Essential Iron Man volume 3

Essential Iron Man volume 3 contains issues #12 to #38 plus a crossover in Daredevil #73. Most of the writing is by Archie Goodwin with later runs by Allyn Brodsky and Gerry Conway, who also writes the Daredevil issue, and one issue by Mimi Gold. The art is by a mixture of George Tuska, Johnny Craig and Don Heck with the Daredevil issue drawn by Gene Colan.

As stretches go, this is a fairly straightforward run which sees the series enter the 1970s and make some attempts to move with the times. The most significant long-term development appears to be Tony's heart operation. By now heart transplant surgery was established in the real world, making Tony's reliance on his chest plate an anomaly, though the surgeon doesn't replace his damaged heart with another but instead uses "synthetically-developed tissue" to rebuild the damaged organ, thus retaining an element of advanced technology. However it's not all plain sailing for Tony as his new heart is at risk of rejection and weakness if he over strains it. This happens near the end of the volume and Tony is forced to once more rely on wearing a chest plate all the time in order to survive. Annoyingly the operation is partially tied in to a crossover with the Avengers but the issue isn't included here even though Iron Man #19 presents it as the answer to readers' confusion.

We get a brief replacement for Tony as Iron Man in the form of Eddie March, a boxer who wears an imitation set of armour in the ring. Tony fears he has been holding back because of his recent heart operation and so opts to retire from the role, little realising that Eddie has retired from boxing because of a blood clot that puts his life at risk. Eddie's stint as Iron Man is short lived and he is soon hospitalised, leading to Tony feeling he must resume the role and accept whatever fate his health brings, encouraged by Eddie's bravery. Eddie is black and at the time making such a replacement was a radical approach, predating the John Stewart Green Lantern by over a year.

The other sign of the times are some issues that try to match the contemporary trend for addressing real life social problems but they often fall back upon individual corruption rather than acknowledging that some problems can't simply be fixed by a hero's intervention. Pollution comes up more than once as Iron Man faces attacks of Tony's plants on islands, but it becomes clear that the problem is in staff, with one manager stirring up local hotheads to protest a plant and cover up embezzlement whilst another is cutting costs at the expense of minimum safety standards which leads to conflict with an angry Sub-Mariner. The tales touch upon the problems of pollution but don't really go to the nub of the conflict between technological advancement to sustain the human population versus the need to keep the planet healthy in the long run. Other tales look at issues such as the longstanding hostility between peoples of different countries, here in the form of Japan and the United States as young people in the former remain hostile to the latter a quarter of a century after the Second World War and one attacks uses a giant robotic lizard based on the legendary beast Zoga. Coming from a country where hostility to Germany still persists after seventy years it's an unfortunately all too familiar tale of old national hatreds.

Another tale has a twist on the standard Latin American dictatorship cliché as here the country in question is ruled by the Overseer, a giant computer. But what's more awkward is the way the story shows Tony telling fleeing revolutionaries that raising an army in the States will not be as easy as expected as "there are those who would not bear arms for any cause!", an implicit acknowledgement of the impact of the Vietnam War on popular attitudes to overseas intervention. Yet rather than admit that the world isn't so black and white, Iron Man instead takes at face value the claims of the revolutionaries and charges in to overthrow the dictator, rather than stopping to ask just what the facts of the situation actually are, and whether simply charging in and overthrowing the existing regime will bring enlightened progress to the country as opposed to opening up an era of turbulent chaos. The situation in the story could have made for a strong exploration of the conflict between the traditional black and white values whereby knights in shining armour could go on a simple rampage in response to the first damsel in distress they heard from, against a more nuanced society that had seen the impact of such an approach and was now demanding restraint in solving other countries' problems no matter the suffering. But instead Iron Man carries on in the old fashioned way and it's only after his attack has begun that we get what could have been the turning point in a nuanced exploration when a child is shot down by one of the Overseer's machines. This would not be the last time that Iron Man writers would try to follow the approach of DC's Green Lantern but implement it badly.

Better handled is a tale of racial conflict in the inner cities as Tony finds a community centre project he is sponsoring is fiercely resisted locally, with many objecting to what they feel is just charity to ease white guilt and line the pockets of white owned businesses rather than real measures that would help economic development and enable the community to become self-sufficient. The situation is complication by corruption in local government, with the scheme having been pushed through by a councillor who heads both the estate and construction firms involved, and by the intervention of the aptly named Firebrand, a rabble rousing superpowered would be revolutionary. Though the tale is a little heavy handed it does well in challenging head on the assumption that outsiders can simply impose facilities on a community as a solution to its problems rather than engaging with them to find the best way forward.

