This issue has a nostalgic and inspirational hold on me that makes it extra special as it was one of a group of cover-less comics that I got as a kid from my upstairs neighbour which pretty much introduced me to Marvel comics and what I came to think of as the potential of the genre and by extension the medium itself.
As I held on to the issues and read them and re-read them what was so gripping was the scope of these works that reached beyond the already tattered pages that I held in my hands. As one entering the fourth grade I already knew what superheroes were as icons of youth and their value as action characters of awe. Batman, Superman, Lone Ranger, Tarzan, Spiderman…were a blur of oddity and coolness that were undistinguished by the means that their stories came to me. A TV show, a coloring book, a picture book all had the same emotive payoff in the action. Narrative satisfactions were and are not something that one automatically connects with boy entertainments and until that that point that was very much true for me. Until that is Fantastic Four #63, Tales of Suspense #95, Tales of Suspense #99 , Uncanny X-Men #36, and Sub-Mariner #57 (1968) fell into my hands in a small box of maybe 12 comics with DC, Dell and Tower gems that I would years later treasure as equally.
These issue and perhaps this whole period at Marvel would solidify what Stan Lee’s vision of the Marvel Universe was with pan-Creation institutions as well as the the already tried use of cross-over characters. The Grey Gargoyle was just one of the better villains who would menace hero after hero without becoming an arch-nemesis of any one. Having his first appearance in Journey Into Mystery #107 (vol. 1, Aug. 1964) against Thor the character had his own story of sorts that traversed titles. The inquiries of the mysterious character of issue #95 about the whereabouts of Tony Stark at his plant are just another instance of Iron Man being the most publicly accessible Heroes within the Marvel fictive world due to the high profile of Stark Industries in national security and the public’s mind. In our age of Microsoft, Wal-Mart and Enron, that company names are associative with many things beyond just their products seems fundamental to our discourse but in the 1960′s this was still an emergent part of popular culture.
The sweeping notion of institutions shaping the world that we live in apart from nation states and their governments would be given fictional form by Lee’s invention and use of S.H.I.E.L.D.
With this issue the institution would branch out beyond its main protagonist and Lee/Kirby creation, Nick Fury, to its agents in the field as it had begun in the other half of Tales of Suspense. Captain America in his work with Nick Fury would develop a romantic relationship with Agent-13 in the course of his missions for the organization. The Iron Man half of the title would take this hero/organization relationship in the other direction to one of another kind of drama. With the introduction of Agent Jasper Sitwell the series would gain a new kind of antagonist in a supporting role. Much as we had seen in the character of Senator Byrd, the creeping interference of the government and potential for exposure would be the in-story function of the character but it also gave new weight to the role of SHIELD in the Marvel story as a whole. Sitwell would also foreshadow the changes coming for Marvel as a company itself but I’ll pick that up as this story wraps.
The story of this issue introduces both Grey Gargoyle and Sitwell well as threats to Tony Stark’s life in and out of the armor of Iron Man. Grey Gargoyle is macabre twist on the Midas touch which turns all that touch him into stone rather than gold. This power leads to some great invention for the artist as well as the writer to render the every day normal into petrified forms of terror. The Grey Gargoyle is after Stark to develop a device to help him beat Thor and gain the immortality that he believes is granted by the hammer of that hero. In pursuit this goal the villain is open and ruthless in the use of his powers to get his way. The story then is about evasions of many kinds for Iron Man as Stark must evade his protector in the form of Sitwell to become Iron Man as well as evade the touch of the attacking Grey Gargoyle. The fight, such that it is, comes to a horrifying concluding cliffhanger as Iron Man is finally turned to stone himself and heaved off the edge of a building.
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