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.

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Single Issue Review: Strange Tales #152

Strange Tales by this time was shared by Nick Fury, Agent of Shield and Dr. Strange. The opening story features the former, and is a continuation. Fury had escaped from Hydra in the previous episode, but realized too late that Hydra intended for him to get away. His ship's radio did not work and thus Shield's men may shoot him down. He avoids that trap by flying upside down and wiggling his wings; an international distress signal. But he also realizes that his plane is carrying the Overkill Horn, which will explode every atomic pile on Earth when it sounds, so he can't relax just yet.

The layouts are by Kirby but the pencils are by Steranko, in his second issue.



Sitwell orders that something called the Strato-Mine be launched, even though it will probably kill Fury. Meanwhile at Hydra:



You can see Kirby's influence in there, but the inks are all Steranko. Anyway, Fury aims the plane at Hydra's base, bails out over water and is rescued by a Shield submarine. The Strato-Mine zeros in on the horn and destroys it and the Hydra base.

But the job isn't over yet; Fury's gotta rescue the daughter of the former Supreme Hydra, which he accomplishes with the help of another gimmick: the Electro-Spear, which makes the enemy's weapons too hot to handle. There's a cute little gag at the end as Sitwell celebrates his successful stint as temporary head of Shield:



Comments: Entertaining little story with the usual overload of gadgetry. Steranko was just getting started with his extremely influential run; there are only hints of the psychedelic work that was to come.

The second story introduces Umar, the sister of Dormammu. As you can see, there isn't much of a family resemblance:



In fact, she looks more like the Sub-Mariner, which may be because the art is by Bill Everett (Subby's original creator back in the Golden Age). She explains why she has called Dr Strange to Dormammu's former dimension:



Dr Strange is not fooled by her friendly demeanor; he knows that she's got something planned, but with Clea in danger he cannot avoid facing the Mindless Ones.

Comments: Everett does a decent faux-Ditko in this issue. While the concept of a sister of Dormammu is interesting and works, the story itself seems padded as we wait for Dr Strange to fight his way to her chambers.

A note: These Marvel anthlogy mags really don't work well for the single-issue review concept, especially after about 1965, when Stan started writing more serial stories. I think from now on I'm going to tackle them more like I have been with the Iron Man series lately. Thoughts?

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Secret Agent Man

Comic publishers have always dutifully scanned popular culture for clues as to topics that appear to interest teenagers. In the 1950s, comics were produced to capitalize on the appeal of Westerns at the movie theatre. When monster movies were popular, monster comics were not behind. And when spies and secret agents became hip in the mid-1960s, the publishers rushed to fill the demand.

Marvel made a particulary strong entry into the secret agent genre with the paranoia-tinged Nick Fury, Agent of Shield series. NFAS took over the lead feature in Strange Tales that had previously belonged to the Human Torch (and briefly, Torch and the Thing team-ups) effective with issue #135, featuring a terrific cover by Jack Kirby:



(Note: Fred Hembeck has a cool takeoff on this cover and some memories of the NFAS Saga in the January 17, 2006 edition of his blog.)

Fury had been a character in the Marvel universe for several years already, albeit as a historical character. He was Sgt. Fury, leader of the Howling Commandos, a World War II fighting squadron. Now Marvel decided to age him a few years (but not quite the 20 that the calendar called for) and make him a secret agent.

S.H.I.E.L.D. of course was a direct swipe of U.N.C.L.E. (which was probably a swipe itself of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.) and stood for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division. Shield's chief enemy was a group called Hydra, which mercifully does not stand for anything, but does have some cool rituals:



NFAS was blessed with great stories and artwork. After handling the introductory story in Strange Tales #135, Jack Kirby did layouts for the amazing Johnny Severin for the next few issues, followed by a year or so of rotating artists including Ogden Whitney (!). Finally in Strange Tales #151, a new artist was hired for the feature who would define Agent of Shield for the next few years: Jim Steranko. Steranko's style was unlike most comics artists of the time; he was heavily influenced by the psychedelic posters and album art of the late 1960s as this cover shows:



In early 1968, Marvel decided to quit doing anthology magazines. Strange Tales was changed to Dr Strange with issue #169, and Nick Fury Agent of Shield was given its own title starting with #1. Unfortunately the title struggled a bit on its own apparently, possibly because of the inevitable decline of the secret agent genre after the initial fad died down. The first twelve issues of NFAS were published on a monthly basis, but with #13, the frequency was changed to bi-monthly and the title only lasted to #15. A year later Marvel published three more issues but they were reprints of the early Strange Tales stories.

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