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Cool. There's this dude I watch on YouTube on occasion who does comic book stuff. His videos are called Comics by Perch. I don't always agree with him, but he's pretty even-keeled and level-headed. And he loves comics.
Anyway...today I found a new video he put out, all about Walt Simonson's Batman: The Judas Coin. Perch did a review of the book, talked about how underrated it is, and urged more people to go buy it.
I've had that book since it came out in 2012, and I absolutely love it. So now this was a good reminder it's been awhile since I read it, and I should go fix that.
Yeah, I remember reading about Master Mold in The Essential Uncanny X-Men, and in other stories.
I also remember watching X-Men: The Animated Series, in which Master Mold was shown manufacturing Sentinels within its torso, which it would open up to release them. I watched that and said "Oh! THAT'S how it's done!"
I mean... it makes sense. Why else would it be called "Master Mold"? And yet I don't remember ever seeing how it was done in the comics.
Anyway, when I ordered comics this month, that order included 11 "Legion" issues, 2 of which had come out in the 1970s. I read those 2 issues this weekend. One of them was Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #231.
Last summer, on this thread, I talked about how I grew curious about Paul Levitz' "Legion" stories in the 1970s, since the Legion's golden age was Levitz' run in the 1980s. So I ordered a few of those issues and liked them. Then I thought: what if I got some of those big, 52-page issues? Shouldn't more pages give me more bang for my buck? Well, those longer issues disappointed me. Many of those stories were not pure Levitz, and some stories didn't seem to involve Levitz at all. Even when other writers scripted stories that Levitz had plotted, those stories just weren't compelling, and some of them were pretty shoddy.
I mention this because number 231 is one of those 52-page issues, which has 34 pages of actual comics content. Those pages comprise just one story, and it's pure Levitz. And it's wonderful. The story covers a battle with the Fatal Five who want to destroy a sun with a populated world orbiting it. Yeah, a few of Levitz' lines are kind of rough. Big deal! Levitz could spin a wonderful tale, as no other writer ever could for the Legion.
The other Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes issue I read this weekend was #242.
In the past, I had heard that the greatest "Legion" story of the 1970s was Earthwar. Issue 241 had a prologue to Earthwar, which ran from issues 242 through 245. Well, I wasn't sure I wanted to get it. People speak highly of a lot of the longer "Legion" stories, such as The Great Darkness Saga, but I have gripes about stories like those. I was planning to describe those gripes in this post, but now I'm thinking that I'm rambling on for too long already.
Anyway, I ought to sample the story before judging it. And I would hate to read just one issue of a story and find the suspense killing me until the next time I got around to ordering. So last month, when I planned to order from MyComicShop.com, I included all five of those issues in my order. Then when I changed my mind and decided to order from Mile High Comics instead, I included only one issue from Earthwar. The rest were either not available at a reasonable price, or not available at Mile High at all, at the time. I would have to risk the "suspense" thing. And after all, I didn't have such high expectations of Earthwar, although others liked it.
So yesterday I read Part 1 of Earthwar, and greatly enjoyed it. I don't feel that I MUST read the rest of the saga, but I had fun reading the 20 pages of it that I did.
But the issue also included a 14-page story that Paul Kupperberg wrote for a Levitz plot. It wasn't the worst "Legion" story of 1978, but it wasn't great either, and it had no bearing on Legion continuity.
Well, #241 has the prologue to Earthwar, but it also has a backup story that Kupperberg wrote, so I'd have to find a pretty cheap copy to consider getting it. But 243 through 245 were pure Levitz, and pure Earthwar. So maybe, one day...?
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I also picked up a stack of Iron Man issues yesterday. These were all in and around the Armor Wars storyline (or Stark Wars, as they were originally called). I could have picked up even more, but I'm trying to pace myself a bit.
I've also started reading through a bunch of the back issues I've been getting. First some Green Lantern (volume 3), then some of the Iron Man issues I got awhile back, a few X-Men issues, and a stack of Captain America issues. Now I'm working through the first 13 issues of Checkmate I picked up a few weeks back. They've got some ads in them for other series I may try to pick up eventually:
A 9 issue Flash Gordon miniseries DC did back in the late 80s. Written by Dan Jurgens
A four issue The Phantom miniseries also from the late 80s. This one was by Peter David.