In more traditional territory the series continues to add a few long lasting villains, ranging from yet another Crimson Dynamo to the rather more original the Controller, who has developed technology to control other human beings and an exo skeleton to overcome the weaknesses of his body caused by disease and accidents. He makes for a strong counterpart to Iron Man, the type of villain most heroes need. The Night Phantom is an early example of a villain empowered by Voodoo, a man embittered against technology after an accident crippled him. The Cold War also pops up in the form of the Spymaster and his Espionage Elite of five aides, who invade Stark Industries to steal industrial secrets. Elsewhere various aliens send agents to Earth with the most notable being the robot Ramrod. There's also a succession of crimelords who use the title Jonah. A more shocking foe comes in the form of a Life-Model Decoy that takes on a life of its own and ousts Tony not just from his company but from his entire life, armour and all, leading to the memorable cover image. This in turn leads to the oddity of Tony openly wearing the original Iron Man armour in order to take down the impostor but without those around him realising he is the true Iron Man. Another visual conflict between Iron Man and Tony comes as the Mercenary disguises himself as Tony in order to reach and kill his target, only to be shot by Vincent Sandhurst, Janice Cord's attorney now seeking vengeance on Stark. Foes from other series include the Red Ghost from the Fantastic Four, who is now accompanied by a new set of super apes, Lucifer from the X-Men, the Collector from the Avengers, and the Zodiac cartel, also from the Avengers. The latter appear in the crossover with Daredevil which may have been a try-out piece to see if the proposed merger of the two titles would work but it's all too clear that the two don't go together well with the resulting story a confused mess that doesn't really feel at home in either series.

Tony's romantic life has its ups and downs. When kidnapped by businessman Mordecai Midas he falls for Madame Masque whom he discovers is a disfigured Whitney Frost, but this causes tensions with Jasper Sitwell who had also fallen for Whitney. Tony tries to hide the news of her return after she disappears once more, but Jasper's detective skills discover what has happened and track her down to an island where a scientist is trying to turn her into a mate for her son who has been transformed into a modern day Minotaur. In the end she chooses Jasper over Tony but sets out on her own to prove herself first. Tony's main romantic interest is Janice Cord, owner of a rival firm, but he worries that both his heart and his life as Iron Man mean that nothing can ever come of it. Matters are complicated by her firm's inventor Alex Niven who turns out to be both protege and successor to the original Crimson Dynamo. Having a character be a rival to the hero both in and out of costume is a good move but it's short-lived as the Titanium Man shows up to deal with a defector. In the subsequent battle both Iron Man and the Crimson Dynamo misinterpret the other's actions towards Janice and she is killed by blasts from the Titanium Man, leaving Tony in mourning and Alex swearing vengeance on Iron Man. Meanwhile the end of the volume sees the introduction of Marianne Rodgers, an old flame whom Tony dates once more.

The supporting cast is also expanded with the introduction of scientist Kevin O'Brian, who has the dialogue of a dreadfully cliched Irishman but who nevertheless proves an effective and loyal employee to the point that Tony trusts him first with running the company during a leave of absence and then with his identity when he needs someone to reinstall the chestplate pace maker.

Overall this volume tries to update the series both in its approach to real world problems and also in updating Tony's heart condition, but in both cases it soon backs off and returns to the status quo ante of the series, as though the previous developments had been risks too far. Otherwise the main advances come in developing more of the supporting cast and villains and telling the usual mix of tales. There are few really bad stories apart from the awkward one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach to the Overseer tale but otherwise this volume is standard but not spectacular.

Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 3 - creator labels

Once again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Essential Daredevil volume 3

Essential Daredevil volume 3 contains issues #49-74 and Iron Man #35-36, which crossed over with the series. The first few issues are written by Stan Lee who gives way to Roy Thomas for most of the volume before the last few issues and the Iron Man crossover are by Gerry Conway, with Allyn Brodsky contributing the crossover’s plot, with Gary Friedrich contributing a couple of fill-in issue en route. Most of the art is by Gene Colan, with “Barry Smith” (better known as Barry Windsor-Smith – was he reluctant to use the full double-barrelled name at the start of his career?) popping up for a few issues here and there whilst the Iron Man issues are drawn by Don Heck.

