Issue(s): Marvel Premiere #39, Marvel Premiere #40
Cover Date: Dec 77 - Jan 78
Title: "Ride a wild rocket" / "Battle with the big man"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Bill Mantlo - Script on #40
Bob Brown - Penciler
Al Milgrom / Al Milgrom & Many Hands - Inker

Review/plot:
These issues feature the very minor hero, the Torpedo. He inherited his suit from another man, and doesn't know its origins, but he learns this issue that the original's uncle is a Senator Eugene Stivak, and that Stivak has been behind the Rocketeers that have been attacking Torpedo.

The Torpedo manages to defeat Kligger, but that just means he's now wanted for attempting to assassinate a US senator.

The Torpedo's biggest accomplishment in these issues is causing a meltdown at a nuclear power plant (to be fair, he does prevent the plant from exploding).

In the Torpedo's civilian identity, he is Brock Jones, former football star turned bored insurance executive. His wife learns that she is pregnant with their third child.

Stivak, aka Kligger, will figure into The Corporation saga that runs through a number of comics, most prominently in Captain America and the Hulk. In fact, as Kligger, he had already appeared in Kirby's Captain America #213, although i don't think he was yet intended to be the same character.

Stivak does seem to be more the plant of a foreign power in this story...

...although you'll note in a scan further up, he also calls that idea "preposterous".

Torpedo and his family go on to be supporting characters in ROM.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - minor development for Torpedo, alternate first appearance of Kligger.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• In Daredevil #126-127, the original Torpedo gave his suit to Brock Jones and then died. We learn here that the mansion in that story belonged to Senator Stivak (aka Kligger) and that the original Torpedo was his nephew.
  

• This Torpedo appeared again in Daredevil #134.
  
• Daredevil handled the Rocketeers previously in Daredevil #131.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Who the "foreign power" was is unclear, as we eventually learn that Kligger was working for both the Corporation and the Dire Wraiths.

And, after ROM, both the Torpedo suit and the Jones family (after a fashion) end up in New Warriors (v. 1). #73 is one of the saddest stories I've ever read, leading me to toss both a "well-done" and a "curse you!" in Evan Skolnick's direction. But that's about two decades away, of course.

Possibly a retcon since, as you say, he may not have been intended as the same character originally, but per the Marvel Comics Database, the senator's full name is Eugene Kligger Stivak.

Stivak does seem to be more the plant of a foreign power in this story

Well, you could certainly regard the Dire Wraiths as a *very* foreign power.