And I'm considering hunting down the 50 issue Vigilante miniseries. That one led directly into Checkmate.
Odd that I just thought of these characters but at times I think back on old comics and dredge up memories.
Osprey. One shot character who tried out for The Wizard's bad-guy recruitment but he had no powers!
Also The Construct from DC comics. Brainiac type.
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Trivia! Osprey actually showed up in the Marvel Super Heroes TTRPG as an example for character building.
Lots of one shot characters, or ones that haven't been seen in forever.
Yeah, I've been reading a lot of my old Legion of Super-Heroes material lately, and thinking about one villain - Dynamo-Boy - who appeared in a single, two-issue story, which implied (to me, anyway) his eventual return, which never happened.
I collected the first three volumes of Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes, using them to read every Legion story from the group's introduction in 1958 until mid-1968. Yeah, those stories were silly, campy, and childish. Sometimes it seemed like every panel I read made me reflect on at least three reasons why that panel was dumb and nonsensical. Yet for reasons I could never explain, that campiness WORKED. I read those Legion stories - by Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, and the like - at least 3 times each.
(I don't feel the same about Jim Shooter. Many people hail Shooter for revolutionizing the series in his first run from 1966 through 1969, and I think I understand why. Shooter did stuff that those previous writers hadn't. But the stories were still campy. When I tried to read his stuff for a second and third time, I could never make it to the end of Volume 3, or even come close. Shooter's stories just lacked that je-ne-sais-quoi that the earlier stories had. Shooter got better in the 1970s. Maybe he just needed time to mature; after all, he had started work at the age of 14. Or maybe DC just needed to appeal to a more mature audience to set Shooter on the right track. But I digress; I'm talking about those stories I enjoyed from BEFORE Shooter's time.)
Many of those stories involved the Legion recruiting a new member who had a secret, sinister agenda, and whose covert actions would threaten the Legion by putting its members out of action.
(You would think, after this happened a few times, that the Legion would wise up and amend its recruiting procedures to include background checks, a probationary period, and the like. Paul Levitz - the greatest Legion writer ever - later dealt with that problem... but again, I digress.)
But although many such stories existed, one of them stands out in my mind. It ran in Adventure Comics 330-331. In a way, the new recruit, calling himself Dynamo-Boy, succeeded beyond any of those other traitors by expelling EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE LEGION except himself. Then he recruited all their replacements, the Legion of Super-Villains. Eventually, the Legion of Super-Villains tricked Dynamo-Boy into taking a trip through time to an era when the Earth is uninhabited and the sun is dying out. He was miserable. Then, of course, the Legion comes back to defeat the Super-Villains...
...but there's just one thread left dangling, leaving me reflecting after the second or third time I read the story: What happened to Dynamo-Boy? Maybe the Legion rescued him - "off-camera" - but the story never said so. It's possible that Dynamo-Boy slipped their minds. Jerry Siegel might have been planning a sequel, or at least kept the possible opening in mind. Like... maybe in a later story the Legion of Super-Villains might trap the Heroes, and it would look like the Heroes are about to be killed, and have no chance of escape. And meanwhile, there are signs that some other villain was on the way for revenge against the Legion. And when he arrived, he would get that revenge on the Legion. But - surprise! - it would turn out to be Dynamo-Boy, who got his revenge on the Legion, all right - the Legion of Super-VILLAINS! He would get that revenge by freeing the Heroes and helping them to overcome the Villains.
But such a story never happened. I googled Dynamo-Boy to find that he never appeared again. Instead, that one-shot character was apparently forgotten.
I've also been reading Iron Man lately, and... hoo boy! That series told a story that just SCREAMED for the return of one particular villain. But instead, that villain just disappeared with no explanation, never to return. I could go on for THOUSANDS of words about how that story went, and how it should have gone. But... no, I've gone on for too long already, with that last post. I ought to start getting ready for work already.
After over 20 years, I've come full circle. I said something similar about Conan comics 4 months ago (in this post) and now I'm saying it about Legion of Super-Heroes.
