Marvel 1985 Week--Iron Man #192!!

You know, I give DC a lot of grief for "back-tracking" on their "generational heroes" shtick. Wally West becomes the Flash--oops, there's the undo button. Kyle Rayner replaces Hal Jordan--never mind. Connor Hawke becomes the new Green Arrow--nope, we'll bring his father back from the dead AND take away Connor's ability to shoot arrows.

Fortunately, that kind of thing has never happened at Marvel...

Oops.

Now, to be fair, this isn't exactly the same situation. Rather than another team coming on two decades later to undo "permanent" changes that they never approved of, this was one continuous storyline by Denny O'Neill and Luke McDonnell, a purposely planned multi-year arc wherein Tony Stark gives up being Iron Man, James Rhodes takes over, and two years later Tony comes back to reclaim the mantle. (Two years? How did they ever collect that in the trade?)

Still, it is a case of an original hero at Marvel snatching the glory back from his successor. Of course, it was by a writer best known for his DC work...By the way, did you realize that O'Neil was the writer on Iron Man for 4 years? Hell, I was reading it back then, and I never realized it...

Now, we don't get a traditional splash page this issue...instead we get a slow-motion reverse striptease:

Don't worry, there's a reason for this we see later.

Anyway, at this point in Iron Man history, Tony Stark had fallen off the wagon, hard. He'd run his company into the ground, allowing Obadiah Stane to grind Stark Enterprises out of business. When Tony was on a bender, Rhodey had to assume the Iron Man role. Stark decided that being Iron Man was part of his problem, so he let Rhodey keep the suit. He went on to form a new, smaller company, Circuits Maximus (groan).

But Rhodey was getting increasingly erratic and hostile, and was becoming a serious threat to others while Iron Man. We found out that this was because a) The cybernetics in the suit were calibrated for Stark's brain, not Rhodey's, and b) Rhodey had an "illness in his soul" about "stealing" the iron Man identity from Stark (hey, don't look at me--that's what Shaman from Alpha Flight told him!!).

So, with Rhodey going after a dangerous supervillain in a very public location, Stark has to suit up in an old rig he had been experimenting on to try and prevent Iron Man from accidentally killing a bunch of folks:

Ah, there's our splash...

One very important note: even as a drunk, bankrupt friend-betraying idiot...

...Tony Stark can still sexually harass employees with the best of them!!

Seriously, can we have a season of The Bachelor starring Stark and Hal Jordan? Lordy, imagine the carnage...

Back to the story: the villainous Vibro is rampaging at an air show, and Rhodey is getting his butt kicked hard by a guy who's essentially an ugly Vibe from the Detroit JLA:




So, it's up to Stark to actually save the plane...

...while Rhodey continues to be completely ineffective:



Since Vibro draws his power from the San Andreas fault, Stark uses his noggin and just tosses him higher and higher until Vibro passes out:



James is NOT pleased with Tony's intervention:



So not pleased, in fact, that a big can of you-know-what is opened:



Rhodey may not be playing with a full deck, but that's not really helping Stark...


Well, Tony is way out-muscled here, but he's still the smart dude we remember, so he proceeds to think circles around Rhodey. Science!!


Science!!!


He steals one of Rhodey's power pods...

...sabotages it, and let's Rhodey steal it back:


Oops.

So with Rhodey temporarily helpless, Tony decides to show him that he doesn't want to steal back the Iron Man identity, by reversing the reverse striptease from the first page (see, I told you we'd get back to that):

The results: friends forever!! Awwwww...

(SPOILER ALERT: Rhodey would be done as Iron Man in a few months anyway. Oh, all the sturm und drang for nothing...)

You know, reading this issue and contemplating the recent Marvel offerings, I think my comparison of Tony Stark and Hal Jordan is particularly apt--and not just for the ladies. Both gave up their identities, only to come back and send their replacement to the junior leagues (Ion? War machine?) where they didn't get to play with the big boys in the JLA and Avengers any more. No, Stark didn't wipe out all life in the universe, but he did precipitate the Civil War because, like Hal Jordan, he thought he knew how to run the world better than anyone else. And, surprise, both miraculously "got better," with no reprisals for being colossal dickweeds.

Marvel, DC--we really need an Iron Man/Green Lantern crossover, please.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Many don't remember it these days...


...but Marvel used to have the Lucas licenses.

In about a year, though, Marvel would let them lapse, and despite some scuttlebutt about them making another run at the comic rights, little old Dark Horse got them, and nearly 20 years later is still laughing all the way to the bank. Bad decision, Marvel...

By the way, the credits on that Indiana Jones issue up there? Written by Dave Michelinie, drawn by Steve Ditko. Ditko doing Indiana Jones? Man, I've got to find that one...