Tales of Suspense #56 – The Uncanny Unicorn!

Marvel covers of this time, while filled with bombast and all kinds of self-promotion, show a close connection to the content and the editorial vision and direction. This is pretty easy to explain as the editor-in-chief was also the same man plotting and writing most of the comics that were coalescing in this new Marvel publishing Universe. The creator that was bringing all this together was Stan Lee and in July and August of 1964 that amounted to 10 superhero books and 3 westerns that he had various levels of input on. While not all these titles were monthly Lee had a tremendous output and control that amounted to a fictional Narrative Imagination that pressed the connection between the reader and the material. As a reader himself, and as he has recounted numerous times about the origins of Marvel’s explosion and success, he was writing for himself and what he wanted from the comics’ experience for a company that was willing to try anything.

Rawhide Kid (1955 series) #41
Kid Colt Outlaw (1948 series) #117
Two-Gun Kid (1948 series) #70

Uncanny X-Men (1963 series) #6
Amazing Spider-Man (1963 series) #15
The Avengers (1963 series) #7
Daredevil (1964 series) #3
Fantastic Four (1961 series) #29
Journey into Mystery (1952 series) #107
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (1963 series) #9
Strange Tales (1951 series) #123
Tales of Suspense (1959 series) #56
Tales to Astonish (1959 series) #58

As well as announcing the villain of the issue on the cover, Tales of Suspense #56 also declares “In this daringly different tale, you will gain insight into Iron Man’s character that you’ve never known before!”  And true to their word, we do as the issue opens with what is essentially a temper tantrum by Iron Man. In the privacy of Tony Stark’s office laboratory he conducts an out loud monologue of self-pity and the enduring loneliness of being Iron Man and the unfulfilled life of Tony Stark while smashing heavy equipment. While this commences his secretary, chauffer and staff become concerned with the loud noises emanating from their boss’s sanctuary but make us aware of that they are kept to their line of following his orders and maintaining his privacy. The growing roles of Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan take on major ramifications in this story as the plot and pace functions that they had demonstrated becomes much more heavily written as motivational as well. As Tony Stark emerges from his office with fresh resolve to abandon his life as Iron Man and enjoy his station as millionaire playboy with a night on the town his two employees mark little of his changed attitude except its vigor and their own envy; being unaware of his life as Iron Man.

The Unicorn of the story title is yet another communist saboteur vested with technology from the Soviet Union invented by the now dead Vanko; the creator of the Crimson Dynamo. Little is done to expand on this background or his enthusiasm as we don’t even know who he is under his garb. He does happen to strike at Stark Industries not long after Tony Stark has called it a night on his Iron man career rebuffing even a call from his fellow superheroes the Avengers with “tell them that I sent Iron Man away for a vacation. A long vacation.” That despite being ‘needed’ everyone deserves a vacation. When the Unicorn begins his assault it is not Iron Man that takes on the powered villain but former boxer Happy Hogan who is hospitalized and in a coma for his service while Pepper is taken hostage. Grief stricken by his selfishness after visiting the hospital, Tony Stark again dons the Iron Man armor to give chase to the Unicorn. Despite finding her and rescuing her he falls into the blackmail threat of a bomb that the Unicorn has set in the Stark Industries plant. The Unicorn has Iron Man promise to board a plane bound for the Soviet Union as the price for deactivating it. To which Iron Man agrees.

What I don’t think Stan Lee intended to be revealing about Iron Man’s character but in some way does is the way the plot concludes as Iron Man boards a plane with the Unicorn and his Soviet staffers and while in mid-flight announces that he has kept his promise to the letter and smashes his way out through the fuselage of the aircraft and then sends it into tailspin crash. The Unicorn survives but that issue’s final page is a shared sequence of Tony back at the hospital with Pepper and the now awake Happy Hogan. The closing thoughts of Tony Stark are for happiness for his friends, ruling out the chance of ever having a normal life and protecting the “the land I love’ from the likes of the Unicorn.

Stan Lee’s human drama of pathos and empathy would certainly have a formulaic quality over the years and from book to book even early on. To focus on that however is to overlook not just its novelty of its day for the medium but also bypass they way it laid out the question of fiction’s connection to its readership. Comic book fiction found itself wrapped up in the engagement of its readership that erstwhile genre readerships had not as participants in its history, propriety and property. This would lead to the uneven conversation between the publishing entity and its fans who as the years progressed would become part of that same entity. At this point in 1964 the bonds of that relationship were being built by Lee in books like Iron Man and on the fan pages to think and feel through the diverse characters that occupied this fictive world as well as about them because that was what Lee himself was doing.