Issue(s): Iron Man #142, Iron Man #143, Iron Man #144
Cover Date: Jan-Mar 81
Title: "Sky die!" / "Meter on the sun!" / "Sunfall"
Credits:
David Michelinie & Bob Layton - Plot
David Michelinie - Script
John Romita Jr. / J.J. Birch - Penciler
Bob Layton - Inker

Review/plot:
J.J. Birch (Joe Brozowski) draws the back-up story for #144.

Stark returns from his Caribbean vacation to find that Mrs. Arbogast has been overworked in his absence. This will lead Stark to hire Yvette Avril as executive vice president to handle Stark Industries during his absences. He also finds that SHIELD has taken over his company's labs. They are studying the mass deaths that occurred in Allantown, Iowa last issue. The deaths were due to radiation from outer space.

Senator Chad Mountebank shows up and tries to get Stark to prevent further investigation of the incident, threatening to drop government contracts if Stark doesn't go along. Stark kicks him out.

Next, an employee knocks out Scott Lang and takes control of the newly repaired Jupiter landing vehicle, and he goes on a rampage at the factory. Iron Man stops him.

To investigate the space radiation, Stark pulls up a new experimental Iron Man suit he's been working on.

It's Space Armor Iron Man! It's bulkier than the regular suit and doesn't have a mouth hole, but otherwise looks similar. Tracking the source of the radiation, Iron Man finds a huge space station with a Roxxon logo.

He is invited in by an armored man calling himself Sunturion.

Inside, he meets Arthur Dearborn, a Roxxon employee who has been working on experimental sources of radiation. He accidentally wiped out the town of Allantown during one of his tests, but he's not particularly bothered by it because he considers it a small price to pay in the face of the greater good. Iron Man obviously disagrees.

Dearborn is actually Sunturion. He was fused into the armor in order to be able to remain on the space station. Iron Man and Sunturion battle, and the space station is destroyed and begins plummeting to earth. Sunturion helps Iron Man prevent the station from crashing on land...

...but the effort costs him his life.

Iron Man did see that Jonas Hale, previously seen in Iron Man #120-121, is in charge of this Roxxon operation.

But the space station ends up so badly damaged that Iron Man can't prove it was the property of Roxxon.

Issue #144 resolves the Sunturion plot after just a few pages. It then goes on to provide a back-up feature that details the first meeting of Iron Man and Rhodey. It takes place just a little while after the events of Tales Of Suspense #39. Iron Man, wearing his original grey armor and a big trenchcoat, finds James Rhodes with a broken down helicopter in the jungle, smoking a reefer.

They fight...

...their way through the Viet Cong...

...and eventually make it home. Stark offered Rhodey a job right away, but it took Rhodey a few years and "several rather colorful careers" before he took the job, presumably not too long before his first appearance since their relationship at that point was rather professional.

Meanwhile Bethany Cabe is contacted by the German embassy with news regarding her husband...

The lettercol for issue #143 has the reaction to the beating of Ling, which is mostly negative, with people finding it too graphic or an affront to female characters.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue starts with Tony returning to work after a week in the Caribbean. He's got his suitcase, he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and Bethany and Ling are with him. So we can't just say that he's been home for a few days and just returning to work today. So no Tony Stark/Iron Man appearances between Iron Man #141-142. The flashback in issue #144 is bookended with some scenes from current times.

References:

• Senator Chad Mountebak was last seen in Iron Man #117
  
• Scott Lang has completed repairs on the Jupiter landing vehicle that was damaged in Iron Man #116
  
• Roxxon acquired the Vibranium that was necessary to build this space station in Iron Man #120-121.
  
• The flashback scenes in the back-up story in issue #144 take place soon after Tales Of Suspense #39

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The sequence where the space station is gradually revealed to Tony was probably modelled after a similar sequence in the James Bond film MOONRAKER.

Interesting that they had Rhodey smoking pot. In a much later issue, after he becomes Iron Man, he has a long pointed fingernail, which was often a sign of someone doing cocaine, but I don't recall that they ever followed up with it. Not that pot leads to cocaine, but it seems like they might have been trying to do something with Rhodey's character that they ended up dropping.

The Space Armor Iron Man suit was the first of several specialized suits that Michelinie and Layton designed for Iron Man.

According to Back Issue #25, Layton thought that it was not logical that one suit of iron man armor could be useful in all situations, as a suit that was designed for atmospheric flight would not be able to survive deep underwater pressures. Layton was also inspired by an old Batman story -- "The Rainbow Batman" in Detective Comics #241 -- wherein Batman used different Batman outfits for different needs.