After the early problems concerning Tony Stark and his supporting cast in the Iron Man stories were fixed, it interestingly highlighted the Armored Avenger himself as the least dynamic element in Tales of Suspense. Particularly, whenever Stark dons his suit, he becomes all but infallible, and while there's always some fun tech-based gag involved, his action scenes haven't been particularly memorable in most cases.
What the following two issues did to improve the situation wasn't so much to fix the action, or even to bring down Iron Man's power levels, but to write around his advantages to create more stakes. In other words, these stories became about villains attempting to outplay Iron Man rather than outgun him, and that angle made for refreshing, interesting conflicts.
Tales of Suspense #51:
"Face-to-Face with The Sinister Scarecrow"
- Writers: Stan Lee
- Artists: Don Heck
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: December 9, 1963
- Cover Date: March 1964
After a string of increasingly good Iron Man tales capped with a bungle of a story in issue #50, the series seems to promptly regain its footing with #51. It’s a safe story clearly looking at the previously successful issues for a template, and while it breaks essentially no new ground, it’s an enjoyable tale with no significant problems to speak of.
The opening scene is an offbeat, unusual sequence for Tales of Suspense thus far, where Iron Man chases down a criminal and inadvertently inspires a revue performer to become the supervillain Scarecrow. This intertwining of fates isn’t entirely necessary and doesn’t add much to the plot, but it does make the storytelling feel a little more efficient, when the villain’s introduction is embedded in a scene that’s not just about that.
The series has had a pretty decent track record with distinct and interesting villains since figuring out the concept with Jack Frost in issue #45, and Scarecrow is a similarly serviceable villain: lacking any actual superpowers, he becomes a successful burglar using his agility and a bunch of trained crows stolen from a fellow performer. It’s a cool idea, refreshingly grounded and tangible after the messy and vague introduction of the sorcerer Mandarin in the previous issue.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Scarecrow’s path crosses with Tony Stark as he attempts to rob the millionaire inventor’s home. He presumes the residence to be empty because Stark can be expected to have a date every night, which turns out to be true; however, due to interference from a jealous Pepper Potts, the date falls through, and Stark arrives home early to confront the villain with his chauffeur Happy Hogan.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
This is probably the best part of the plot, and it would have been incredibly strong with just a little more tightening of the underlying logic. Scarecrow doesn’t actually know about Stark’s scheduled date, but rather just assumes he’s going to have one, which waters down how hard the plot clicks into place when Pepper sends Stark’s date away in hopes of landing a date with the man herself. Had Scarecrow’s M.O. been to investigate his targets’ schedules, or had he at least somehow known that Stark was supposed to be out on a date this evening, Pepper’s meddling would have felt like accidentally dramatically changing the tides of fate in Tony’s favor.
Scarecrow knocks out the valiant Happy Hogan attempting to subdue him, but not before Stark slips away to change into his armored super-persona. The villain moves and thinks too fast for Iron Man, however, and tricks the hero into chasing his birds outside. Scarecrow resumes his looting, but is finally chased away by an awakening Happy, who manages to grab a piece of the costumed burglar’s suit. This detail doesn’t come into play in any fashion, which feels a little odd – it sets the expectation that perhaps Tony will track Scarecrow down or figure out his identity using the torn fabric, but it ends up being an entirely cosmetic moment at the end of the scuffle.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Having successfully stolen some experimental technology plans from Stark’s safe, Scarecrow contacts the millionaire demanding payment for the return of his haul. Stark obliges, and finds that Scarecrow did not intend to return the plans, but rather extract further payment, and then sell the technology to Socialist Cuba anyway. I really like this moment as strong and efficient characterization – it communicates how the villain is opportunistic and double-dealing, with no loyalty or moral integrity, but in a way that feels believable and even smart. The character is behaving in a human-like fashion, the human in question just happens to be a despicable one.
