Continuing Iron Man comic book reviews:
Tales of Suspense #43
Appearances: Kala, Queen of the Underworld; Baxu
Summary: After Iron Man had saved some Stark employees
from a malfunctioning wind tunnel (foreshadowing years of Iron Man working for
Stark), Tony Stark reappears before his grateful employees. Seconds later, a
scientist and security guard working for Stark vanish. Stark himself is
kidnapped in a transparent diamond-shaped energy-form that sinks into the
ground before the already startled employees' eyes. Stark descends until he
finds himself in an underground city populated by an intelligent race of people
led by the beautiful Kala. There he finds the other two missing employees who
had disappeared. Kala explains that the Netherworlders are descendants of the
people of Atlantis. They have decided that now is the right time to invade the
surface-world and they need Stark's help. If he does not help them, Kala will
kill the two Stark employees. Stark agrees to help, but uses the lab provided
him to build another Iron Man suit to battle the Netherworlders. Explaining
that Stark had escaped to the surface, Iron Man battles against the Netherworlders
until he has a chance to capture Kala. Iron Man takes the queen to the surface
where she immediately ages into an old woman. Iron Man explains the people of
Netherworld would grow old and weak if they came to the surface as well. Kala
and Iron Man return to Netherworld and Kala agrees to release her prisoners.
After propositioning Iron Man to stay and rule beside her, Iron Man recommends
that Kala marry Baxu, the faithful general of the Netherworld army, instead.
Baxu reveals he had long thought an invasion of the surface world was a bad
idea.
Review: This is a nice little story, reminiscent of the
sci-fi elements of the Gargantus story. The explanation that Atlantis became
the underground city of this story doesn't seem to jibe with the Atlantis of
the Sub-Mariner's people. The source of Kala's youth is later explained to come
from a fountain of youth below the surface of the Earth. Iron Man's explanation
of Stark burrowing to the surface would become standard fare explaining why the
two were not in the same place at the same time.
Story: 6 out of 10. Art: 8 out of 10.
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