Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #95, Tales Of Suspense #96, Tales Of Suspense #97, Tales Of Suspense #98, Tales Of Suspense #99, Iron Man & Sub-Mariner #1, Iron Man #1 (Iron Man stories only)
Cover Date: Nov 67-May 68
Title: "If a man be stone!" / "The deadly victory!" / "The coming of... Whiplash!" / "The warrior and the whip!" / "At the mercy of the Maggia" / "The torrent without-- the tumult within!" / "" / "Alone against A.I.M.!"

Credits:
Stan Lee / Archie Goodwin - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Frank Giacoia / Johnny T. Craig - Inker

Review/plot:
Iron Man returns to his factory after his fight with Titanium Man to find SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell, who has been assigned as a full time security agent to Stark Industries (finally, after like a bazillion sabotage attempts).

While Stark and Sitwell argue, the Grey Gargoyle escapes from jail and decides to raid Stark's factory in order to get a weapon he can use to defeat Thor.

The Gargoyle easily defeats Iron Man, turning him to stone and throwing him off a roof.

Stark's banter with Sitwell sounds very similar to the banter between Sitwell and Fury, making the dialogue seem generic, but Gene Colan's Iron Man art is very nice.

Sitwell saves Iron Man by driving a pick-up truck full of sand under him to break his fall (a footnote points out that the truck had been shown previously, so we're not allowed to complain). An hour later, the Gargoyle has found a cobalt gun and heads off to find Thor. Iron Man goes after him and the Gargoyle beats him up pretty badly again but this time Iron Man manages to blow up the cobalt gun, which cancels out the Grey Gargoyle's powers. Prior to that, the Gargoyle actually manages to turn Iron Man's energy rays to stone, which is so bizarre it's cool.

However, the beating Tony took was too much, and he passes out - suffocating in his armor. Sitwell tries to get Iron Man's helmet off but he can't, not even with his judo chops or his uni-directional explosive.

Then, Tony's ne'er do well cousin Morgan, in debt to the Maggia, sees the Iron Man situation on TV and bargains to deliver IM to the Maggia in return for the cancellation of his debts. The Maggia has a new mercenary named Whiplash, who is influential in getting Morgan to do what they want.

He flies back to the US and bluffs his way into getting Iron Man in his car.

Tony must have taken a really deep breath before he passed out, because he manages to not be brain dead. He recharges his armor slightly using the cigarette lighter. When Morgan gets him to the Maggia, he starts fighting but the Maggia boss sends Whiplash at him.

Whiplash knocks Iron Man around a bit, but it's not really a fair fight (I mean, he's just a guy with a whip!) since IM isn't at full power.

Sitwell contacts SHIELD to help locate Iron Man, and then a bunch of Tony Stark's girlfriends show up. Sitwell thinks it's almost un-American to have so many girlfriends.

One individual among the girls finds it interesting that both Stark and Iron Man are missing. She will turn out to be Madam Masque, the head of the Maggia.

As Jasper Sitwell hunts down Morgan Stark and finds his way onto the Maggia's boat, Iron Man manages to defeat Whiplash but then passes out himself due to the lack of power devoted to keeping his chestplate pumping. The Maggia tries to take off Iron Man's armor, but suddenly AIM attacks the Maggia's boat.

As AIM and the Maggia fight...

...Iron Man finally manages to recharge his armor. Iron Man gets snagged by AIM and pulled into their submarine.

Iron Man is gassed and brought to an X-Ray Photo-Chamber, which creates duplicates of his armor. The device was created by Mordius who wants to be AIM's new leader.

Three of Mordius' henchmen put on the new Iron Man suits.

Then the real Iron Man reveals that he was only faking being gassed and he easily takes out the 3 duplicates - due in part because of his superior skill but mainly because Mordius didn't know that Stark covered his armor with a special refractory coating that distorted the x-ray.

Then, as AIM turns on Mordius for being a failure, Iron Man heads to the generator room and causes the AIM submarine to explode, killing the entire crew. Actually Iron Man tries to rationalize to himself that it was Mordius' fault that the generator exploded but it's not convincing.

It must have been a little difficult for kids to keep up with this story when it was originally released on the newstand. It went from Tales Of Suspense to Iron Man & the Sub-Mariner to Iron Man #1, each part a continuing story with little in the way of recap. People deciding to jump on with IM #1 were probably confused to be starting in mid-story.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Whiplash, first Madam Masque

Chronological Placement Considerations: After AIM's initial defeat by SHIELD: Sitwell thinks, "Just as we've feared at SHIELD... there are still scattered units [of AIM] in existence!". The Grey Gargoyle battle takes place concurrently with Dr. Octopus' raid on Stark Industries in Amazing Spider-Man #53-56.

References:

• The Grey Gargoyle first appeared in Journey Into Mystery #107 (referred to here as Thor #107)

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Double Feature #12, Marvel Double Feature #13, Marvel Double Feature #14, Marvel Double Feature #15, Marvel Double Feature #16, Marvel Double Feature #17, Marvel Double Feature #18, Marvel Double Feature #19

The rationale for IM & Submariner was to use up two half-length stories from Suspense and Astonish, but since IM 1was a continuation anyway, why not just make the leftover Suspense story a chapter of IM's first issue? Very awkward, and even though "jumping on" wasn't much of a thing back then -- kids could never be sure the same retailer would carry consecutive issues of any series -- this must have made things especially frustrating.

Ah, this answers my question on the Cap story in TOS #89. One of my brothers definitely must have had Marvel Double Feature #13, which had that Cap story, and the second part of this story (TOS #96) because I remember very distinctly both Iron Man falling at the start and Whiplash at the end. Ah, childhood memories.

One of my favorite Silver Age comics - for its uniqueness, oddity. And, it was a two nifty reads.

Sorry - was referring to Iron Man & Sub-Mariner # 1

Hello fnord. Here's your partner in Marvel chronology in Brazil!
I've just read this sequence of histories and found it specially strange the first appearance of Madame Masque in ToS 98. It gets awkward when she appears in front of Stark Industries with other Stark's girlfriends, and some time before (ToS 97 page 9) and soon after (ToS 98 page 31), she - who would be the leader of Maggia - was inside the ship dealing with Morgan Stark and watching Whiplash on a screen...
I don't know! For me it doesn't fit... What's your oppinion?

Maybe it's a bio-duplicate! ;-)

I agree that it requires her to move very quickly from the boat to Stark's factory and back. And it may mean that they hadn't yet decided that Whitney Frost was the Maggia leader. But you will see in Iron Man #1 that Jasper Sitwell pulls Whitney out of the water when the boat is sinking and it is left as a little mystery what she is doing there. So it seems like they were planning something.

There's an odd sequence in ToS #95 wherein the Grey Gargoyle has to use stolen chemicals to "regain" his stone touch. Maybe Thor's magic lightning removed all his powers somehow in his previous appearance?

I liked the Grey Gargoyle story with Sitwell being brought it (although turning the repulsor ray to stone was tres weird). The A.I.M. Maggia gang was fun with Whiplash and Madame Masque. I thought Mordius was lame especially after Modok.

Hmmmm...interesting that the flawed copy of Iron Man suits concept was not reused, even if they worked out the kinks. I'm sure AIM could have used it for nefarious purposes.
An idea that the Armor Wars story in the 80s did, where Stark's tech, or designs based on his were used by various villains armors.
Mind you, Iron Man gets a whole new armor based on Integrated Circuits,not Transistor based making it even more powerful.