Iron Man follows Scarecrow onto a Cuban gun boat, and snatches the briefcase containing the payment he delivered using transistor-powered magnets – not a necessary trick when he could have just taken it by force, but it’s a fun little moment reminding us that the transistor tech with limitless potential is still his brand. A brief action scene follows, concluding with Iron Man sinking the ship, and Scarecrow escaping to Cuba anyway by the means of his crows pulling him across the water, which is a hilarious image.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Before the story wraps up, we return to Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan for one last gag, where Tony offers the tickets he was going to use on his now-cancelled date to Pepper and Happy – the joke being that Pepper is allowed for a moment to think she’d be going with Tony, before she ends up stuck with Happy once again. It’s a great ending for multiple reasons: it’s a nice decompression and comedic conclusion after a story with intrigue and action; it shows Pepper not being rewarded for her morally questionable behavior earlier; and gives the cast a sense of continuity and permanence, which makes the world feel alive.
Issue #51 doesn’t necessarily feel like it lands as hard as some of the earlier stories such as #47 or #48, because those had the benefit of the excitement resulting from the series finally finding its groove and feeling reliably good. But this issue is probably a stronger whole pound for pound, and for a book that took its time fumbling around with inconsistent ideas and shaky plots before figuring out what made it work, just a reliably good, fun story is entirely fine. There’s still a feeling of unrealized potential particularly with Pepper and Happy, but as long as the stories are as satisfactory as this one, there’s going to be time to get to that later.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Tales of Suspense #52:
"The Crimson Dynamo Strikes Again!"
- Writers: Stan Lee & Don Rico
- Artists: Don Heck
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: January 10, 1964
- Cover Date: April 1964
If issue #51 of Tales of Suspense wasn’t enough indication that Iron Man was now able to maintain a consistent quality, #52 reinforces that claim. It’s the first Iron Man story with a returning villain (sort of), and it surprises the reader by not being what they’d expect. It’s off-beat both in terms of what a second appearance from an antagonist would generally look like, and also in using the cover art as a red herring.
The cover in question features our old friend Crimson Dynamo, clearly in the middle of unfriendly action towards Iron Man, as well as an introduction of Black Widow – the latter would become a popular recurring villain across Marvel’s properties and eventually an agile action anti-hero, but here she’s more of an insidious seductress.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
The opening sequence of the story has Crimson Dynamo – professor Vanko by his real name – operating on some high-tech equipment involving lasers, and Iron Man saving him from a dangerous operational failure. The sequence is a little confusing because of the way the cover image suggests Crimson Dynamo’s turn back to the dark side, and this scene almost feels like it’s trying to make it look like he’s doing something he’s not supposed to, but Tony Stark never suspects anything of the sort. It seems like this would have been a great opportunity to lean into the ambiguity and use Tony as the reader’s surrogate, momentarily wondering if Vanko was up to something shady, before flipping the scene on its head by revealing everything was in fact up to snuff.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Vanko’s loyalty is affirmed, and we transition to the Soviet Union, where the premier (obviously Khrushchev, but left unnamed here) is sending two agents – the mysterious Black Widow, and just some dude named Boris – to eliminate Vanko as a punitive measure for his defection to the United States. The duo arrives at Stark’s facility posing as brother and sister. Black Widow immediately captures Stark’s attention and has no trouble at all making him take her out on a date, giving Boris complete freedom of investigating the facility unobserved.
This is a cool moment because it gives Stark a pretty unique personal weakness, in that he’s easily manipulated by a beautiful woman. Better yet, it’s not a gratuitous weakness made up out of thin air just because he needed to have a flaw – his behavior with the ladies has been a part of his character since the beginning, but not until now was it properly used against him. It’s because of this moment that Black Widow manages to feel like the actual danger in the story, despite never doing anything physical or causing any direct harm.
