Reviews of Tales of Suspense #39, 40

This is the start of reviews of Iron Man comics since Tales of Suspense #39.

Tales of Suspense #39

First appearances/notes: 1st appearance Iron Man/Tony Stark (Anthony Stark); 1st appearance Wong-Chu; 1st appearance Professor Yinsen

Summary: Anthony Stark travels to Viet Nam in order to help the American military effort with his miniature transistors. Stark trips a mine wire and is captured by warlord Wong-Chu. During the explosion, shrapnel gets in his chest, an injury that will slowly kill him. Stark and another captured scientist Professor Yinsen are told to build a weapon for Wong-Chu. Yinsen and Stark instead design a suit that will save Stark's life and allow them to strike back at their captors. The duo succeeds, but Yinsen sacrifices his life to keep the villains away from Stark long enough to power up the suit. The new Iron Man reveals himself and defeats Wong-Chu, apparently killing him.

Review: The art is nice and Stark resembles Clark Gable in his first appearance more than Robert Downey Jr. The dialog is typical for these 60's Marvel comic books. Iron Man utters the line, "No drawer filled with rocks can hold back iron limbs powered by electronic transistors." Pretty cheesy, but fun. The dialog of Wong-Chu and the other Vietnamese is just terrible and offensive. They all speak bad broken English. Later, Marvel would switch to a much better format in which characters speaking in foreign languages would be written in clear and concise English with the explanation that the dialog was translated. Other than that, the story is fairly logical and has stood the test of time. The origin has been reworked to fit more with modern times, but the basic story has remained the same and was even used in the movie. Story:7 out of 10. Art: 8 out of 10.

 

Tales of Suspense #40

First appearances/notes: 1st appearance of Gargantus, though I think the only one, too. 1st golden armor

Summary: Iron Man is established as an active adventurer in flashbacks, foiling gangsters and stopping a random mad scientist. Stark also continues to help the military by making transistor powered skates for them, a trick he will eventually use in his own armor. Later, while on a date at the circus, Stark turns into Iron Man and rounds up some runaway animals. Afterwards, Tony's date suggests Iron Man is too scary with his gray armor and should switch to gold. Stark takes her suggestion and paints the armor gold, a color used by Iron Man for nearly his entire history.

Stark later learns of the city of Granville, which has been surrounded by a mysterious wall that lets no one in or out. He investigates as Iron Man and soon learns the people of Granville are under the sway of a giant named Gargantus (very original). Iron Man finds out Gargantus has hypnotized the townspeople. During their battle, Gargantus is revealed as nothing more than a robot and aliens from another world are revealed as the schemers behind Gargantus, though Iron Man only sees their ship. The aliens patterned Gargantus on early humans from "80,000 years ago." Believing Iron Man to be one of many Iron Men, the aliens abandon their plans and leave Earth.

Review: For a techno-hero, a lot of Iron Man's villains and characters are aliens and this is but the first example. Another cheesy line from this story: "Little does Jeanne, or any other person know that Tony Stark has left the gay party for a most unusual date with...an electric cord!" (I'm not making this up.) I like little science-fiction-inspired stories like this and it has Jack Kirby art. A foreshadowing of good things to come for this character. Story: 8 out of 10. Art: 10 out of 10.