Issue(s): Iron Man #24
Cover Date: Apr 70
Title: "My son... the Minotaur!"
Credits:
Archie Goodwin - Writer
Johnny T. Craig - Penciler
George Tuska - Inker

Review/plot:
This switches up Johnny T. Craig, who until recently was the regular inker on this title, with regular penciler George Tuska, reversing their art chores. I can't say the change makes for a distinct improvement, but it's as serviceable as the Tuska-drawn issues. This is actually Tuska's last issue on the title for a little while, although he'll be back to the title on and off for years.

Still excited about the fact that he can take his shirt off now, Stark heads to Monte Carlo to party. Old habits die hard, however, and he soon finds himself slinking away from the party to mope.

That doesn't work out for him, though, because Jasper Sitwell is lurking in the shadows, waiting to spring a trap.

Sitwell's mad because SHIELD has found Madam Masque's mask and discovered that Whitney is still alive. Stark explains that she disappeared on him while he was passed out, but also comes clean on the fact that he was putting the moves on her. Sitwell declares that he is required to bring her to justice and both note that the reason for that may involve his personal feelings.

Anyway, Whitney is back in this issue. After swimming away from Tony in her previous arc, she wound up on an island with a guy whose son is a minotaur.

He's promised to cure her face...

...but the "cure" will in fact turn her into a minotaur as well.

We'll learn that Whitney is smart enough to not trust the scheming mad scientist...

...but of course Stark goes looking for Whitney as Iron Man after he talks to Sitwell and gets into a couple of brawls with the minotaur.

One thing Iron Man doesn't have to bother with is the minotaur's maze, thanks to his diamond-edged drill attachment.

Jasper shows up too, and then the minotaur realizes his dad's a little nutty and causes a cave-in designed to kill himself and his father. Jasper gets knocked out too, but Whitney is pleased to see everybody showing up to support her. She heads off on her own at the end, though.

This is one of several unrelated minotaurs in the Marvel Universe (and that's not counting Man-Bull or the Tauruses). The story behind this one is that ancient Aegians "worked their forgotten chemistry to create a super-race -- combining the power of beasts with the mind of man!". That's obviously different than the actual Greek myth but in a universe where Hercules is an Avenger you know that version is true, too. Then there's the Mole Man's minotaur in Avengers #17 who i assume is a Deviant creation like most of the Mole Man's monsters, unless the Mole Man has a relocation program going from Crete to the New Mexican desert for some reason. I thought this was an opportunity for me to coin a phrase meaning "convergent evolution of origins in a shared universe" but i'm not clever enough to think of anything good.

This is the only minotaur with a pinhead, though.

Ok, i don't want to be too down on the art. This is a nice sequence, aided by the color choice and the lack of word balloons.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• I've been downplaying the fact that Stark is still upset over the death of Janice Cord in Iron Man #22 because it's too maudlin and i prefer to imagine him partying it up.
  
• Madame Masque was last seen in Iron Man #19.
  
• At one point the minotaur throws Iron Man into a fire, but that just recharges his suit thanks to the thermocouple he added in Iron Man #3 (footnoted as #4).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

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

Anything with early MM is 5 stars for me!

Another solid job from Goodwin - this reads like a horror comic. Iron Man's part seems almost incidental. Weirdly, there's a misspelled word in this one (page 5, panel 2 "sucurity" instead of "security"). You don't see that too often in comics (that's what proofreading is for, after all). That this error snuck through - combined with the cover/splash page problem from issue #23... well, it makes me think that the Marvel offices were a little disorganized in late '69, early 1970.

I doubt the splash-as-cover on #23 was a "proofreading error" or anything similar; the story would have run one page short in that case. (Also the credits are properly placed on page one, and there's the interior splash with the footnote asking if this makes up for not having an opening splash page.) Seems more like an experiment on Goodwin's part.

Craig's pencils are effective here, but not up to the standard of #14, IMO. (I don't have 2-4, so I can't judge those yet.)

...why did you make a comment on #23 on #24's entry?

Because Zeilstern's (three-years) previous comment about how #23's cover was an "problem" just like the spelling flub in this issue was on this page, just above mine. I'm arguing that they're two different things, so I'm (very belatedly) replying to him (?).

(And that's hardly the only misspelled word that ever made it past the proofreaders.)