Tales of Suspense 40

Iron Man versus Gargantus!

by

Stan Lee, Robert Bernstein, Jack Kirby & Don Heck

Cover by Jack Kirby

In the time since becoming the newest superhero around, Tony Stark has remained active in all aspects of his life. Receiving accolades for his inventions, developing new technology for the United States military, dating a myriad of women and taking on all sorts of criminals as the armor clad Iron Man. He is growing to find that keeping his identity as the hero a secret complicates the other facets of who he is; making lame excuses to avoid taking his shirt off to reveal the chest armor underneath that is keeping his heart from rupturing when he is on dates and having to frequently charge it.

Tony has brought a date to the circus. As they sit among the audience, a pack of wildcats break free from the performers. Making a lame excuse, Tony tells his girlfriend Marion that he is calling the police. In actuality, he is putting on his armor suit in order to confront the dangerous felines.

As he stalks through the crowd towards the cats, the audience gape as Iron Man’s hideous grey-colored armor which frightens them. Reaching the performance stage, Iron Man body slams a rushing leopard with enough force to smack it into the other cats. Getting them all to pile on top of him, Iron Man lets loose with an electrical charge just powerful enough to stun the animals. With the beasts all in shock, the performers corral them back to their cage and thank Iron Man for his help.

Returning to Marion, the two of them discuss Iron Man’s scary, bulky, grey suit. Tony inquires what she would do to improve him. Marion explains that since he seems like a modern age knight in shining armor, he should have gold armor to match his golden heart. While seeing her off at the airport to her home in Granville, the couple make plans for next Saturday. That night Tony goes to work on improving his armor’s image. He coats the entirety of the suit in untarnishable gold paint. No longer will citizens fear the presence of Iron Man.

When next Saturday comes around, Marion fails to show up at the airport. Tony questions the pilot. He alerts Tony (who had been busy working on projects in Africa all week long) to the news that Granville’s airport has been shut down for three days. The next day, Tony arrives in Granville as the gold-plated Iron Man.  He finds the town to be completely enclosed by a thick, brick-lined wall. Iron Man uses his transistor powered drill to burrow a tunnel underneath the wall to infiltrate the town.

As soon as Iron Man emerges from the hole, citizens of Glenville start pelting him with objects.  They inform him that they must obey Gargantus. Blustering through the town to get away from the crowds, Iron Man stumbles upon a group erecting a statue of what appears to be a prehistoric neanderthal, who he takes to be this Gargantus the people speak of. Finding a nearby semi-truck, Iron Man uses his armor’s strength to shove the vehicle directly in the path of the statue. After the statue breaks, the people still praise the fallen idol of Gargantus.

Realizing that the entire town must be under some sort of trance, Iron Man challenges the real Gargantus. Calling him out with his built-in speakers, Gargantus quickly makes his presence known. Springing off a flagpole, the neanderthal flings himself up on a rooftop to confront the hero. His eyes start glowing.  Realizing this is how he is hypnotizing people, Iron Man diverts his gaze to a cloud that he notices is blocking out the sun. This makes Iron Man start to develop a theory. Grabbing a nearby flag, Iron Man takes note that the flag banner is rippling in the breeze. Like a bull to a red rag, Iron Man uses the green flag to lead Gargantus off of the building and into the streets where he notices Marion, who is also entranced.

With more room to work with on the ground, Iron Man confronts Gargantus again.  While Gargantus smashes a statue in frustration, Iron Man cobbles together some mini-transistors, that he puts inside three magnets, which he explains, “increases their power by a thousand-fold.” Tossing the magnets out to surround the brute, the power of the magnets rip apart Gargantus’ body to reveal it to be a robot underneath.

As soon as Gargantus is destroyed, the people of Glenville wake out of their trance. Iron Man uses the search beam in his chest to reveal a spaceship camouflaged inside the artificial cloud he noticed earlier. They had been controlling Gargantus this whole time in their first step of taking over the world. Iron Man had figured it out when the flag banner had moved, but the wind failed to do anything to the sun blocking cloud. Iron Man hurls more magnets at the spaceship. The panicked aliens inside realize earth has substantially changed since their species last visited some 80,000 years ago. They speed away from earth. Iron Man hopes they never return. He then helps the citizens tear the wall down.

Notes & Observations

First appearance of Iron Man’s golden armor look. It’s still the clunky grey suit from last issue, now spray painted gold. 

First appearance of transistor powered roller skates. These will become a feature of Iron Man’s own.

Transistor powered magnets? Oh, Stan…..😔

First time there is reference to aliens previously inhabiting Marvel earth. It’s just a throwaway line by some garbage aliens (they look like muppets), but it becomes more interesting when we start to find out more about this earth’s past.

Sorry for the lack of activity in the paste few months, life's been more than a bit hectic lately.

Review

Not a strong second outing for Iron Man. The main story and combat are a mess, both structurally and visually. It seems to me they are still trying to figure out how Iron Man works as a protagonist. The montage of his adventures is way more interesting than the plot to this particular story. I’d rather see one of those in full.

Next time

The Fantastic Four take a trip to the moon.

Tales of Suspense 39

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