Trapped By The Red Barbarian!
You know, I've been picking on R. Berns for a few issues now, and sure, his dialogue here is just as bad and stilted as ever but the central story here which deals with Yet Another Communist intelligence plot is actually pretty well told. While such plots served as mundane bores when used with characters such asHulk and Thor, Iron Man and Tony Stark seem just right to tackle these nasty Red characters, given that there are enough twists and turns to make the story interesting. And with a guy with a rubber face posing as a threat this week—anything can happen!
The only drawback from this issue is that there isn't an awful lot of character work going on for Stark here, after a solid couple of outings where things were developing his playboy persona. Nevertheless, it's a strong, redeeming episode forIron Man that has restored my faith in not only the character, but artist Don Heck (who strikes a great moody tone here) and to a lesser extent writer Robert Bernstein.
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