Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1990-06-01 00:02:30 |
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Iron Man #257
Issue(s): Iron Man #257
Cover Date: Jun 90
Title: "Retribution"
Credits:
Randall Frenz - Writer
Rich Yanizesky - Penciler
Jeffrey Albrecht & Brad Vancata - Inker
Howard Mackie - Editor
Review/plot:
This is the last fill-in before John Byrne's run begins.
The story is about a Japanese man whose parents died from radiation "complications" after the bombing of Hiroshima. He's a robotics expert, and he's built a power armor suit for himself and calls himself Samurai Steel. And he's got anti-American sentiments because of what happened to his parent and him (he's a mutated mess). It's said that Tony Stark's father was involved in the Manhattan Project...
...so Tony is lured to Japan so Samurai Steel can get his revenge.
Samurai Steel first tests out his suit by attacking North Korean airplanes, which i thought was odd for a guy that was an anti-American anti-Imperialist. He's got a very specific grudge regarding Hiroshima, so why attack the North Koreans?
I do love that all it takes to get Tony to Japan is a low bid.
When Tony shows up and is attacked, he first says that he didn't bring any "armored pajamas"...
...but he does manage to disappear into some rubble and come out as Iron Man. Stories where Tony Stark is traveling always have me questioning the plausibility of him maintaining a secret identity (and there are other people around in this story beside the Samurai). Actually, since Tony is traveling with Jim Rhodes, i'd expect that people would assume that he was Iron Man. Anyway, it's not something that comes up here. Tony's protests that he's sorry for what his father did and that he's no longer in the weapons business notwithstanding, Iron Man and Samurai Steel get into a fight.
Iron Man is able to hold off Samurai Steel...
...and eventually the Samurai sacrifices himself flying the nuclear reactor at his lab up into space when it accidentally goes into meltdown.
I'm not saying there wasn't still some anti-American sentiment in Japan in the 1990s, but we got a lot of these stories in the 1970s, and this one doesn't exactly add anything to the genre. It's a serviceable fill-in, but that's about it. It does add the fact that Howard Stark worked on the Manhattan Project (which i'm pretty sure is new information), so i guess that's something.
Quality Rating: C-
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue begins soon after last issue, with Iron Man returning to space to clean up some debris that remains from the space station explosion last issue.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
It might've been discussed around here before but is Randall Frenz any relation to Ron?
The movies were right to do away with the secret identity for Tony.
I was wondering about the Randall Frenz/Ron Frenz relation. Is Randall his full name, maybe?
Randall was Ron's older brother.
I don't see what's wrong with a Japanese anti-American anti-imperialist being anti-North Korean. There were several reasons for tensions between Japan and North Korea at this time (e.g. the kidnapping of Japanese citizens by North Korea.)
A funny thing about this issue is that both Iron Man and Samurai Steel got "electric pulse shields". But only Tony used them in the main battle. The Samurai used them against the North Korean missiles earlier. I found the lack of a comparison fight a bit unusual. Even just two panels would've been fine.