Boris incapacitates professor Vanko and hijacks his Crimson Dynamo costume, which he uses as a disguise. He smuggles the unconscious Vanko out of the facility and celebrates his success in extracting the traitor alive. The tension in the story is immensely high at this point – Stark is being played for a fool, Boris is successfully infiltrating his research facility, and we’re setting up a tragic narrative of a breach of trust between Vanko and Stark, caused by an impostor. Unfortunately, that last part never really materializes, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
After Stark returns following a phone call from Happy Hogan alerting him to Boris wreaking havoc at the facility, he becomes Iron Man and promptly loses to the new Crimson Dynamo, without realizing it’s not Vanko. He’s taken to a holding cell, where he isn’t unmasked or disrobed of his power suit for unclear reasons, and he has to recharge his chestpiece using the wire from the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. As much of a plot-armor moment this is with the bad guys not removing his suit, I really love the improvised charging to stay alive and regain his power, and it’s surprising how little we’ve had of those kinds of beats so far.
Stark breaks out of his cell through a wall, and happens to find the captured professor Vanko. He concludes that the Crimson Dynamo he was just fighting is someone else, undercutting the suggested tension from Stark believing the Soviet scientist betrayed him. It’s a hugely disappointing turn, because the story was setting up such a bold and tragic storyline, but then bailed out with an unnecessarily easy solution.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Iron Man returns to the facility where Boris is still having the time of his life, looting and destroying and looking for Tony Stark, and a rematch ensues. This new Crimson Dynamo remains a formidable foe, and Iron Man still struggles to beat him, particularly with emotional interference from Black Widow. Finally, professor Vanko destroys Crimson Dynamo using the laser device from the opening scene, seemingly giving his own life in the process. It’s a pristine setup for a flawless narrative payoff.
As strong as this moment is mechanically, the one thing that would have made it even more powerful was if we didn’t just dissolve the angle of Stark suspecting Vanko of treachery in a meaningless moment like we did here. If instead Boris had left Vanko unconscious in the facility, the defected scientist could have re-emerged at the end to reveal he never did betray Stark at the moment of maximum tension, and then his sacrifice would have hit twice as hard. It would have been a dramatic beat of Stark realizing he doubted the man for nothing in a moment when he performed the ultimate act of loyalty.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
Black Widow slips away, and we see her in the final panel skulking in the shadows of some run-down town somewhere. The implication here is that she can’t return to the Soviet Union, where her failure would surely be punished, yet her cover has been blown in the United States as well. It’s a heavy and tragic ending, unusual in its elegance and dramatic weight.
Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, essentially mainstays since their introduction several issues back, are almost absent in this story. But it actually isn’t a problem, because professor Vanko occupies the space of a persistent supporting character, maintaining a feeling of continuity in the world of Iron Man. It even has a special sort of charm to it because of the consistency in a character returning after multiple issues of absence. Even better is the way Vanko is actually used in the story, with significant agency rather than just being a lazy returning villain or a background character.
This is a very strong Iron Man story, quite possibly the strongest one so far. Its weaknesses are in dropping the plot thread of Stark thinking Vanko betrayed him a bit too soon, and honestly also in just how offensively generic this Boris guy was. The story is particularly clever in how it manages to deliver a feeling of real threat without just de-powering Iron Man or introducing a gratuitously powerful villain, but instead by allowing Tony Stark to make mistakes and be outplayed. Even with how powerful Crimson Dynamo is, it’s Black Widow who makes the story feel tense and the outcome seem uncertain.
And that’s what I feel is the common thread between why these past two issues work well as Iron Man tales: the villains, at least in a functional narrative sense, aren’t a challenge because they take more shots from Iron Man’s weapons or more crazy transistor gadgets to beat, but because they’re smart enough to work around the Armored Avenger’s strengths. Tony Stark being fooled by Scarecrow or manipulated by Black Widow is a great way to keep the stakes high without compromising the power level of Iron Man. When the plotting is also as competent as it is in these issues, it makes for some consistently enjoyable, fun, exciting Iron Man stories.
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| Art by Don Heck. © Marvel Comics. |
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