Just a Guy in Need of Some Bat-Snake Repellent - Iron Man 50

Iron Man #50 (September 1972)
"Deathplay"
Mike Friedrich-George Tuska/Vince Colletta

Doug: Today I'll close out a series of comic reviews that I had no idea would become a series of comic reviews. In April I posed a question about favorite (or non-favorite) mismatches in comics. In that post, as samples to get you thinking, I displayed the covers to Daredevil #163, Thor #269, and today's mag: Iron Man #50. Well, as I went ahead and reviewed two of those books, and being the completist that I am, it only seems proper to review the third. Here it is. If you read the first two reviews, we generally gushed over the DD book, but felt that the Thor story left quite a bit to be desired. My preconceived notion on today's story was that it was going to stink as well. Iron Man, against a big snake? C'mon... Read on, O' Curious One.

Were you a regular Iron Man reader in the Bronze Age? I was not. I don't know why. I bought Thor pretty regularly and generally picked up Captain America. I always enjoyed the Big Three when they were in the Avengers together, but for some reason never warmed to Iron Man's solo book. In fact, I am having a difficult time recalling if I ever bought an issue! I know I bought Iron Man Annual #4, but that was due to the Champions crossover. Go figure - I bought every issue of the Champions, but passed on the Golden Avenger. Forty years later, that kinda boggles the mind. Anyway, you're waiting on a 100-Word Review...

Tony Stark’s in bad shape. His armor drained after a battle against the Super-Adaptoid, Stark struggles to get to an electric outlet. In the nick of time he’s successful; until Jarvis barges in on him. With IM’s armor scattered about Stark is forced to lie to his faithful butler. Later, Princess Python attacks Jarvis in anticipation of attacking Stark. A young ESPer named Marianne plays heavily in the plot. The Princess eventually captures Stark, but he frees himself to change to Iron Man. IM tussles with a mutated python, but of course wins. Naturally, the next menace lies around the corner… 

You know, when I began reading this (from the Iron Man DVD-ROM), I was prepared to come to you in review with a "this was sillier than Thor vs. Stilt-Man" conclusion. However, I cannot report in that manner. I actually really liked it, and here's why:

The Good: As I usually do, I'll start with the art. When you think of "classic" Iron Man pencilers, I'm sure Don Heck and Gene Colan come to mind. But if George Tuska isn't in the same thought, I don't know what's wrong with you. I've always enjoyed Tuska's rendition of ol' Shellhead. "Stock poses"? You bet; and they're great. Tuska has a very dynamic style akin to Jack Kirby or John Buscema. While his draftsmanship isn't near Buscema's realism (in fact, Tuska seemed to pride himself on making supporting characters somewhat cartoony) and of course Kirby has no peer, Tuska nevertheless gives us a kinetic Iron Man. You can feel the whirl of a character, the power of a punch, the wind in flight. Later, truthfully only a few years from the publication of this issue, I'd probably take issue with the stiffness of a Tuska-drawn book. But here, in the early Bronze Age, he was solid.

Mike Friedrich's script is wordy! So why is that a good thing? I guess I enjoyed the existentialism with which he wrote Tony Stark. It's a far cry from the Stark current fans know -- the Robert Downey, Jr. Tony Stark of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This Stark seems to be a pretty deep fellow, very sober and introspective. He's not covering for his inadequacies and doubts with witty banter. Conversely, this version of Stark seems cut straight from the early cloth stitched by Stan Lee and Kirby -- feet fully made of clay and struggling to deal with that fact. I've read other scripts by Friedrich, and wordiness is a "thing" of his. In that regard, I can say that I got what I expected when coming to this tale.

I got a real kick out of the manner in which Tony Stark had to remove his armor. It certainly wasn't the drone-service we've seen lately in films.

The Bad: Let's face it -- no way Princess Python gets on Iron Man's dance card. I'd like to have been in whatever meeting took place where editor Roy Thomas signed off on this as a good idea. Thor vs. Stilt-Man, indeed! In a way it works, but only because of the silly "mutation" that takes place with the Python -- the chemical cocktail that slithery monster was bathed in must have been second only to what befell poor Barry Allen. That doesn't happen, we got no story. Period.

I was also unsure of the Princess's speech patterns. I would not pretend to be a connoisseur of the adventures of the Circus of Crime, but no where in my memory does it stand out that the Princess speaks "tough broad"-ese. I was further confounded by what appeared to be a different style of speaking as depicted later in this same story. Perhaps I missed something.

Above I said that Friedrich wrote a much more introspective, self-critical Tony Stark. While I'll stand by my liking of that in my comments above, I will say that upon cracking the book it was a bit of a shock to the system. Downey's portrayal of Stark/Iron Man has become the norm, hasn't it? Again, with no rich history of reading Iron Man throughout the character's history this philosophical Stark caught me a bit off guard. Not bad overall, just maybe for me during the reading.

