Issue(s): Iron Man #41
Cover Date: Sep 71
Title: "The claws of the Slasher!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
George Tuska - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker

Review/plot:
The Mr. Kline story introduced in Daredevil spills over into Iron Man. While Kline went through a lot of trouble to create the Man-Bull in Daredevil #78-79, we see now that he's got two super-powered lackeys in this story, Demitrius and the Slasher. We did hear that the process that created the Man-Bull didn't go quite as expected, so maybe these two were created through the same basic process.

Slasher has claws and laser-eyes.

    

Demitrius' powers are more ambiguous. He's shown to be a low level precog early in the story.

Later, he'll grow weird antennas, but you never get a good look at him, in part because Tuska never provides a decent establishing shot, and in part because there are so many goddamn dialogue bubbles everywhere it obscures the art.

Their mission in the beginning is to sabotage a walkway at the airport that Tony Stark is landing at with his new girlfriend Marianne Rodgers.

We learn this issue that Marianne has ESP as well, and her powers interfere with Demitrius'.

When the two report back to Mr. Kline, he expresses disappointment that Iron Man prevented civilian deaths.

Iron Man defeats the two villains at the end of this issue, in part because of Marianne's latent ESP and in part because they fight amongst themselves.

Regarding Mr. Kline, we learn a little more about him. In the Daredevil stories so far, he was the behind-the-scenes guy, but here we learn that he's reporting to someone else, and he's in the dark about the ultimate plans of his boss.

In addition to all of this, a Senate Investigatory Committee has requested the presence of Tony Stark and another CEO, Ben Crandal of United Skyrise, Incorporated. Both are accused of using cheap materials in the weapons and buildings they've been supplying the government.

The villains are throwaway (we'll never see them again) but this is otherwise a good set-up issue, with the Mr. Kline plot, the Senate Investigation, and Marianne's ESP all having potential.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - reveals that Marianne Rodgers has ESP.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: Mr. Kline

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Wow, those are some bad villain designs. Slasher looks like some kind of Ditko-reject. In that one panel, it looks like Demetrius has tentacle-breasts and his head alone is like 8 feet tall. Do the black polka dots have any practical effect?

I think 1971 was a bad year for super hero comics.

The polka dots are purely for "style".

Slasher's name seems oddly lettered in several balloons compared with other words, as if his name was changed. It suggests that Mentallo and the Fixer were supposed to be used, but had the names changed because Conway & Tuska had the costumes completely wrong.

The Mentallo/Fixer possibility seems very plausible.

A similar thing happened in Captain America #149-150, also written by Conway. The Stranger was obviously intended to be the villain, but his hair was colored wrong so he was renamed Jakar inside the book and the word "new" inserted between "the" and "Stranger" on one cover.

I reread this one, thinking about the Fixer and Mentallo in the villains' roles and it works. Although their personalities are different (lets face it, their personalities were pretty basic, at least at this point) but as a team of tech expert and mentalist it works. They were just probably far too off model artistically, so were changed.

I wonder how many "new costumes" for villains were really just the artist not having access to previous versions of the villains appearances. In the modern age, I think we forget how difficult it was to get access to older comics whenever we need.