Tales of Suspense

 By The Angry Comic Book Critic 
        Where would those Silver Age Classics be without Iron Man? I mean without him we'd be one avenger short and the Civil War wouldn't have had it's antagonist and Robert Downey Jr. wouldn't have become a super star. Now Iron as we all know is not your typical hero for one most would consider him to be an ass if it wasn't for himself getting hurt by wear he'd still be an arms dealing, Man Whore with a drinking problem.....Oh right never mind. Well let dive in to this book that's sure to set off every metal detector around. 
         Well here we have another classic character created by none other than the man himself Stan Lee and what a character he is Tony Stark the richest super hero ever to grace the pages of comics sorry Batman but your're as rich as Tony. Now the artwork for this issue is pretty underwhelming to me namely because I was able to draw a perfect replica of the cover so no kudos for the artist this time around. Now as most comic fans know this origin has been retaconned over the years namely to keep the character timeless but this is the original story of the birth of Iron Man which takes place during the Vietnam war so that would make Tony roughly in his 60's today  but lets get back to the Story okay so Tony is demonstrating his new weapon of mass destruction to the army and goes into the Jugle with them to hunt communists now this brings up the question of why he didn't have someone else trained to use the Weapon so he didn't have to go there himself but hey sometimes you just gotta ignore the leaps in logic or it will drive you crazy so as I was saying the unit Stark is with gets ambushed and in the process Tony gets injured by a booby trap and had the shrapnel cut into his chest. The Communists are lead by a war lord called Wong-Chu who after capture demands he help him by building new weapons for them to use against the American in exchange for his doctors to remove the shrapnel from Tony's chest. Tony knows he's lying but agrees to help to buy more time and to assist him in his work Wong Chu orders another Captive named Yinsen to help him. Yinsen and Tony get work on a plan to escape  end up creating the Iron man armor which not only acts as a weapon but keeps Tony alive however before the armor can be fully powered up Wong Chu's thugs show up and in order to give Tony more time Yinsen sacrifices himself. Iron man is now ready and destroys Wong Chu's camp and even the war lord himself Tony then leaves to return to the U.S.A. Well this story I feel may have inspired a lot of today's technological advances and may even still have inspiration for the generations it pushes the boundaries of what we a human beings can accomplish and for that I have to give Stan Lee and the people behind this issue props. I'm The Angry Comic Book Critic and this diamond gets the stamp of approval comming up next for the Silver Age Classics review lets take a look at another member of the Avengers Roster with the 1st appearance of Hank Pym.
 
Tales of Suspense #39
CERTIFIED GOLD!!!!!

Out with the old, in with the new. March 1963 saw the end of the premature Incredible Hulk series, and in turn envisioned a brand new character by the name ofIron Man. Of course by now in 2011, everyone and their grandmother know whoIron Man is, but as far as origin stories go, this one was a pretty solid beginning for Stark. There are some rough patches here and there (the usual Lieber and Lee shtick of the hero overcoming odds with cunning rather than pure brawn works at odds with a guy seemingly working inside an iron suit), most notably in Don Heck's somewhat ambiguous, murky art, but generally Iron Man's beginnings here are a good read and leave a lot of room for interesting characterisation that may build upon the "tragic" side of Stark's empowerment.

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