The Ugly: I dunno... I find myself getting to this section with rarely a thing to mention. But today I do have one, and it was in fact a trope we saw in the aforementioned Thor story. Well, actually in the issue after the one I reviewed. Thor is separated from Mjolnir by the big ugliness that is Blastaar. The Thunder God doesn't recover it in time and hence turns back into Dr. Donald Blake. Of course he ends up recovering his walking stick and later knocking Blastaar all the way back to the Negative Zone. Here we see Tony Stark afflicted by an old Silver Age malady, and that's the draining of power from his armor -- notably, the life-sustaining chestplate. In this story Stark even remarks to himself that he has only around 60 seconds to find electricity. And then he counts it down. Like I ever thought he wouldn't find it? Pfah... If the trope doesn't provide drama or advance the story in a fresh way, then lose it. So there -- my "ugly" for this story.

Overall, though, this was time well spent. I really did enjoy this book quite a bit more than I expected. This story really had that early Bronze Age feel to it. The 20c price tag seems to ooze such a sense, am I right?

NOTE: Just an observation here. I own most of the Marvel DVD-ROMs (and again, they are wonderful things! -nearly as swell as sliced bread!), but I have never seen a scanned issue that looked like it was owned by an actual consumer. I always figured that the comics used to create those literary keepsakes came from some Marvel vault. Go figure -- apparently Iron Man #50 was secured from some kid! See below, at the Mighty Marvel Checklist:

Face-Off: Alfred or Jarvis?

Martinex1: Today's Face-Off question is: Alfred Pennyworth or Edwin Jarvis?  Who do you prefer? What do you say about these supporting characters?


Butler to the Bat?

Or Servant to the Super-Team?

Alfred as portrayed on television's Batman by Alan Napier.

Jarvis was portrayed by James D'Arcy on Agent Carter

Alfred has been a Lego!

Jarvis has been a super-computer!

Michael Caine has played the butler!

And Jarvis was played by Ultron when he became the Crimson Cowl!

FOOM Fridays: FOOM #6

FOOM # 6 (Summer 1974)

Karen: This issue of FOOM was the first of a two-part look at the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest (and at that time, finite) Heroes. The cover is an amusing shot of the faithful butler Jarvis, surrounded by his work. Jarvis is also the subject of an interview, where he reminisces about the early days of the team. It's pretty amusing stuff, as we get Jarvis' view of the first meeting of the Avengers. Of course he is "awestruck" by Thor, and passes out when the Hulk enters the room! Jarvis goes on about the coming of Captain America, and the Kooky Quartet. It's striking how much thought was put into this article; the comments about Cap and how lonely his life was in the early days were really well-done. There's no author credited so I'm not sure who to heap praise on. This feature was graced by some absolutely beautiful Dave Cockrum art. Again, I can't express how much I wish he had been a regular artist on the title. His work here is perfect -and I believe some of these images were used for other purposes, maybe even on some of the Slurpee cups.

There's a one-page biography of then-Avengers writer Steve Englehart. I'm sure most of you have already heard the details of his life elsewhere, so I won't repeat them here. I did smile when I read this quote from him: "I've been kind of feeling my way with the series for a while now and I'm still not quite as happy with it as the fans are. I've been trying to do it as Roy would, but it's going to change a little. It's going to be sort of strange in the future." He wasn't kidding!

The Department of Infoomation leads off with the big news that Spider-Man will be joining the Electric Company on television. Do you remember those segments? Of course, this was also the beginning of Spidey Super Stories, the tie-in comics for younger readers. The House of Ideas also announced the advent of Marvel Calendar, and the coming of the momentous Stan Lee book, Origins of Marvel Comics. I'm pretty sure I got both of those items for Christmas that year!

More non-comics news: Aurora Models would be releasing a Captain America model kit! The Hulk and Spidey kits did so well, Cap got the thumbs up. So what character would be next? Well, Marvel asked the members of FOOM: who do you want to see for the next model? Now, I'm certainly no expert on this (although I did have the Hulk and Spidey kits), but I don't recall another Marvel kit being made. Any of you model fans out there, please pipe up if you have any more info.

In magazine news, Marvel announced the launch of a new science fiction magazine called Worlds Unknown - although the final title that reached the newsstand was Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. Iron Fist, another kung fu magazine was also announced, but I don't recall ever hearing of that one, just the Iron Fist comic. Was there such a mag?

Marvel welcomed new talent such as Chris Claremont ("assistant editor and a fine scripter in his own right"), Bob McLeod, Bill Mantlo, Roger Slifer, and Ron Wilson.

The rest of the news is fairly mundane listings of what's coming up in the multitude of titles being put out. The variety of material is one of the things I loved about the 70s! Super-heroes, monsters, barbarians, sci fi...something for everyone.

There's a two-page article written by Roy Thomas on "the Man-Gods from Beyond the Stars," the feature story of the first issue of Marvel Preview magazine. Thomas pretty much admits that the concept was to capitalize on the Erich Von Daniken Chariots of the Gods craze. He credits this idea to Stan Lee. I never read this but it seems to me the concept was played out already. Of course, when Kirby returned to Marvel a few years later he would revive it in The Eternals.

The ish closes out with letters, and a photo from FOOMer Patrick Robinson of Thunder Bay, Ontario, standing in his bedroom where he and his brothers painted an enormous, ceiling-spanning portrait of the Green Goblin! They really must have dug the Goblin. The back cover features an odd drawing of Tigra -perhaps by Ed Hannigan? The initials "EJH" are visible. Youngsters will not understand the "Put a Tigra in your tank" phrase -but oldsters like me recall the Exxon (or Esso, depending on where you lived) gas commercials.