Iron Man #17-19Issue(s): Iron Man #17, Iron Man #18, Iron Man #19 Review/plot: At least not in every #$%@!@!! panel you draw him in. Those bottom two scans are from different issues, by the way. The guy who looks like he could give King Tut from the Adam West Batman series a run for his money is Midas, a real loser of a villain. His motivation is that he would like to be the richest man in the world. Among his assets are two guys in goofy helmets with a lighting simulator... ...Tony Stark's ne'er-do-well cousin Morgan... ...and, in the plus column, the mysterious Madame Masque. Also in his favor is the fact that a Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark accidentally gets reactivated in an explosion caused by Masque. The LMD has developed intelligence, and decides that it would like to run Stark Industries. It declares the real Stark an imposter, something which the employees of Stark Industries seem all too willing to accept. Jarvis buys it too. Midas has Masque pick up Stark, thinking he really is just an imposter, and offers him a financial reward for replacing Stark and turning over Stark's wealth to Midas. While the LMD absorbs Tony's memories via an electric memory bank in which Stark stores his life-long knowledge, and even becomes Iron Man and has fun adventures with Captain America and Nick Fury... ...Madame Masque trains the "imposter" (and Stark of course hits on her)... ...and then helps him infiltrate Stark's factory. When the LMD confronts them as Iron Man, Stark sneaks off and finds his original golden armor. Stark is able to defeat the LMD... ...dropping him into a molten vat just as the Avengers arrive... ...but the strain of using the heavier armor causes his heart to fail, and he collapses. The Avengers decide they need to bring Stark to Henry Pym's "ultra-rejuvenator" (no footnote?!)... ...and then to Dr. Jose Santini, the doctor that once almost helped Mr. Fantastic cure the Thing. Stark hallucinates a bit, but when he wakes up, Santini tells him that the operation was successful and Stark's heart was rebuilt using synthetically developed tissue. However, there's a chance that Stark's body will reject the heart and he could die at any time. Stress, especially, could be trouble. After a classic dressing scene ... ...where it's confirmed that the Iron Man helmet is indeed of a rubber-like consistency, at least until polarized... ...Stark is attacked by Madame Masque and brought back to Midas. The good news is that thanks to Tony's smooth way with the ladies, he doesn't flinch even when Masque removes her mask. He recognizes her as Whitney Frost, and she frees him. While Iron Man battles Midas in his mechanized throne (clearly on loan from Cadavus, Monarch of the Murder Chair)... ...Frost proves to be a bit of a badass herself, taking out Midas' guards and securing a vehicle for escape. Stark's battle taxes his newly healed heart, and while he's resting, Frost kisses him goodbye and dives out of the escape plane. By the way, Whitney is under the impression that Tony Stark just happens to be carrying a suit of Iron Man armor and wore it to fight Midas. She doesn't think he's the real Iron Man. Morgan Stark is zapped by Midas with a shock blast that is supposed to make it difficult for him remember anything about his encounter with Midas. And we won't actually see Morgan again for over 250 issues. Meanwhile, Janice Cord makes time with her new chief science officer, Alex Niven. Cameo in #19 by Happy and Pepper Hogan, waiting to hear the news about Tony's heart. But who cares about that! Tony Stark's heart has been fixed! That is big news! No more pining about the ladies he can't make time with. And no more worrying about running out of power in the middle of a fight because it will kill him. The latter is substituted for the idea that stress puts strain on his new partially-synthetic heart, but that concern will fade over time. After experimenting with panel layout in Iron Man #15-16, Tuska is back to more standard (square!) panels. I think this is a better approach for him. Not everyone can be Jim Steranko, nor do they need to be. Quality Rating: C Chronological Placement Considerations: Issue #18 leads directly into Avengers #69. Issue #19 takes place during Avengers #69, while the other Avengers have been spirited away by the Grandmaster. Iron Man returns to the Avengers after his surgery (and after the battle with Midas) in Avengers #70. Rather than break up Avengers #69-71, i've placed #19 here. Tony Stark is a very busy guy in the moments after his surgery. References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: Marvel Masterworks: Invincible Iron Man vol. 6 (#17-18 are originals) Inbound References (6): showCharacters Appearing: Captain America, Crimson Dynamo III, Happy Hogan, Hawkeye, Henry Pym, Iron Man, Janice Cord, Jarvis, Jose Santini, Madame Masque, Midas, Miss Greer, Morgan Stark, Nick Fury, Pepper Potts, Tony Stark LMD, Vision, Wasp 1969 / Box 5 / Silver Age CommentsOlshevsky came up with a different theory in Avengers Index 4 to explain how Tony could appear in Avengers 70-71. His explanation was that the Avengers were teleported into the future in Avengers 70, where they met Tony AFTER Iron Man 19, and then after Avengers 71, they were returned to the present BEFORE Iron Man 19. There really is no good explanation as to how Iron Man 18-19 and Avengers 70-71 fit together. Posted by: Michael | January 8, 2013 11:02 PM I saw that and it gave me a headache. I may be missing something, but it seems possible that we go from IM 17-18, then to the first half of IM 19 happening more or less concurrently with A 69, and then Iron Man recovers and participates in A 70-71 and then the rest of IM 19. For Cap, i figure he's coming back from the press conference shown on page 4 of IM 19 on page 5 of A 69, meaning that some time passed after the Wasp threw the Growing Man in the trash. (The garbage can actually seems to be much bigger and in a different place, so maybe the Growing Man didn't get big enough to escape until the can was jostled around and dumped into a larger bin by the cleaning crew some time after Santini completed the surgery.) Posted by: fnord12 | January 9, 2013 3:50 PM Adding: my hesitation about going with the Index's time travel theory is that Iron Man doesn't even comment on it; he should notice that he's been plucked out of time. I know there was a similar situation with Thor and the Collector during the Korvac saga, but people actually notice that it's happening that time. Posted by: fnord12 | January 9, 2013 3:55 PM Just a heads up - you forgot to include Iron Man himself as appearing in these issues... Posted by: S | January 9, 2013 5:59 PM Because he was plucked out of time! Thanks, S. Fixed it. Posted by: fnord12 | January 9, 2013 6:06 PM Iwonder if there's some way of saying the LMD impostor was the one appearing in the Avengers issues? Posted by: kveto from prague | January 17, 2013 5:47 PM Great issue! Posted by: Suzanne | March 5, 2013 4:42 PM I'd have to re-read #18 (not sure I have it; I know I have 17 and 19) to check, but it looks as though the Avengers think that Tony just happens to be wearing the old Iron Man armor when "Iron Man" tries to kill him and falls into the tank instead. So...shouldn't the Avengers be thinking that Iron Man is dead? (And so soon after Cap died, too. Man, what a rough year.) Or did Tony just say, "No, that guy was an impostor. Iron Man's off fly-fishing in Montana" or something? Weird. Posted by: Dan Spector | July 9, 2014 3:40 AM By the way, do we think Midas has a secret compartment in the chair for his never-ending stash of turkey legs? Posted by: Dan Spector | July 9, 2014 3:42 AM The "rejuvenator" was previously mentioned in Avengers #61, but in this issue it's the "ultra-rejuvenator" so perhaps this is a new model. Posted by: Time Traveling Bunny | February 25, 2015 12:50 PM This whole sequence is more than a little inspired by the James Bond films. quite enjoy it, goofy as Midas is. Posted by: Omar Karindu | October 16, 2015 2:28 PM Or did Tony just say, "No, that guy was an impostor. Iron Man's off fly-fishing in Montana" or something? Weird. Tony explains that it was an LMD meant to play the role of a substitute Iron Man. In retrospect, I think these three issues inspired a few things later on. Most obviously, the LMD thing comes back late in Mantlo's run and is wrapped up at the very start of the original Michelinie /Layton era, but the sequence with an unarmed Tony getting to a secret weapons cache and fighting back also shows up in Mantlo's last issue. More generally, this is the first time we get Tony Stark, in civvies, showing that he, too, is a badass action hero, plotting and counterplotting against a shadowy mastermind out to seize his business from him. That seems like the starting point for the great issue #125. And of course it's where all the Madame Masque stuff really starts. But Stark vs. the LMD, right down to the crazy heart issues, bears a very strong resemblance to some of the beats of Joe Quesada's arc on Iron Man, where the armor becomes sentient. Posted by: Omar Karindu | April 28, 2018 5:52 AM Comments are now closed. |
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