The Invincible Iron Man #5 – Frenzy In A Far-Flung Future!

This issue’s launch into the artist George Tuska’s near 10-year, sometime interrupted, run on Iron Man from Sept. 1968 to Jan. 1978 ending in #106 starts on a note that will be familiar to movie and current TV viewers of the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles whereby the future of humanity is so imperiled by computerized overlords that time travel becomes the only option of to avert its creation and necessitates the killing its creator. The creator of this computerized overlord named Cerberus though turns out to be Tony Stark.

September, 1968 George Tuska Archie Goodwin

Tuska’s first Marvel story however was a “Tales of the Watcher” feature in Tales of Suspense #58  (Nov. 1964) and it had a text introduction by editor Stan Lee marking the return of the Golden Age artist but it would be Goodwin’s Warren Comics connection, like that of this issue’s inker Johnny Craig, that ushered in these veterans to work opportunities at Marvel.  Tuska’s art it seems was far more up to pace for Marvel’s out put and it shows signs throughout his run of brilliant to bland visuals that may have had much to do with simply how much thought he put into a panel, a page or an entire story.  This issue shows some adjustment to the style that Marvel had brought to superhero stories since the Golden Age had created them but it also shows some of the pedantic panel to panel, grid defined ruled by conversation art of that age.

The story is the first of what would be a theme in later years in Iron Man of the Furturist in the future; as a person so caught up in building what tomorrow would bring forth also lives on into many tomorrows and, in the often trod dystopian aspect of Science Fiction futures, where the law of unintended consequences plays out. The theme itself is the flip-side of the rational consequentialist character aiming toward the greater good.

Tony is basically kidnapped by time-traveling soldiers from the future and brought forward to be executed for a crime he has yet to commit in creating the super computer Cerberus which rules the world trough its army of mindless humaniods and robot servators. Spared by only the odd intervention of the ruler’s forces seeking to crush the rebels, Tony and a hottie rebel named Krylla escape into the future world on the run. The rebel turns out to have not been set on the plan of killing Tony and as a historian herself takes him to a museum where she learned about his role in creating the now present future. There Tony is able to finally turn into Iron Man as he discovers a relic suit of armor on display having been abducted in only his civilian garb. The story suffers from here on as the fight against Cerberus rushes to its conclusion while inserting the requisite fights against robots and a massive manifestation of the computer that can be seen on the issue’s cover. The conclusion to the story is now a sort of science fiction cliche as a computer is forced into a loop of contradiction leading to its on overload. The cycle here being that when it is revealed that its creator Tony Stark is under the helmet it can not put self preservation over protecting its creator and explodes. 

I say suffers because the whole look at the future is tossed off as just another perilous and villain oppressed location that Iron Man does his heroic deed in and leaves.  Superhero comics in general of this time, and Iron Man is no exception, cast about for formulaic ways of telling a story using other formulas that aren’t doing much more making the genre a patchwork rather than a springboard into what the genre has already brought into the mix of its own.  In my prior posts I noted that Stan Lee brought in melodramatic elements of romance formula and that in taking over Iron Man had left Archie Goodwin to strive to imitate his stylings.  This imitation however didn’t go over too well for some as exageratites the tone which turns-off many people about romance novels or TV shows.  In this frame I lift this quote from the fan letters page written by we are to believe a female reader about an aspect of romance that wasn’t cutting it with her enjoyment of the book.

“I must carp about Archie’s scripting, though: in the old days, Tony practically never fretted about his handicap when in action (only between bouts); now, he seems to be worrying constantly. CUT IT OUT!! He’s beginning to sound like he thinks he may be committing suicide every time he socks a villain!!! Please, please – leave the agony for Spider-Man!!!” – Bettina C.  Helms, Shippee Hall, University of Connecticut