Earlier, I said that it happened in the 2010s, but that was a mistake. It was actually in the mid-2000s when my place of work moved to an office near a comic-book store. Soon afterwards, I developed an interest in the Legion of Super-Heroes, and wondered when the best Legion stories came out. So I went to that comic-book store (and a few other sources) and sampled an issue from several different eras. The one Paul Levitz story I got - just because it had a low price at the store and I wanted SOME Levitz story - was the 14th issue of the Baxter series, dated September of 1985. Ho boy! The cast was fascinating, the setting was just what I had hoped for, and the story was thrilling. Those other eras had their charms, but I had no doubt that Levitz' Legion was the definitive story, just like Chris Claremont's X-Men. (And that's still my opinion today, although I read a great deal of Legion material from many eras since then.)
So I went on to get a lot of Levitz Legion material from before that issue... but not so much after it. Like... I collected all of the Mando series from the start of that Levitz run - March of 1982 (#284) - to November of 1984 (#317). I collected all of the Baxter series from its start in August 1984 (#1, obviously) until March of 1985 (#8). I got a lot of other material like Annuals and stuff, but as far as consecutive issues go, I didn't quite make it to the point where I had started, because I grew bored of the Legion and stopped collecting those issues for many years.
A month ago, I ordered a lot of Legion material, and I read some of it during the past few days. I read the Mando issues 318 through 320 (bridging the gap to 321, which I already had). I also read the Legion of Substitute Heroes Special. And I went on to read the Baxter issues 9 through 12, and then the Mando issue 338, which reprinted issue 13 of the Baxter series. (I got the Mando edition to pinch a few pennies.) And then - finally! - I re-read issue 14. That's what I mean by coming full circle. Then I went on to read issue 15. And I'm not done reading my new Legion material yet. In addition to the next few regular issues, I expect to read the Baxter Annual #1, "Who Shot Laurel Kent?", this week.
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My comic book store got in a bunch of old Marvel G.I. Joe issues. So I was able to pick up 8 of the ten issues I was missing (all from the first 17), plus the very first Yearbook. That made me happy.
I also found an issue of X-Men that I hadn't realized I was missing. Luckily, I didn't recognize the cover, which triggered a check of my catalog. This was one of the less expensive issues in the 200s. Not any of the early ones they have on the wall to tease me.
Okay. I don't expect anyone to read this whole long message, but for the past year or two I've been itching more and more to talk about a certain subplot in Iron Man, how it happened, and how it SHOULD have happened. And last week, when Phillip Gastone and Aberzombie brought up the subject of characters that haven't been seen in forever, I thought: that does it. I HAVE to write about this.
First of all, I should mention the basics: Iron Man was really Tony Stark, genius inventor, notorious playboy, billionaire industrialist, and owner of Stark International. He invented high-tech armor with many built-in weapons and gadgets, which he wore to become Iron Man, superhero. So in addition to his corporate and government connections, Tony Stark rubbed elbows with a lot of people in the superhero community, like the X-Men, for instance.
All Marvel heroes have their flaws, and Tony had more than his share. He sometimes drank more than he should have, and in the story Demon in the Bottle, when SHIELD (a government agency) threatened a hostile takeover of Stark International, Stark drank increasingly, until his alcoholism threatened to destroy his life. Fortunately, Tony happened to be dating Bethany Cabe at the time. Bethany had experience with alcoholism, and she helped him to kick the habit. Some people criticize the story by saying that Tony recovered more quickly than was plausible, but it seems to me that what made it possible was Cabe's forceful personality. That was HER super power. And once Tony put his mind back together, he soon figured out a brilliant plan - which required the help of his loyal employees - to keep SHIELD from taking over his company. It worked. But later, after Cabe broke up with Stark, the temptation to drink would come back to haunt him.
Years passed, and troubles began anew. Someone - we don't know who - was trying to sabotage Stark International. At one point, people who were being mind-controlled by an agent of that "someone" blew up a Stark International building. Iron Man worked on controlling the damage and rescuing people from the disaster, including one woman, Indries Moomji. Tony quickly fell in love with her. We - and Tony - eventually found out who was attacking Stark from behind the scenes, a villain never seen before: Obadiah Stane, President and CEO of Stane International, who pulled some nasty, shady tricks to acquire Stark International. Tony's temptation to drink, to get away from his problems, grew stronger.