There are a number of new villains introduced in these issues, including Starr Saxon and his Plastoid, Death’s Head, the Stunt-Master, Crime-Wave, the Torpedo, Brother Brimstone, Kragg, the Thunderbolts (a gang; nothing to do with the later team of villains turned heroes), Tribune, Quothar and Smasher. There’s a few villains from other series including Nighthawk (before he reformed) and, in the Iron Man crossover, the Spymaster and the Zodiac cartel. Once again I wouldn’t be surprised if these names have some of you are rushing to the search engines. Very few of these villains have made any significant long-term impact and in several cases they are killed off (and usually it appears to be an intentional killing rather than an ambiguous fate that would allow them to return). Saxon was rapidly built up as a new contender for the still vacant post of Daredevil’s archenemy, even having discovered Daredevil’s secret identity. But perhaps it was too risky to allow a foe to have such information and so he’s rapidly disposed of. Worse still, he takes Mr. Fear down with him, with the revelation that the original Mr. Fear has been killed (off-panel!) and Saxon has taken on his costumed identity. The other foes similarly make a limited impact, with Crime-Wave being another take on the masked criminal who plans to become the crimelord of New York but who is unmasked as an unexpected familiar person – in this case Hollis, an assistant District Attorney. Perhaps as a sign of how tired the archetype is, the character doesn’t appear to have been seen since. One villain who does get some development is the Stunt-Master who reforms and later works with Daredevil as well as becoming part of the general Hollywood scene around Karen in her new career.

There are finally some major developments involving Karen that improve her as a character but also have the effect of removing her from the series. At one stage she returns to her family home where she discovers what has happened to her father who has become the villainous Death’s Head. In the resulting battle with Daredevil, Death’s Head gives his life to save his daughter. Then after the funeral we get what must have been a shock in its day as the hero reveals his identity to his girlfriend. Whilst Matt had often contemplated doing this before, there had always been one thing or another that came in the way, making it the wrong moment. But now it finally happens. I am not sure how many superheroes had revealed their identities up to this point but I can’t think of any major ones (the DC Earth 2 characters, who were usually married to their main romance interests, don’t really count as they were intended to be a generation older). This makes this development the more daring, though it overlooks that Karen had virtually worked out the identity already. Unfortunately now that she knows her boyfriend is, her reaction is all too human. At first she knows how she feels about Matt but is unsure about making a life with a man who risks his life every night and may not come home. It’s true that there are many police officers’ spouses who face this very night, but usually they knew what they were getting into. Karen fell for someone she thought was a vulnerable lawyer, not a dynamic superhero. At first Matt tries to reassure her that he is retiring as Daredevil but then in a fight between ol’ Hornhead and the Stun-Master, Daredevil and Karen both realise how much superheroing means to him. As a result she leaves and moves to Los Angeles, taking up a new profession. Acting is a job that allows her a greater degree of independence from Matt than secretarial work, allowing her to finally be defined by something other than the men around her. However Hollywood is a long way away from New York and doesn’t really offer much scope for developing their relationship. We get a few stories set out west as Matt goes searching for Karen and eventually tracks her down, but eventually she decides she enjoys her new career as she goes from strength to strength, and when Matt asks her to make a choice between the two, he takes her response as meaning she’s chosen the job over him and then returns to New York.

We get a few other developments with the supporting cast. At the end of the previous volume it seemed as though Matt and Foggy had professionally split for good, but they soon realise that there was more anger than cause and Matt is soon working as an assistant to the District Attorney. There’s also a brief addition to the supporting cast in the form of Willie Lincoln, who although introduced in issue #47 in volume 2, has now been upgraded from a one-off character to an occasional supporting cast member. A veteran blinded in Vietnam, he found his sense of purpose again thanks to Matt Murdock and now reappears a few times, giving help and bringing tips on new crimes. It’s a pity greater use isn’t made of him. Otherwise there are no other real developments with the supporting cast. Hollis, the alter ego of Crime-Wave, is little more than a named background figure.

One character who could have become a regular feature is Iron Man. At one stage in late 1971, just after the end of the issues in this volume, there were plans to merge the poor selling Daredevil with the equally poor selling Iron Man to form one of the “buddy books” that were an especial feature of the Bronze Age of comics. Iron Man and Daredevil may seem an odd combination but then the same could be said of Green Lantern and Green Arrow, or the Atom and Hawkman, or Power Man and Iron Fist before each of those combinations was unleashed upon the newstands. But if the crossover included here is anything to go by it’s a relief that this plan never came to pass (instead both books switched to bimonthly for a while). I’m not sufficiently familiar with the Iron Man of this era to know if the story is a good fit for that series, but for Daredevil it sticks out like a sore thumb and issue #73 could easily be ignored in reprint runs without anyone noticing, though such an approach is entirely contrary to the Essential philosophy. We get a tale of a struggle between Iron Man and SHIELD with some members of the Zodiac cartel, fighting over an alien artefact with a brief trip to the alien world. Throughout all of this Daredevil wanders through and whilst he doesn’t openly acknowledge it, he really is completely out of his depth. The story was the second issue of Gerry Conway’s run on Daredevil and the start of a brief run on Iron Man so at least it benefits from a single writer being in control and thus the separate parts flow smoothly, but it really is one of the most forgettable stories in the volume.

