Tales of Suspense #93-96
Originally released in 1967
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Gene Colan and Jack Kirby
Tales of Suspense is one of Marvel's earlier anthology series, back before some characters got their own solo books. (they were limited in terms of how many books they could publish in a month by their publisher. Their publisher also owned DC Comics at the time, so that limit likely wasn't a coincidence) In this case, Iron Man and Captain America shared the book, with each issue being divided between them.
While Stan Lee handles the writing for both stories, Gene Colan is behind the artwork for Iron Man's stories, while Jack Kirby does the art for Captain America. Both do a great job; Colan really sells the desperation that Iron Man has when he's low on power or up against foes that are rendering his armour useless. Kirby is reliable as always, and when the story gets into mad science with the organization A.I.M., it can veer into the grotesque at times.
Rather than going issue by issue, I'll focus on each storyline individually. Iron Man has been chasing a Vietnamese scientist with the unfortunate nickname of Half-Face. The scientist was captured by Chinese officials and forced to work for them or else his wife and son would be killed, and in the process of his research, he upgraded one of Iron Man's old foes, Titanium Man.
Half-Face follows the Chinese government's orders, sending Titanium Man to destroy a peaceful village when American fighter jets are in the area so it will look like the Americans killed innocent civilians in Vietnam. Naturally, this happens to be the village that his wife and son are living in, so as Iron Man fends off Titanium Man and saves the village, the scientist defects.
I was a little worried at first, but the story does a good job at humanizing the scientist, or at least painting him as a victim of the war effort rather than having him be a heartless monster because he's on the opposite side of the war as the Americans.
Tony returns to America, only to find that due to his absences as both Tony Stark and Iron Man, SHIELD has assigned the young agent Jasper Sitwell to make sure that Stark's government contracts are completed. Tony and Jasper don't get along at first, though the two of them come to respect each other, with Jasper recognizing Tony's courage under fire and Tony seeing how much ingenuity Jasper can have.
Stark's factory comes under attack by the Grey Gargoyle, a Thor foe who wants a weapon that Tony developed. I found it a little funny about how the Grey Gargoyle didn't care about Iron Man at all, only seeing him as a stepping stone to defeating Thor.
The stories usually end on some kind of cliffhanger, such as Iron Man being petrified and thrown from the top of a building; the resolutions can feel kind of cheap at times, though they're willing to poke fun at themselves.
As for Captain America, his story starts off with him infiltrating an A.I.M. submarine to rescue Agent 13, also known as Sharon Carter. (though Cap doesn't know that at this point; he only knows her by her codename) Thankfully, Sharon's more than just a damsel in distress; she saves Captain America from the clutches of A.I.M. and fights alongside him.
A.I.M. has a new leader, M.O.D.O.K., and some of its members aren't happy about that. M.O.D.O.K. was created by the organization, but quickly used his incredible power to take over. The first issue keeps his appearance a mystery, leading to one of the goofiest-sounding titles for a storyline that I've ever heard.
Some of the A.I.M. grunts decide to kill two birds with one stone by sending Captain America to fight M.O.D.O.K., and his first appearance is an unsettling one. I'm used to M.O.D.O.K. being something of a comic relief character with his goofy design, as he's usually portrayed as having a tiny body and a massive head. Here, his body seems almost human-sized, while his head is the size of a van, which makes him look a lot more menacing, especially when he's drawn by Jack Kirby.
The massive-headed experiment holds his own against Cap, but an A.I.M. task force takes advantage of the distraction, shooting M.O.D.O.K. repeatedly and apparently (but not really) killing him.
Upon returning to New York, Captain America goes out for dinner with Agent 13, where I had a bit of culture shock when reading this issue. Even though Steve doesn't even know Agent 13's name, and Sharon only just saw Steve unmasked a few minutes beforehand, Steve talks about proposing to her, which seems like it's moving WAY too fast.
On top of that, dialogue between the two of them indicates that, if Sharon agreed to marry Steve, she'd have to give up being a SHIELD agent. Nick Fury doesn't feel the same way (he'd gladly keep Sharon working for him), but the dialogue seems to indicate that this would be what was expected of her.
Steve doesn't react well to being turned down - he pouts, gives up being Captain America, and publicly reveals his identity to the world. I knew that Steve's identity became public at some point, but I chalked it up to World War 2 documents being declassified in the decades since the war ended. This was a much sillier reason than I expected.
By the end of issue 96, he takes the identity back up again, though not before inspiring a string of imitators who become targets for criminals who want to kill the real Captain America. Out of the two storylines, I found myself preferring the Iron Man one. I liked how intimidating and creepy this early portrayal of M.O.D.O.K. was, but Steve's characterization in these issues felt questionable at times, while I liked how the writing and art of the Iron Man story did a great job with making Iron Man feel really vulnerable and backed into a corner even though he's effectively a walking tank, which doesn't seem like it would be an easy feat.
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