Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko tagged in to draw Iron Man with issue #47 of Tales of Suspense, and issue #48 continues with the proven Stan and Steve creative team. This story is notable particularly as the debut of Iron Man's iconic red-and-gold suit, designed by Ditko to be a more expressive, dynamic look than the chunky old armor, which itself had already been redesigned in issue #40.
Tales of Suspense #48:
"The New Iron Man Battles... The Mysterious Mr. Doll!"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Steve Ditko
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: September 10, 1963
- Cover Date: December 1963
If the previous three Iron Man stories were a trilogy of finding the story structure and narrative elements that would make the series work, this issue certainly seems like a surgical approach to fixing what's wrong with the protagonist himself. The armor is just one of the improvements Stan and Steve make to bring the character up a notch, but it's a great visual symbol for what the book does: it doesn't introduce anything new in particular, but it re-designs what's already there.
This isn't the first story that pulls a moment of drama from Tony Stark nearly running out of juice on his life-support chestpiece, but it's the first one that props up the actual stakes: after being defeated by Mr. Doll in their first encounter, Stark just barely makes it back to a secret safehouse to recharge, and for the first time we stretch out that moment with a suggestion that he could actually die. We know he won't, but calling out the possibility gives the story a more serious tone than the relatively carefree adventures of previous issues.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
This near-death experience also has the more functional purpose of inciting Stark to re-design his suit to be lighter. The indication that the weight of the armor is draining the battery faster and thus risking his life is a wonderful dramatic conflict, which was never explored before. It goes by disappointingly fast here as well, but just the acknowledgement gives this story a thematic substance that wasn't there in any previous Iron Man story.
What follows is a delightfully indulgent suit-up scene, where Ditko spares no effort in displaying just how cool the suit is and how it works. It has an unmistakable 60s vibe to it, but it's shockingly similar in feel to watching Robert Downey Jr. get gradually covered in an autonomous cybersuit stored in a suitcase. This sequence is what I believe this issue was all about: the entire goal was to make Iron Man cool, which he always seemed to have the capability for in concept, but never quite felt that way in execution.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
Tony Stark also gets more of a dramatic dimension in the story than he's had in the past, and more specifically he's put in a situation that he can't come out of with his neat metaphorical suit unruffled: in order to preserve his secret identity (whose necessity is still only barely justified), he must use his secretary Pepper Potts to fool a guard tasked to watch him for his own protection. He ends up hurting Pepper's feelings in a scene that's honestly rather heartbreaking. While the scene would hit harder still if Pepper was given a little more substance than "she's the secretary", it's still a powerful moment that makes the reader want to slap Tony and yell at him to stop being so absorbed by everything else and pay attention to the person in front of him.
There's a hint of playing this scene off for laughs, but it's given a serious enough treatment that it works as a dramatic beat. This is the kind of personal fallibility that has been missing from Tony so far, and while just a minor moment, this was a promising start. It's of particular importance because it's the first uniquely Tony Stark character defect: we just recently had him wrestle with self-doubt when he was defeated by the Melter, but that's a challenge that arguably all heroes must endure. But for all his technical genius, Tony lacks emotional intelligence or the emotional maturity to recognize a moment for empathy. That's a fascinating character detail, and it's too bad that the ending doesn't quite commit to the moment as a meaningful failure on Tony's part. Instead, the resolution hovers somewhere between a comedic drum roll and the chill of a lingering guilt, not really selling either.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
The villain, Mr. Doll, isn't particularly interesting or cool, and it seems rather obvious that he's there more as a mechanism than a character -- the issue is about Iron Man, and the villain is only there to frame the events of the story. The part that I find odd is that with a story that's so clearly about Iron Man building a new suit, Mr. Doll is a terrible choice of antagonist, considering the armor does nothing to counter his power. The explanation here is about the old armor being too heavy and power-hungry, but it's hardly a satisfying narrative loop to that then being the reason Tony can better "withstand the pain" inflicted by Mr. Doll's mystical powers.
I really like the concept of the old armor being too inefficient and clumsy for Tony to beat the villain, but when the villain itself doesn't actually matter (as we established Mr. Doll doesn't), you'd think the plot would call for an opponent that actually exploits that weakness specifically. This was the time to introduce a villain who's fast or agile, someone who'd make Iron Man exhaust his energy without as much as a lucky punch. That would then motivate this specific kind of re-design, and feel more like a satisfying narrative of defeat followed by strategic counter.
Still, it's better than the "it's scaring the kids" excuse to justify the re-design from the old scrap iron armor into the golden one. It's a missed opportunity for a stronger, more fulfilling story, but one that's eclipsed by how cool and functional the new suit actually is. Probably the bigger disappointment with the type of villain is honestly the lack of unique action scenes, which you'd expect when you see Steve Ditko's name on the splash page.
I'm pretty critical of this issue, but we're at the point now where it's mostly because I know it can be better. It's the type of situation where you can see where the hooks for the good stuff were, and that's why it's so unfortunate that the story missed so many of them. Still, this isn't a bad issue, it's a solid Iron Man story that's mostly about diegetically explaining a re-design anyway, and it doesn't feel like a step backwards from the previous issues that so successfully pieced together a winning formula for the Iron Man series.
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