Review: Iron Man #68

Worst Armor Revision Ever...By A Nose!

While I like to have fun with my reviews, there is a serious topic we need to first discuss. The upcoming issues of Iron Man feature a villain who at that time was called “Yellow Claw.” Based on Fu Manchu, this villain has a long history at Marvel that predates 1961's Fantastic Four #1. I consider the name “Yellow Claw” to be both offensive and racist. Because of that, the character will be referred to solely as “The Claw” in this and future reviews. As I said, these posts are intended to be informative and fun. It’s my hope that this revision allows that to continue. Thank you and now for an issue that will give us much to chat about.

Oh my. Where do I start? That this is the first chapter of the “The Super-Villain War”? An inspired idea that - as we will see in the coming reviews - does not quite live up to its promise.

Meet Sunfire! Whom will serve as our beloved "Gullible Jerk".

Or do I lead with The Nose? That’s right. The Nose. It’s this issue where a simple misunderstanding led to one of Iron Man’s most unpopular armor revisions.

Then there’s Sunfire whom I hereby dub the “Gullible Jerk.” The latter term aptly describes his behaviors here as well as past appearances in X-Men, Sub-Mariner and the Avengers.

We also have Tony Stark ditching the Annoying Hippy in this issue. Well, sort of anyway.

What the heck! Let’s just settle in for “The Night of the Rising Sun!”

Not cool! That drawing of the soldier is decidedly out of bounds!

Credits

Writer: Mike Friedrich

Pencils: George Tuska

Inks: Mike Esposito

Colorist: Linda Lessman

Letterer: June Braverman

Editor: Roy Thomas

Cover Art: Jim Starlin & Dave Cockrum

Release Date: March 5, 1974

Synopsis

Like pretty much everyone else alive at that time, I despised that stupid nose on Iron Man’s armor. Far as I was concerned, there were only two artists on this entire planet who could make that damned thing look halfway decent. And they both drew this cover!

Take a bow, Jim Starlin and Dave Cockrum! Sure, the cover’s too wordy, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to make that awful new face mask work.

Unfortunately, they set the bar a tad too high for George Tuska and Mike Esposito with a lackluster splash page, highlighted by an offensive depiction of a Vietnamese soldier’s teeth. Gonna be gritting my teeth through a lot of that nonsense in this issue.

Deep breath.

The captions remind us that Iron Man and Roxie Gilbert are in Viet Nam to find Marty March, the missing brother of Eddie March, who was severely injured in recent issues.

Nice single page recap of Iron Man's origin!

A village in ruins sadly informs them that in 1974, the war still raged despite a ceasefire. The continued fighting also proves a somber reminder to Iron Man that a good portion of the destruction in this part of the world came from weapons his company had manufactured.

Once they're pointed in towards the younger March brother, determination over brains has the Annoying Hippy leave without approval from the soldiers assigned to guide them. When said soldiers decide to open fire on her, Iron Man puts a quick end to those notions.

Frustrated, the leader of those troops is visited by Sunfire - or as we should know him - The Gullible Jerk. Basically, a Japanese mutant with the ability to fire beams of intense heat, Sunfire’s strong nationalism towards his homeland leads him to make very bad decisions. Case in point, this major easily goads him into promising to destroy Iron Man so that Japanese companies can take the lead for rebuilding Viet Nam from Stark Industries.

As if this isn’t enough, the scene shifts to the undersea hideout of the Mandarin. He’s still trapped in the Unicorn’s body for reasons that made absolutely no sense back in Issue #58. It's also revealed that the Claw had taken over his Chinese base, forcing him to hit the high seas.

Not sure how two guys in red uniforms can hide from anyone, but hey it's not a bad set of panels.

Anyway, the Manda-Corn’s monologues inform us that while he doesn’t have enough power to initiate the mind transfer, his instruments show that someone nearby certainly does.

Yeah. We can all guess who that is.

Moving back to our hero, we find Iron Man saving the Annoying Hippy from a tiger just before Sunfire attacks both of them.

After a couple pages of trading zaps and blows, the Gullible Jerk is teleported away by the Manda-Corn. Of course, our guy immediately follows some “residual energy trail.” This leads him to that underwater base where his old sparring partner greets him with a torpedo whose explosion cracks his eye and mouth shields, sending our guy back to the surface.

