions until the shrapnel reaches his heart and he expires. When they present this to a conscious Tony Stark, neglecting to mention that he will die, Tony already realizes he doesn’t have much time left and that they are merely using him until he is dead. They bring him to a lab and leave him alone to invent.
After a day by himself, Wong-Chu brings along another prisoner to join Tony. His name is Professor Yinsen, a great Chinese physicist, whose work Tony is familiar with. Together these two brilliant men set to work building a weapon to defeat the villainous Wong-Chu; a fully functioning suit of iron powered by Stark’s mini-transistors with a self-lubricating feature. The transistors power the suit and it’s devices, which need an electrical charge in order to function. In a race against time, as the bomb shrapnel moves closer and closer to Tony Stark’s heart, the two work feverishly on Stark’s design. Just as Tony starts to feel his heart being torn into by the piece of metal, Yinsen presents him with the fully-functioning armor which will hold the shrapnel in place, preventing his death.
Laying out on a table dying, Tony Stark is fitted into the armor suit. Professor Yinsen pulls a lever to power the armor up with electricity, when suddenly an alarm they built goes off. It means Wong-Chu must be headed their way and any interference will surely kill Tony. As Tony lays motionless in the suit of armor, he listens as Professor Yinsen runs out of the lab to distract Wong-Chu. Wong-Chu and his men chase after the escaped professor. Tony hears a gunshot in the distance, suddenly bearing the weight of knowing his friend and mentor has just been sacrificed in order for Iron Man to live.
Fully charged, Tony Stark is Iron Man. He gets to his feet, only to come crashing back down. Unfamiliar with the armor, Tony has to learn how to walk in it. Raising again to his feet, Iron Man quickly gets the hang of his grey, clunky armor. With Yinsen dealt with, Wong-Chu beats the door to the lab open. Before he enters, Iron Man maneuvers to the ceiling so Wong-Chu doesn’t see him. As Iron Man hangs from the ceiling rafters, he overhears Wong-Chu angrily comment that he will make his accompanying soldier kill Tony, just like he did to Yinsen, when he finds him. Iron Man silently vows to avenge his friend’s death.
Outside in the village, Wong-Chu has returned to his favorite sport to relieve stress; wrestling down the inferior men of the village. Wearing the white coat and blue hat of Tony Stark, Iron Man approaches the scene. He challenges Wong-Chu to a fight. Under a full moon, Iron Man disrobes to reveal his true metallic form. Before Wong-Chu can run away, Iron Man lifts the villain over his head to twirl him around and give him a toss. Wong-Chu commands his men to open fire on Iron Man. Iron Man uses a transistor to reverse the polarity of a magnet that repels all bullets and grenades lobbed at him back at the guerillas, from which they all flee.
Wong-Chu runs away to a tower with a loudspeaker. Over the loudspeaker, he promises ten million yen to anyone that destroys Iron Man. Iron Man uses his suit to interrupt Wong-Chu’s broadcast. Overriding the system, Iron Man mimics Wong-Chu’s address to command everyone to flee into the jungle. Iron Man uses a transistor powered buzzsaw, hidden in the finger of his glove, to cut open the locked door to the tower. As Iron Man enters, Wong-Chu shoves a whole stack of file cabinets filled with rocks down some stairs, on top of the armor-clad avenger.
As Wong-Chu flees from the tower, Iron Man struggles to get the file cabinets off. Wong-Chu races towards the ammo dump before Iron Man can get free. Having spent most of his suit’s energy on the file cabinet, Iron Man resorts to squirting out his suit’s lubricating apparatus. It leaves a trail of oil leading to the ammo dump. As soon as Wong-Chu reaches it, Iron Man ignites the chemical trail. The fire immediately catches and beats Wong-Chu to the weapons shed. Wong-Chu is caught in the explosion, seemingly disintegrated. After freeing the villagers, Iron Man looks on at the burning debris, mournful at having avenged Professor Yinsen’s death. Donning his hat and coat, Iron Man strolls into the jungle, wondering what destiny has in store for him.
Notes
As you probably know, Iron Man/Tony Stark is another main player in the Marvel Universe. He is introduced as a millionaire, playboy, engineering scientist. No mention of his company, Stark Industries, but that will come next issue.
Iron Man starts off with a clunky Iron/Grey-colored battle suit. We see that it houses particular tools, like a buzzsaw and magnets. It needs to be charged like a phone does today. There will be innumerable modifications and suit changes as the series progresses.
Tony’s love life is only merely touched at in this introductory issue. It will take on a more central part of the series later on. Most of his early adventures, as seen here, will be dealing with Communist threats.
Iron Man is not above killing his opponent. This is one of the few deaths caused by one of the main heroes of another human being in a Marvel book for the Silver Age.
Review & Ranking
This is a great start for Iron Man. Instead of him being an all out powerful hero, he has to learn how to control his armor before he can properly use it. The villain is pretty generic, but given some edge for killing Iron Man’s mentor and being part of his main origin. Similar to the Burglar in Spider-Man’s origin.
The story is fairly straightforward. There’s isn’t much in the way of unneeded exposition. It deals with stuff that was actually going on in the world at the time. My major gripe is in the dialogue of Wong-Chu & the other Vietnamese guerrillas who are written in a way that makes them sound dumb because they don’t speak english which is a bit racist and cartoony. And the coloring is a tad too yellow still. Wong-Chu is a complete cartoon of a villain. He reminds me of Bluto from Popeye, but less appealing.
With this being a very important issue of Marvel Comics history and being well told, with some emotional resonance, I am putting this right under Doctor Doom’s first appearance in the rankings.
Next Time on Marvel: It is Ant-Man’s turn to be captured and taken to another dimension by strange aliens
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