Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #46
Cover Date: Oct 63
Title: "The Crimson Dynamo!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Plot
Robert Bernstein - Script
Don Heck - Penciler
Don Heck - Inker

Review/plot: A dynamo is an electric generator. I had to look that up.

A Soviet scientist builds a suit of armor and heads off to defeat Iron Man.

Meanwhile, Happy and Pepper continue the bickering.

The Crimson Dynamo is destroying SI plants, and the Pentagon is threatening to take away Stark's contracts and also wondering if he is deliberately sabotaging his own plants because he has turned communist. Eventually Iron Man and the Crimson Dynamo face each other.

While they are fighting, Iron Man takes advantage of the fact that "all commies are chronically suspicious of each other" and fakes a message that shows that the Kremlin was going to have Dynamo killed after he defeated Iron Man and returned home (in fact this was what the Kremlin planned to do). After Dynamo surrenders, Iron Man plays him the message, and the scientist defects to the US and goes to work for Stark. Yeah, that'll keep the Pentagon from thinking you're a commie.

Also in this issue, an anthropologist discovers that African gargoyles are real, but can't get anyone to believe him because of the vast African gargoyle conspiracy, and a bored, incompetent reporter misses an opportunity to receive a flashlight that transports him to other worlds.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first Crimson Dynamo, first Senator Byrd

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Stark was particularly rotten in this one. his ruse to trick the Dy-NAM-o was as dirty as the "commies" he claims to be better than.

To be fair, if Tony HADN'T pulled a ruse and the Dynamo's bosses had killed him as a result, everyone would be saying that Tony was an idiot for being honest in this situation.

ok, but tony didnt know that the "commies" intended to kill him. he was just straight up lying to keep the DyNAmo in the US. If somebody claims to be a hero they need to draw the line somewhere. If you act just like the other side then you are no better.
but thats one of the things i like about Iron Man. Hes a jerk as often as he's a hero.

are those supposed to be freckles on Pepper's face or tribal tattoos?

i enjoyed Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo's initial "fight" where they both stood there fiddling with the dials on their suits. nerds.

I demand that "Comrade K" be given a Characters appearance. He shows up a few more times, I think. Although undoubtedly a "topical reference", I hold out for a chance he'll make another appearance at some time.

I don't normally tag appearances of real historic figures (exception: Hitler/Hate Monger) due to sliding timescale concerns, as you note.

But one day when i submit my explanation for all these cold war era villains to Fanfix (the explanation, naturally, hinges on my Red Planet theory), we can introduce Comrade K, clearly a clone of Khrushchev, to work alongside Comrade X.

I can't wait;)

In contrast to a previous comment, I think that the freckles are befitting Pepper. Yeah it's not the Gweneth Paltrow version but for the comic Pepper [and I think that one of the animated Peppers at least had them too] it fits.

The good: The Crimson Dynamo is a good character, far better that Iron Man's previous foes; the story is pretty good; the depiction of the Soviet leader (Krushkev?) is hilarious and over the top.
The bad: "Everyone knows all commies are tracherous backstabbers"; the ending was perhaps a bit too neat, the way the Crimson Dynamo fell for Iron Man's ruse.
And yes, Iron Man couldn't have known that Red Dynamo's boss was planning to ice him, so it was indeed a dirty trick by Mr. Stark. Even so, this is one of the better early Iron Man stories. 3/5. I'd give it a 4 if I liked the art a bit better.

"You'll be... uh... SHOCKED at my powers!"

Hey, wait. That wouldn't actually be a pun in Russian.

Why are all the foreign characters apparently speaking English to each other in their home countries when no one else is looking? I smell a conspiracy!

There's something John Severin-ish about Heck's artwork here. I'm not a big fan of these early ToS Iron Man stories but I did enjoy this issue.

The idea that Stark did dirty to Anton Vanko was reused in Iron Man 2. I placed ToS#45-47 between Avengers#2 and 3.

I've always liked the Crimson Dynamo story. The first really interesting Iron Man villain, and although Jack Frost was a step in the right direction, his story was practically over by the time he appeared.
I also think this is the best Dynamo outfit, far more impressive than the later streamlined (and easier to draw) versions. Heck puts a lot of detail into the Dynamo costume and it pays off brilliantly.
Unfortunately Kirby seems to have had his usual strop when someone other than him produces a detailed outfit and so doesn't even attempt to draw that costume on the cover but instead settles for someone in a red spacesuit. Very original. (See also Kirby refusing to draw Spider-Man or Doctor Strange properly. Repeatedly.)

I agree, Heck's Crimson Dynamo looked much better than the one Kirby drew on the cover. https://www.comics.org/issue/17950/cover/4/ Same with his efforts at Spider-Man, even when he did seem to be trying, he never got it quite right. Accuracy and consistency were never his strongest talents. Even his own characters would vary in appearance from one issue to the next, especially in the Marvel arena. His work for DC with New Gods, Miracle Man, etc. seemed a little more consistent. Maybe he had started using reference drawings for awhile? Maybe he was just being pissy when drawing Heck's and Ditko's characters? I don't know.

@Holt- Did you mean to say Mister Miracle, Kirby's escape artist character, instead of Miracle Man?

My Mistake. Thanks.

It's possible the cover was done first. I'm not sure whether the versions of the Crimson Dynamo on the cover and inside are sufficiently alike that we can be certain artist 2 had seen artist 1's design. If he had, the explanation for the differences might be artist 2 had only seen artist 1's pencils.

Kirby's cover version has a spacesuit look. I think his face is slightly turned towards the camera, so the glassy area is not his helmet's right "eye", but its entire face.

The version on the cover of #52, also by Kirby, clearly has a blank faceplate. But it otherwise follows Heck's version, right down to the star bracelets.

Come to think of it, the star bracelets are Ditko-ish. Is it possible Ditko designed the interior version?

The idea that Ditko designed Crimson Dynamo's armor does seem possible, especially considering that Ditko redesigned Iron Man's armor in TOS #48, whereas Kirby got the credit for the original gray armor design. That also might add weight to the idea that Kirby & Ditko were infighting over character designs, especially since Kirby did the Amazing Fantasy #15 cover art for Spider-Man's first appearance-- again I really don't know. I don't think Kirby ever did another Spider-Man cover over Ditko's interior art afterwards. Oh to have been a bug on the wall at the early Marvel bullpen! What interesting quarrels one might have had occasion to overhear...

On the cover of TOS #52, there appear to be two shadows on Crimson Dynamo's faceplate, which are in the approximate positions occupied by the two black eyepieces seen in the interior art. GCD credits Paul Reinman with the cover inks for #52, whereas Heck as usual is inking over his own pencils in the interior art. Maybe those two shadows represented where Kirby placed the eyepieces, and they inadvertently got lost in translation by Paul Reinman while doing the inks?

On a somewhat unrelated note, has anyone else noticed that GCD's comics.org site has recently become much more resource-hungry while displaying annoying Google pop up ads and doubleclick ads in the lower right corner of the browser window? Fie upon thee, Google!