Gee, this story is sounding awfully familiar.
As Iron Man investigated his covert enemy, flying all over the world in order to do so, Stane - who apparently loved Chess - sent villains with "chessmen" themes to attack him. There was the Knight, who rode a mechanical, flying "horse" and fought Iron Man with a blasting "lance". There was the Bishop, whose headdress concealed a gadget that sent out electromagnetic waves to affect Tony's brain, and whose staff served as a high-tech weapon. There was the Rook, who lured Iron Man into his castle with its high-tech booby traps. And all the while, Stane sat back in his office, getting reports on Iron Man's progress, as a lower-ranking employee, the Pawn, served him. While Stane's servants kept Tony busy and battered him left and right, Stane worked on taking over the munitions industry. And it seemed like Stark International was next. In issue 166, when Iron Man finally tracked Stane down to his office, he found he could do... nothing, because he had no proof of Stane's illegal activities. And at the very end of that issue, Tony staggered home, exhausted, to find that someone had sent him a gift.
A bottle of Scotch.
(Right now, you may be thinking "A gift? Bull! I'll bet Stane had sent it, knowing about Stark's alcohol problem!" If that what you think... you're right!)
Issue 167 was... ho boy, what an issue! I feel compelled to describe a few details in that issue, even if they're not, strictly speaking, necessary to make my point. Tony thought about his problems. He opened the bottle and brought it closer to his mouth, reflecting "A few gulps of this amber liquid... and I wouldn't care anymore about anything." Then he suddenly shouted "NO!" and threw the bottle against the wall. It didn't shatter, but fell on the floor, spilling its contents. There were still his thoughts of Indries Moomji to keep him going. There were still his friends. Tony was going to fight this. When he went back to work, one of his loyal employees, Vic Martinelli, helped Stark to form a plan: Tony would fly overseas to a meeting of important industrialists to convince them not to let Stane take control. At the end of that discussion, Martinelli - who had been feeling concern for Tony's mental state for some time - brought that matter up, saying "...I think you should get help."
Tony looked angry. "I don't WANT help, Martinelli. I don't NEED help. I WILL NOT ACCEPT HELP!"
Yeah. Obviously, Tony didn't need help at all.
And on his way to the meeting, Iron Man got attacked. As you probably know, in Chess, each player has two knights, two bishops, and two rooks. Now Iron Man had to fight another Knight, another Bishop, and another Rook... simultaneously! Stark was utterly spent when he finally made it to the conference, to find that Stane was controlling the minds of the industrialists!
On his way back, Stark looked at a tavern. He could go in and get a warm bottle of... And without knowing it, he spoke aloud: "No no no no! NO!" Again, Stark returned to the States. And Stane still had another piece to play against Stark. Have you guessed at that yet? It was the Queen. It was... Indries Moomji, who had - unbeknownst to Tony - been in Stane's employ all along! She dumped Tony, cruelly and humiliatingly.
At this point you might be thinking "Come on! How could Stane have counted on Stark falling in love with Moomji?" Yeah, that would be unlikely... unless Moomji had powers of her own? Hmm. Hold that thought.
Once again, Stark staggered home. If I wrote this as a novel, I would describe the overpowering stench of the whiskey now thoroughly staining the carpet. But some Scotch remained. Tony picked up the bottle, and - in the final panel of issue 167 - upended it into his mouth.
The next six issues showed Stark working on his most important goal: staying as drunk as possible for as long as possible. What higher calling could a man have? Uh... what's that you say? Maybe Tony should do something to save his company? Ah, that'll blow over. And until it does, Tony can weather it out, as long as he keeps his brain sodden.
So when another villain attacked Stark International, Iron Man was too drunk to repel the attack effectively. And maybe Stark just didn't think out what he was doing - or maybe some small part of his brain that remained rational knew EXACTLY what he was doing - when he showed his friend and employee, James Rhodes, the high-security facility where he hid his armor, and took off his mask, revealing his identity to Rhodes. Stark prepared for the next round with the villain by taking another "fortifying" drink, and collapsed.