You can explain all you want, Tony. But that face mask will always be dreadful!

Just as he took his “jerk” status up a notch a few pages baack, Sunfire does likewise with his “gullible” tag by being easily conned into unleashing an energy burst that provides the power needed to return the Mandarin’s mind to his body.

As all that’s going on, Iron Man arrives at his facility in the Philippine Islands where he goes to town repairing his armor - as well as completely forgetting about the poor Annoying Hippy he left in Viet Nam.

The outcome of his labors leads to mental control of his armor and, in a moment that once again calls into question his genius label, modifications intended to strike fear into the hearts of evildoers everywhere! Since a bat didn’t fly into his room, Tony Stark decides to make his face mask more expressive by adding a completely silly and embarrassing nose!

With that less than imposing look, our hero flies into action, bringing this busy issue to a close!

I think that first fish is already laughing!

Story

Kudos to Mike Friedrich for the idea of a “Supervillain War.” Ditto for returning Iron Man to where he changed from a munitions manufacturer into an armored superhero. Despite all my comments, I also applaud bringing Sunfire on board for a few issues. For all his glaring flaws, I like the character - or at least what I see as potential.

Still, there were a number of what I consider sloppy aspects to this story. Without unveiling too much, it’s going to be quite a few issues before Iron Man finally rescues Roxie Gilbert. As irritating as she was in the early pages of this issue, I cannot believe that Tony Stark would leave her completely on her own in such a dangerous part of the world.

Then there’s the “time” aspect to consider. I don’t know the exact location of the Manda-Corn’s underwater base, but unless it was right off the Viet Nam coast, I can’t imagine that being a quick trip. Nor could it have been one going from said base to Manilla and his factory.

At the end of the day, this is a decent start to an intriguing storyline. 6/10

Another nicely rendered set of panels - and no straw from that shed in Roxie's hair!

Art

I’ll say it again. I do not like George Tuska’s depictions of the Vietnamese soldiers. Nor do I like or will I ever like his depiction of Iron Man’s new face mask. On the other hand, I thought the battle scenes with Sunfire were well-done. Still, there was simply no way that the interior art could compete with Starlin and Cockrum’s stunning cover. 5/10

Wimp Factor

Just how powerful is Sunfire? Isn’t he basically a ramped-up version of Firebrand? The dude’s not supposed to have superstrength. That being the case, a couple punches from Iron Man should bring closure to any skirmish. For that matter, after dealing with Firebrand, isn’t Iron Man’s armor equipped to deal with intense heat? This is what we call playing down to your competition. 5/10

Villain Rating

Let’s start with Sunfire. Despite a cool costume and some potential, the guy’s still nothing more than a “Gullible Jerk.” 5/10 As for the Manda-Corn, I’m guessing that being unable to access his rings allowed the Claw to steal his clubhouse. Here, he doesn’t do much beyond filling word balloons. But that changes in the next issue. 5/10

Clearly the Unicorn worked out while his mind was in the Mandarin's body.

Overall Rating

A decidedly busy issue with a lot going on - some good and some definitely not! 5/10

Additional Nuts & Bolts

• In Marvel Masterworks' The Invincible Iron Man Volume 10, Mike Friedrich referred to the “Super-Villain War” as both one of his “better ideas” and one of his “greater frustrations.” As future reviews will illustrate, this war was a clever concept that unfortunately failed to get far off the ground for a variety of reasons. While there were issues to resolve with the mechanics of the war, much of the problem also stemmed from the overall chaos that was Marvel Comics at that time - which will also become dismally apparent in my future reviews.

• As for that hideous nose, according to legend, Stan Lee looked at an issue of Iron Man where he thought the artist (we don’t know who) had drawn the face mask too close to Tony Stark’s face. This allegedly led to his saying that “Shouldn’t there be a nose somewhere?” Given his stature within the company, that led to the proboscis Iron Man wore at the end of this issue. To underscore the absurdity of it all, Stan Lee apparently later remarked that the thought the nose looked “silly” - leading to its prompt removal in Iron Man #85. But until then, we are stuck with it.

• This is also when the price of Marvel Comics increased from 20 to 25 cents. This prompted my father to utter the frightful words that I could spend no more than a dollar per week on comic books! How did I ever survive?