Issue(s): Thor #174
Cover Date: Mar 70
Title: "The carnage of the Crypto-Man!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Bill Everett - Inker

Review/plot:
At this point in his career, i really associate Kirby's art with the super cosmic stuff. Galactus. Kree. Inhumans. Asgard. Not necessarily some guy building a robot in his garage. So this panel, awesome as it is, threw me for a minute.

Now this is the robot that will eventually kill the Hulk's love, Jarella. So this is a Thor/Hulk level robot, and i suppose worthy of the Full Kirby.

Anyway, the story here is that one of Donald Blake's patients comes to his office and says she's worried about her son, Jasper Whyte. Whyte has already managed to steal half of Thor's power and place it in his Crypto-Man.

Later, the robot battles Thor to a standstill...

...but Thor is able to convince Whyte, who is out to show the world that ignored his genius that he really is teh awesome...

...that if the robot continues its rampage, even his mother will die. Whyte therefore sacrifices his own life to stop the robot.

We've had several Earth-bound single-issue stories now (unfortunately kicked off with another nearly unstoppable robot on a rampage, the Thermal Man), but this is the last of them for a while.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Crypto-Man

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Official Marvel Avengers Index places Thor's appearance here between Avengers #79-80.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

dude what is your vendetta against roy Thomas writing??

"Crytpo-" meaning secret or hidden is an odd name for a giant, not-at-all-hidden super-robot. My guess, since Whyte says this is just the first of an army of robots that will conquer the world, is that Kirby came up with the name as a riff on "crypto-fascist", a word that entered the national consciousness after the Buckley/Vidal TV debates of 1968.