Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1967-04-01 00:07:10 |
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Tales Of Suspense #89-90 (Iron Man)
Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #89, Tales Of Suspense #90 (Iron Man stories only)
Cover Date: May-Jun 67
Title: "The monstrous menace of the mysterious Melter!" / "The golden ghost!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Frank Giacoia - Inker
Review/plot:
Tony realizes that Happy and Pepper love each other (Pepper is dying her hair blond)...
...so he goes back to his old playboy lifestyle.
Meanwhile, the Melter escapes from prison with the help of his cellmate, who he betrays. The Melter then shows up at Stark Industries and defeats Iron Man, destroying his armor.
His goal is to force Tony Stark to provide him with his smallest transistors, so he can redesign his melting gun. While he's captured, his girlfriends are very concerned.
After giving him the gun, Tony finds his original IM suit (well, it's the golden version of the original suit)...
...and between that and the fact that the new gun he designed was booby-trapped, he defeats the Melter.
Quality Rating: C
Historical Significance Rating: 2
Chronological Placement Considerations: Stark's factory, trashed by the Mole Man in the previous arc, is being rebuilt at the start of issue #89.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Marvel Double Feature #6, Marvel Double Feature #7
Inbound References (2): showCharacters Appearing: Happy Hogan, Iron Man, Melter, Pepper Potts 1967 / Box 3 / Silver Age Previous:
Daredevil #27Up:
MainNext:
Amazing Spider-Man #48-49
Comments
How many times did the original armor get destroyed in just the 60s, I wonder?
Fantastic art. With all due respect to Heck, I dread to think what he would have done in that opening page. Conlan's work is just great there.
There's a clever bit where the Melter zaps Stark with his gun set for flesh, but Tony survives thanks to his chestplate. And the story does a good job picking up on the idea that Horgan's real motivation was his hatred of Stark, as opposed to the generic supervillainy he usually gets up to.
The gold armor was supposed to be the original gray armor with a gold spray paint job. The colorist apparently didn't get the memo, since whenever it was damaged the gray metal underneath never seemed to show through.
I liked the continuity bits keeping track of what had happened to plant previously. I liked the bit with all the girlfriends showing up and the cop being jealous of Stark's success with the ladies.