What choice did Rhodes have? In issue 170 - the most valuable single issue of any comic book I have - Rhodes put on the armor. He became Iron Man for the next several years. At first, Rhodes didn't know what he was doing, and kept getting saved by a combination of intelligent, helpful friends... and sheer dumb luck. Operating Iron Man armor is an acquired skill, after all. James Rhodes was not Tony Stark.
And in issue 173, it finally happened. Stane took over Stark International. Tony lost his company forever. And what did he do about it? You probably guessed: he had a drink.
Shortly afterwards, Stane pointed out to Iron Man that Indries Moomji might cure Stark's alcoholism. In that way he convinced Iron Man to try to rescue Moomji from an espionage group called the Sisterhood of Ishtar. Why was that group holding her? Neither Rhodes nor the reader ever got clarification on that point, but it was worth a try. Rhodes brought Stark to stay with his - Rhodes' - mother, and then went after Moomji, whom we see acting like she wasn't a prisoner at all. She seemed to be cooperating with the Sisterhood in trying to trap Iron Man. But he escaped, grabbed Moomji, and flew out with her.
Now Iron Man could finally interrogate Moomji. What was her deal? She was, in her words, "a female who has been trained from early childhood to be alluring... to be the perfect object of a man's dreams -- ANY man. A female whose face and body were altered by surgery -- who was given artificial allure-enhancing pheromones to make her irresistible..."
Well, Rhodes had no problem resisting her... or did he? At one point, when he turned away to leave, Moomji stared at him... and then gave a long, evil laugh.
When Iron Man demanded that Moomji "reverse whatever hoodoo you worked on Tony" she replied "Hoo... doo? Oh, magic? No, no magic, Iron Man. My skills are formidable, but I can not make a man drunk -- who does not, in some part of himself, wish to become a drunk." Iron Man soon turned her loose. Why? He wasn't sure.
Well, I'm sure. I am so sure. To me, that laugh spoke volumes. There's no way Moomji accomplished all that she had with just pheromones and training. She must have had some kind of telepathic power. Maybe she had told Iron Man PART of the truth. Maybe she couldn't MAKE a man drunk. But I think she poked into Tony's mind, found his desire to drink, and made it slowly inflate like a balloon, until that desire - combined with other psychological weapons - overwhelmed him.
And when Moomji covertly stared at Iron Man and laughed, I think she had telepathically probed Rhodes' mind and poked into it, persuading him to let her go. More significantly, I think she found his inner demon and made it start to grow stronger. A later issue implied - to me, anyway - that Rhodes wasn't much of a ladies' man. And I'm not aware that Rhodes ever felt any particular desire for alcohol. But what dark thoughts DID Rhodes harbor? And how would he start acting if those thoughts grew to dominate his mind? Hmm...
Meanwhile, what was Tony doing in Rhodes' mother's house? He found an old bottle of cooking wine, drank it practically in one swallow, started carrying on like a crazy man, and ran away. He went on to fulfill his greatest ambition at the time: to get drunk and stay that way. And to help in that lofty goal, he lived on the streets, hanging around other drunken bums. He was a broken man. Before, I've hailed Stane for coming closer to breaking Stark than anyone else I've seen. But whenever I say that, I keep thinking that Indries Moomji deserves the lion's share of the credit.
The story of Stark's recovery would make a great post all by itself. Maybe I'll write about that one day. It didn't involve any superhuman powers or fantastical means like that. Stark was just lucky enough to meet certain people under certain conditions. His love for a woman WAS involved, but not the way you think!
But even while recovering, Tony refused to go back to being Iron Man. He gave Rhodes his blessing to continue playing the hero.
But Rhodes started getting these terrible headaches. He saw an acupuncturist who relieved them, but they kept coming back. He expanded on his super-heroing career, getting involved in Secret Wars. While in the Beyonder's realm, he worked with other heroes, making connections with the Avengers and such. I borrowed Secret Wars from a friend, but that series disappointed me. It showed very little of Iron Man, but briefly indicated that Rhodes did a lot "off camera". He might also have befriended some other heroes there, like, oh, say, the X-Men.