Otherwise the volume contains a predominantly so-so run. A strong theme throughout this volume is identity, with a larger number of mystery villains than usual, though the mysteries only last for a single storyline. The quality of the mysteries is a little better than before, with the Brother Brimstone tale providing several suspects upfront and making efforts to provide a red herring. Read from today’s perspective it may still seem a little obvious who the murderer is, but compared to earlier mysteries in Daredevil that were all too obvious, it’s a definite improvement. But there’s a even bigger mystery explored in these issues as Matt/Daredevil grapples with the question of his own identity – which is the true personality and which is the mask? It’s one of a number of areas where for better or for worse the series was one of the earliest to do something that would become commonplace later on, another being the girlfriend discovering the hero’s identity discussed above. This is one of the advantages of being a title regarded as a second stringer as it allowed writers and artists to experiment with variations from the standard norm for superhero titles without risking “ruining” the biggest name properties where such moves could have taken the series into a dead end. The identity question is partially triggered by Starr Saxon’s discovery of Daredevil’s alter ego, but it’s clear that the issue has been bubbling under the surface for much longer. This leads to a series of moves by Daredevil that see to serve both the short and the long term purposes, such as when he decides to fake Matt Murdock’s death in a plane crash to remove the threat of Saxon’s blackmail but also to remove a weakness. He plans to start a new life with Karen under a different identity but abandons the latter part of the plan and instead arranges for his bluff to be publicised as part of a plan to trap Mr. Fear. But even after this Daredevil displays more savvy about his identity than the average superhero, particularly when he follows Karen to Los Angeles. Predicting that he might need to go into action on the West Coast and instead of ignoring the problem of the hero and the alter ego being in the same place out of town at the same time, he instead tackles it head on. Matt pretends to have instead gone for a restful vacation in Florida, whilst he uses false names in Los Angeles and thus minimises the likelihood of anyone making the connection. Compared to the way that other heroes like Spider-Man routinely show up in the same cities that Peter Parker is visiting without anyone noticing it’s a major step forward to a more realistic approach.

(Speaking of Spider-Man he has a brief cameo in issue #54 and does think to himself that he once believed Daredevil was Matt Murdock, but dismisses the theory now that Murdock is dead. This is the nearest to an explicit acknowledgement that Spider-Man wrote the infamous letter way back in issue #24, but otherwise that plot strand is now totally forgotten.)

The Starr Saxon story is the highlight of the volume, putting Daredevil through a real gauntlet as he faces a succession of menaces sent by his foe, whilst also trying to work out how to restore his secret identity. Unfortunately the resolution sees Saxon die rather than something more imaginative, but giving such a villain amnesia had already been done to death over in Spider-Man. The storyline also sees a retelling of the very first issue. This could have been the opportunity to tweak and tidy up the origin, add in a few details to explain stuff overlooked in the original story and make the whole thing flow better. However instead we get almost a direct translation of the original story, right down to the awkward narrative flow with the flashbacks. I can’t spot anything that’s been particularly added or changed apart from new dialogue that at least cuts down the sexism when Karen is introduced. It’s curious that this approach was taken – was it perhaps a fill-in issue to cover a late script? One aspect that may surprise from a modern perspective is that at this point there’s no attempt whatsoever to condense the timeline. Instead Daredevil is presented as having been active for five years, the same amount of time since the series began, and the years for earlier events in his life are the same as in his first issue. It would be a few years yet before writers started the move towards “Marvel time” whereby events are squashed into a set number of years and references to the real world are reduced.

In general the issues in this volume don’t really set the world on fire but instead keep things ticking over. There’s some good individual moments, particularly in when a bomb explodes near the Vice President who was being protested by young idealists. Foggy and Matt find themselves having to prosecute the young protestors despite believing and knowing respectively that the protestors are innocent (and whilst the story acknowledges the dilemma the lawyers find themselves in, it doesn’t address at all just how a masked vigilante can give testimony in court that will hold up). More generally there are some political themes such as the Tribune, an extreme patriot angry at the changes that were sweeping American society and the perceived failure of the existing establishment to stand up to them, or a look at tensions amongst the black community that see some drawn into crime and others who go off to fight in Vietnam attacked as “Uncle Tom”s by their own. When exploring such themes the book usually takes a left-leaning approach, doubtlessly reflecting the leanings of its authors, but I have no problem with doing this providing a good actual story is told and it doesn’t descend into oversimplistic right and wrong. These stories came out contemporary to the early stages of the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow run by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams and show the series willing to take yet more steps where other Marvel comics had not yet gone. But fortunately the series did not completely decamp into this area as it would likely have become very much a pale imitation of the O’Neil/Adams work.

Overall the volume is mixed but does have its ups such as the developments in Matt and Karen’s relationship plus the exploration of Daredevil/Matt’s identity crisis and his attempts to resolve it. But beyond that the stories and situations are largely treading water and not yet finding a spark to really set the series on fire. It’s an okay volume but the best Daredevil is yet to come.