Marvel 1978 Week--Iron Man #117

Well, well, well.

Iron Man.

OK, let's see if I can do this. I pledge to make it through this entire post without referring to the Civil War or Skrullapalooza or Purple Reign. No references to Tony Stark being a fascist, or a dumb@$$, or anything like that.

It's gonna be tough.

So what do we have?

Ha ha ha it's a clever topical movie reference...and by topical I mean it was only a year and a half old at that point.

Anyway, that's no mere spy--that's SPYMASTER!!!
This tale is brought to us by:

Dave Michelinie had just begun what was to be the first of two prodigiously long runs on Iron Man, 42 and 36 issues, respectively. He took over from Bill Mantlo in the middle of a two-parter (Bill must have had to free up time for the soon-to-be-launched Rom and Micronauts). As we'll see, even this early Michelinie was starting to introduce elements that would continue throughout his runs.

As for John Romita Jr, this is where it all began--two issues earlier was his first penciling job ever!! And this was also Bob Layton's 2nd issue of Iron Man, the work that he was best known for, and for the entire run with Michelinie he shared a "plot" credit. So we were really getting in on the ground floor here.

So how's the story start?!?

Well, that was quick. See ya tomorrow, folks--drive carefully!!

OK, I knew it couldn't be that easy.

It turns out that someone bombed Tony Stark's penthouse last issue, so he was expecting the attack. So it wasn't really Stark who was shot, meaning the proper story title should have been The Spy Who Shot My LMD.

And our mystery assassin?

Spymaster!!! The very name strikes terror into--oh, who am I kidding? Do you see why some folks are worried about who the villains might be in future Iron Man films? Because, Mandarin aside, Tony has a pretty lame rogues' gallery. I mean, Spymaster, master of industrial espionage?!? I can't get enough of that in my movies...Amongst the other Iron Man villains during this period: The Unholy Three (seriously), the Unicorn (no, really), Melter, Whiplash, Blizzard...Hey, they were all good stories, but let's face it--they were mostly C-listers, and it's hard to see any of them heating up the silver screen.

(For the record, this was the first Spymaster. Just so you know.)

Much of the rest of this issue is taken up with scenes of Iron Man being bumfuzzled by the C-lister until he sucks it up and remembers that he's a freakin' Avenger. So there's a lot of scenes like this:


All very well drawn, as only JR JR and Layton can do--seriously, they were genetically bred to draw Iron Man. But do we really want a hero who goes "huh?" as often as Tony Stark? Iron Man has got the Superman problem: he's one of the most powerful cats in his universe, but his villain roster is filled with lightweights. So we have to keep having Kryptonite/having his armor run low on power stories...or people who make him look silly through unlikely trickery and technological absurdity, like Toyman and Prankster. (I should note that the problem is even worse these days, with Tony being ultra-powerful and having Extremis and such. They keep having to find more and more things that are magically immune to his powers in order to have a credible story) It's no wonder Michelinie leapt off in other directions fairly early, emphasizing Tony outside the armor, and the politics of Stark Industries.

So we leap to a flashback, and see that Tony has been evicted after Spymaster blew up his crib. A bit depressed over how awful the life of a billionaire is, he heads to a party.

Wait a minute?? Senator Mountebank?? Why not just call him Senator Bad Guy to really emphasize the foreshadowing, David? Sheesh. (Note: I'll bet he's the Senator from Illinois...zing!!)

And speaking of foreshadowing:

Can you guess which story is less than a year away?

Also at this party, we meet for the very first time...

Bethany Cabe, who would go on to be Tony's love interest for most of Michelinie & Layton's tenure. Wow...we're really getting everything introduced this issue, arent we? And of course, Tony is, as always, the ladies man:

But back to our fight, wherein Spymaster continues to beat the crap out of the "Invincible" Iron Man:

Saving grace...the skates!!

But Stark continues to under perform against a man with the proportional strength of...well, a man:


Tony finally realizes he's been a total puss:

But before he can get tough, Spymaster unleashes his secret weapon:

Too late, though, as Iron Man has finally realized, "Hey, I'm Iron Man!!" And he's not amused at the ludicrous thought of an industrial spy trying to take down the Golden Avenger with a pair of nunchucks:



Uh-oh, this is going to hurt.

Yup, I was right.

Searching Spymaster, Shellhead discovers his true goal:


A good question, bro...especially since records of stock holders are, you know, a matter of public record, so instead of stealing them you could, you know, just look them up. (Unless, of course, Tony is hiding something from the SEC...)

And who, exactly, are the dudes who hired Spymaster?

Meeting?

D'oh!!

It turns out that this group of rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, working in cahoots with Senator Mountebank, wants to kill Stark, because they think Tony's a wuss for not making weapons anymore...they want him out of the way so Stark International can go back to making things that blow people up. But after Iron Man sorts their hash, he finds out that while their methods were unapproved, their goals were Nick Fury approved. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been buying up Stark stock, and will soon have a majority interest, and thus force SI to manufacture the munitions that are "vital to national security!" No wonder Tony was driven to drink.

Ironically, only 28 years later, Tony Stark would take over S.H.I.E.L.D., and end up getting blamed for all of Nick Fury's screw-ups that led to Skrullapalooza...oh, right, I can't talk about any of that.

Elsewhere of interest, you've no doubt noted that all of the Marvels this month are emblazoned with:

And from the Bullpen Bulletins page:

It was an interesting time, as DC was going crazy quilt with their formats--some mags stayed at regular length for 40¢, others went to 44 pages for 50¢, and still others became bi-monthly giant-size dollar comics. So Marvel was taking the high road and vowing to "hold the line" at 35¢.

5 months later Marvel went to 40¢.

Something to ponder as comic companies promise to hold the line at $2.99.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Marvel Premiere #45 saw David Kraft and George Perez go nuts and try to completely re-purpose John Jameson, Man-Wolf, as a sword and sorcery hero!! It turns out the wolf form was just a corrupted version of his true form of Stargod (snicker...really) which only fully manifested when he entered this mystic realm via a portal on the moon and...

OK, it's ridiculous, I know. But as someone who admires Master of Kung Fu's success at marrying James Bond films and Kung Fu movies, I have respect for this ambitious attempt to mash genres and rescue John Jameson from the obscurity of "not really a villain but he'll crop up every couple of years and have to be put down." It didn't really work, but it was fun--I mean, c'mon, werewolves and sword & sorcery!!--and the art was gorgeous (George--you bailed on the Avengers for this?!?).

This was a great time for Marvel Premiere, the little bi-monthly try-out mag that could. In the past year, or coming soon, were the introduction of the 3-D Man; the Torpedo; a Jack of Hearts solo story (before Bendis destroyed the character and then arbitrarily killed him); Michelinie and Byrne's introduction of the Scott Lang Ant Man (before Bendis destroyed the character and arbitrarily killed him); Tigra (before Bendis destroyed the character and made her the beat-down dummy for misogynistic villains); Dominic Fortune; Black Panther, the Falcon...it was a heady time, as Marvel seemed seriously committed to letting creators float out new concepts for 2 or three issues, just to see what happened.

Could the market place support something like that today? Maybe not at $2.99. Why not make it a loss-leader book--a dollar fifty, all-new stories, and let creators just go ape-shit and see what happens?