He certainly had some non-powered friends, like Morley, who had helped him to figure out the armor. When new problems came up, Morley suggested asking Stark for help. Rhodes said "Uh, I'd rather not bug him. They say a man's first week of bein' sober is tough enough without any demands bein' made on him." When Morley persisted, Rhodes snapped "I SAID that we are NOT gonna do it! You clockin' me, kid? You readin' me loud and clear? I'm the man around here. I make the decisions. You're just my sidekick!"
Hmm. Maybe it was just the headaches getting to him.
Rhodes worked with the same friends to start a new electronics business. When Stark met with them and nervously asked "Look... I was wondering... if you could use some help," Rhodes' first reaction was surprise. "YOU?"
His friends exchanged nervous glances.
Soon, Rhodes put a smile on his face and shook Tony's hand. "You're in!" They all drove to California, because what location could be better for an electronics company than Silicon Valley? (Of course, it was a convenient plot device for Marvel to get Iron Man to join the West Coast Avengers.) While on the road, they got attacked by a bad guy, whose butt Iron Man had some fun in kicking before turning him over to the police. But when the attacks kept coming, it became clear that one bad guy wasn't alone. Stark commented that perhaps Rhodes should have interrogated the guy.
Rhodes replied "Is that what you'd have done?"
Stark hesitated a moment before answering "Maybe."
Later, Iron Man told his friends he was going after those bad guys, adding "...to prove I'm not totally useless."
Soon afterwards, to take care of the associated bad guys, Tony put on the Iron Man helmet and contacted SHIELD, alerting them about the problem. SHIELD took care of it. But while Tony wore the helmet, Rhodes looked increasingly upset. He denied it to his friends, but not to himself. Issue 185 ended with him reflecting "It's not rational... maybe not even sane -- but I hated seeing Stark with the helmet on. HATED IT!"
His attitude continued to grow worse. Rhodes loved being Iron Man, and he kept rushing into battles. Whenever his friends - especially Stark - tried to caution him against interfering without knowing what the situation was, Rhodes would snap at them. "I'M handling the hero chores these days."
And when Rhodes' headaches kept getting worse, Tony realized that the helmet's cybernetic system was attuned to his - Tony's - brain waves, not to Rhodes'. Ah, that must be the cause of the headaches. Tony adjusted the helmet, and Rhodey put it on, felt fine, and remarked "Guess all that drinking didn't COMPLETELY soften your brain, huh?"
Why did he say that? The words just came out of him. And he didn't regret them. He reflected upon this while testing the armor, and his headache came back worse than ever. Oh, but he'd better not tell anyone, or they won't want him to wear the armor anymore. He needed that power. He lived for it. So he rushed into battle with some other bad guys, messed up, caused a lot of property damage, and watched as Tony - without armor, but just by using his brain - gave the police the information they needed to arrest those bad guys. Rhodes walked off, commenting "See you guys later. I'm gonna go find something ELSE to mess up." At the end of issue 188, Rhodes brooded, alone, and finally blurted out the truth. "I HATE TONY STARK!"
His attitude grew steadily worse, and he kept snapping at Tony. When he saw Tony working on a new armored breastplate, he grabbed it, used the enhanced strength of the armor he was wearing to crumple it, picked Tony up, threw him to the ground, and walked off.
Tony didn't want to wear the armor. But it looked like someone was going to have to face Rhodes. And it looked like it would have to be Stark.
And why did Tony feel so reluctant to put the armor on? He had some confused idea that being Iron Man was part of what had made him, Tony, lose his grip. Oh, how I wished I could enter that fictitious world and say "Tony, for a genius, you are such a fool! Your problems started long, long after you started wearing the armor! Don't you remember? You started getting messed up when you got involved with someone with the initials I M, and I don't mean 'Iron Man'!"
Yeah, in issues 190 and 195, we see Stane discussing his nefarious plots with some woman whose face is shadowed over. Obviously, this must be Indries Moomji.
And Rhodes continued to destroy property and endanger innocents in his battles, and express his anger by physically assaulting Tony Stark. Tony's course was clear. He built a new armored suit and battled Rhodes in issue 192. Stark won the battle by disabling Rhodes' suit. Then Stark took off his own armor, telling Rhodes that he - Stark - didn't want it. Stark undid the damage to Rhodes' suit so that Rhodes could move. And Stark said "Whatever you want to do, do it. I won't stop you. I CAN'T stop you." And Rhodes, still wearing the armor got up...
