Issue(s): Iron Man #20
Cover Date: Dec 69
Title: "Who serves Lucifer?"
Credits:
Archie Goodwin - Writer
George Tuska - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
Esposito uses the pen name "Joe Gaudioso" for this and the next several issues. I didn't realize that artists had to continue to use pen names to hide from DC that they were working for Marvel this late.

You would think that if an ordinary man suddenly got mysterious powers and wandered around muttering about being possessed by Lucifer, that most people would assume Satanic possession or mental illness resulting in the belief of same.

Not in this story. Everyone accepts it at face value and understands immediately that the guy means the lame super-villain, not the other Lucifer.

Everything about this Lucifer sucks: the name, the costume, the powers, the fact that some dumb alien is responsible for Professor X needing a wheelchair...

...and i don't know why Goodwin didn't just leave him to be forgotten. But here he is and only a nagging wife can defeat him.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Lucifer last appeared in Uncanny X-Men #21.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Masterworks: Invincible Iron Man vol. 6

"Wilma, Wilmaaaaaa!" Who knew that Lucifer was secretly Fred Flintstone?

Steve Englehart and Kurt Busiek did some great things with Dominus and the Arcane in latter-day Avengers stories, but yes, Lucifer sucks. And I'm not very thrilled that he is the instrument for Englehart killing off Rafe Michel after reducing him to cheap hood, either. I didn't mind the "Snap Wilson" plot twist (because "upright cheerful Negro" Sam *was* pretty boring, I thought by then), but it would seem a lot less racist if Steve hadn't virtually written all of Sam's supporting cast out of the book by then.