...and this is the moment when the big event SHOULD have happened. This is the point I wanted to make. I can just see it. Rhodes should have announced "I'm gonna kill you!" and started to throw a punch at Stark. It would have been a great cliffhanger to end the issue with! And then the next issue would have been mostly surreal. Some innocent choice of words that Tony had unwittingly made could have echoed in Rhodes' mind. They could have reminded Rhodes of something similar that Indries Moomji had said. Then Rhodes would get the worst headache ever, so bad that it would make him pass out. And he would hallucinate. We could see some vaguely drawn version of a bunch of past events that had happened after Rhodes' encounter with Moomji. Hey, the artist could have chosen some easy style of art to save time and pulled it off as an artistic decision. We could see Rhodes' past life, and incidents that had made him feel useless. We could see how big he felt when he used the armor. Heck, we could see anything the writer wanted just to fill up pages, if inspiration failed.
And at the end of that issue, Rhodes would get up and tell Stark what should have been obvious all along. "We've been played, Tony. And the player is Indries Moomji!"
And once they figure that out, I know just what they should do about it. Maybe you caught my implications earlier... but I'll save my explicit solution for later.
But no, none of that happened. At the end of 192, Rhodes just lost all his hatred for Stark, with no explanation, and shook Stark's hand. What a letdown!
And for his headaches - in issue 195 - Rhodes sought out the help of Shaman of Alpha Flight, a native American mystic who brought Iron Man to a weird plane of existence that forced him to confront his addiction to the armor and his jealousy of Stark. Uh... great. There was just one problem: THE WHOLE ISSUE SAID NOTHING ABOUT INDRIES MOOMJI!!!
It's clear to me that Shaman wasn't the most appropriate hero to go to for help. Rhodes - and Stark as well - should have gone to a skilled telepath... like Charles Xavier! (You KNEW I had a reason for repeatedly bringing up the X-Men, didn't you?) A telepath could have worked on repairing the psychic damage that Moomji had done, and provided defenses to prepare the two Iron Men to confront her. The big final battle with Stane should have included HER.
But no. Issue 198 revealed that the woman in the shadows wasn't Moomji; it was Madame Masque. Stane's attacks on Stark and his friends forced Stark to wear new Iron Man armor and go after Stane for the final battle... in which Moomji didn't even appear! The whole long epic was a good one, but it could have been so much better! We never even SEE Moomji after issue 173. That's what I wanted to talk about when Aberzombie made that remark about characters "that haven't been seen in forever."
Whew! If you managed to get through this whole long post, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.
Back in February, in this thread, I mentioned that the next time I order comics, I've got to get some Iron Man and Legion of Super-Heroes issues from the 1980s, which I see as the Golden Age of those titles.
In March, I related ordering comics. I remarked that ordering can be a gamble. For instance, I ordered a three-issue Wonder Woman story. After reading the first issue and hating it, I regretted ordering the other 2. In a brick-and-mortar store, I could have bought the first issue individually and read it before deciding whether to move onto the other 2. It can be difficult to judge just how much to buy when ordering many issues at once.
Well, I make no such complaint about Legion of Super-Heroes. My order included 13 issues. The 13th of those 13 that I read was the first Baxter Annual ("Who Shot Laurel Kent?") which I hated and almost didn't finish. That Annual made me decide I didn't want any more Legion material for a while. So - hey! - I got the exact number of issues I would have gotten had I bought them individually! That's a stroke of luck!
I still haven't started reading my new Iron Man issues, on which I gambled a LOT of money...
Yesterday, I read the first of my new Iron Man issues, #134. I liked it. But of course, you know I can't keep a post short and simple like that. I have to ramble on.
Back in the 2010s, the Demon in the Bottle story, by David Michelinie, that ran from issues 120 through 128 - in which Tony Stark's alcoholism threatened to destroy his life - fascinated me. I read that story 3 (or was it 4?) times. As I said in an earlier post, I think that the biggest reason Tony could overcome his urge to drink was his girlfriend, Bethany Cabe. I later got issue 129 which resolved another major problem that had been plaguing Stark for the whole of the Demon in the Bottle story (and before it). I read my Armor Wars trade paperback twice as well.
Two years ago, feeling curious about Stark's relapse, I got 9 scattered issues from Denny O'Neil's longest uninterrupted Iron Man run. Reading those made me frustrated; I wasn't getting the whole story. I went on to collect the rest of those 42 issues and read that whole saga twice. Some parts of that story fascinate me.
So I resolved that the next time I ordered comic books, I would get many issues from that era. By "that era" I mean from the time Michelinie took over in 1978 until he stopped in 1989, which I regard as the Golden Age of Iron Man comics. And I didn't want to get frustrated with scattered issues again; I wanted to order many CONSECUTIVE issues. So... what's the most cost-effective way to do so? Browsing through MyComicShop.com, I settled upon issue 130 - which might make a nice follow-up to my copy of 129 - and issues 134-148. Those were cheaper than they would be at Mile High Comics.
But I wanted to order other stuff too, like Legion of Super-Heroes material, which was rather more expensive. And when I saw the total cost of my order, that figure made me crawl back to Mile High. Looking at Mile High's prices, I decided to forget about issue 130, but I could get issues 134-148, and while I was at it, issues 151-157 as well.
You might wonder why I skipped 149 and 150. Those are expensive, because they show Iron Man's first one-on-one encounter with Doctor Doom. I was never a fan of Doctor Doom anyway.
But even without those two, that makes a whopping TWENTY-TWO ISSUES!!! If I read, say, a dozen issues and then grow bored with the series, I'll kick myself for wasting all that money.
So like I said, yesterday I started by reading issue 134, in which Tony never fought a single villain. Instead, the issue focused on his life. At one point, he went to a penthouse atop the Stark International administration building. I thought it odd that the bar looked stocked, but I guess the bar was for guests.
There, Tony reflected on his problems. "I guess I thought that facing up to my problems with alcohol would make ALL of my troubles vanish. But they haven't. And it looks like there's just one way to handle them. I haven't done this in a long time, but maybe I should have tried it sooner. Now if only--" And he reached toward a bottle.
My jaw dropped a little.
Then in the next panel, Tony finished his thought, "--I can remember Beth's number." He'd been reaching for the phone, which - from the reader's point of view - was half-concealed behind the bottle in the previous panel.
I chuckled. I mean... I knew Tony wouldn't really relapse until the Stane Saga, years later. But something about the way issue 134 presented the scene gave me doubts.
And my reaction was mild compared to some. One letter said that those two panels "...made me so happy that I screamed and threw my comic book in the air. I am so happy!!!!!"
What a way to begin my long run! I'll stick with Iron Man, for a few issues at least, and almost certainly more than "a few".
(And for some reason, I feel compelled to mention that the writer of the letter I quoted above was a female who raved about Tony's looks. She complained "I can't handle this! I have a crush on a comic book character, and I'm jealous of Beth.")
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For the first time in forever, I did not pick up any back issues yesterday. This is mostly due to forgetting my phone at home on my trip to the comic book store. Without it I did not have access to my lists. I probably could have picked an old X-Men back issue off the display wall, but the wife had accompanied me and would have given me hell for such an expenditure at this time.
Ah well, better luck next week.
Whoa.
I just finished reading Iron Man #135 by polishing off the letters page. Only minutes ago, I read a letter in that page by... Christopher Mortika!
You know, I remember reading Chris Mortika's adventure in the TSR Dragonlance module DL 15: Mists of Krynn. I've known for years that he co-wrote several adventures and the Superman Sourcebook for the DC Heroes Role Playing Game. That's the same Chris Mortika we know and love on these boards. And I feel safe in assuming that the same Chris Mortika wrote that letter.
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Reading through an old Green Lantern issue from the early Kyle Rayner days. He moves to New York and gets an apartment at 175 Bleecker Street. He's looking for the building, and gets help from a dude carrying groceries. A very familiar manservant who refers to the neighborhood as "strange" and warns him to stay out of the empty lot next to his building, all before mysteriously disappearing.
Cool little homage.