Iron Man #120-#122

 

So far we have seen:

Not much, actually.

SHIELD begin their attempts to totally-legally-you-guys take over Stark International.
Tony decide that alcohol is a good way to deal with annoying people.
A decision which will not come back to bite him in the butt in any way, shape or form.
…I wasn’t kidding, nothing happened.


Issue 120—the “official” beginning of Demon in a Bottle, according to Marvel—opens with Tony finally flying home after his various misadventures in Eurasia.

 

D’awww, lookit his little face.  He looks like a kid waking up on Christmas.  It’d be cute if it wasn’t for the raging alcoholism.

Tony’s peaceful, martini-ful flight is interrupted by a tank flying at the plane, crippling it in mid-air.

 

That’s still less annoying than a five-year-old kicking the back of your chair for three hours.

After a quick change to Iron Man, Tony sets the plane gently into the ocean, where the wreck is almost instantaneously greeted by the U.S. Special Forces.  Iron Man is rightly suspicious about the quick rescue—and their potential connection to the flying tank—and accompanies Lt. Grange back to their base for an explanation.

That explanation?  An island near the one they’re standing on now has long been used to dump toxic chemicals, and when the soldiers tried to remove an elderly squatter named Hiram Dobbs, they ran into a speedo-wearing complication.

 
That’s Namor the Sub-Mariner to you, punk.  King of Atlantis and all-around Mr. Crankypants.  Well, Crankytrunks.  What little I know about him stems from guest appearances similar to this one where he spends all of his time hating on humans for polluting the oceans (he’s usually justified, but it gets old when he does nothing else).  So in my limited vision, he’s basically a really angry, pedantic Aquaman who likes to perv on Sue Richards and has silly little wings on his ankles that enable him to fly in spite of the desperate sobbing of physicists everywhere.

I’m kinda bored by the character, in case you couldn’t guess. 

Predictably, Iron Man tries to talk things out and Namor chucks a rock at his head.

 

REAL MEN SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS WITH VIOLENCE! 

Meanwhile, back in New York, James Rhodes and Bethany Cabe, two of Tony’s friends, get word of the plane crash and take off in one of Tony’s jetcopters to affect an impromptu rescue.  Meanwhile meanwhile, in an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean, the villainous Justin Hammer has figured out how to operate the Iron Man suit from a distance.  Oblivious Iron Man is less than impressed.

 

Issue 121 begins with, well, Tony drowning… but after that we see Rhodey and Beth arriving at the crash site but finding no crash.  Confused, they try to land on the island with the military base, which is somewhat less than welcoming.  Rhodey is shot in the ensuing gunfire, requiring Bethany to land the jetcopter in the ocean like a boss.  Unfortunately, as with the earlier crash, the Special Forces are right on top of them.

Back with Iron Man, our hero gets a surprise.

 

Not that kind of surprise.  Namor has just saved his life… in order to give him a more honorable death than drowning, but still.   

Hiram decides he’s had enough of other people arguing over his fate without consulting him and tells Namor to knock it off.  And then we get this bombshell: Namor is not keeping Hiram on the island to poison him to death with the toxic chemicals as the military believes.  Rather, Hiram saved his life and Namor is showing his gratitude by chasing away anyone who bothers him.  The story of the chemicals, in fact, is what Hiram describes as “bull cookies,” which is my new favorite expression.

In other words, dude’s been living on the island for twenty years and never seen a single soldier or toxic chemical in his life.  We find out later that Hiram and his dearly departed wife Mary went all Green Acres and decided to leave Indiana for an island in the middle of nowhere.  Iron Man and Namor feel bad for the guy and agree to join forces to kick out the “military.”

At the military base, Rhodey gets medical treatment from a doctor who clearly never passed English class.

 

Yeah, good thing it’s not excessively fatal.  Slightly fatal is fine, even moderately fatal is okay, but excessively fatal is bad news.  I do not feel at all sorry for the guy when Rhodey punches him in the face five seconds later.  Stupid grammar mistakes like that make me literally tear my hair out!

Sadly, his and Bethany’s escape attempt fails, but we do discover that this really isn’t a military base at all (NOOOO, REALLY?!!), but rather an elaborate ruse cooked up by the incredibly subtle expy Roxxon Oil Company.  They want Hiram’s island to themselves in order to mine the incredibly rare vibranium there.

Fortunately for Hiram, our heroes arrive to kick some shell.

 
…is that supposed to be a Hispanic accent, or is that something white people said back in the seventies?  I’m not even sure if I should be offended by this.  I’m just sort of confused.

Whatever.  Namor and Iron Man beat everyone up.  The baddie in charge of this operation decides to blow up the entire island rather than let anyone else have a shot at the vibranium there, and our heroes evacuate in the nick of time.  The comic ends in the most depressing manner possible.

 

Hiraaaaaam.  ;_;

Issue 122 begins with Namor heading home.

 

*cough* Yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were you.

Then it’s Iron Man’s turn to shove off, and as he flies home to New York, he reminisces about his origin story.  The comics liked to rehash it from time to time, which is fair enough I suppose—back then you couldn’t just go onto Wikipedia if you were curious about your favorite superhero.  It’s interesting enough and nice to look at, but not really what we’re here for.  If you want to know what happens, go ask Linkara.

We end with this ominous word from our old pal Justin Hammer.

 

I like to imagine him sounding like Scar from The Lion King.

Since I really only talked about two issues today instead of three, can we take a sec to talk about the artwork here?  (Of course we can.  It’s my blog.)  Because

THE ART. 

IS.

GORGEOUS. 

Did I emphasize that enough?  I don’t think I did.

GORGEOUS, YOU GUYS!!!!!!

With the exceptions of Issues 118 and 122, which were drawn by the mediocre John Byrne and the wonderful Carmine Infantino respectively, this story arc is penciled by John Romita Jr., and the “finished art” (whatever that means) is by Bob Layton.

 

The last time I drooled so much over artwork was during George Perez’s run on The Avengers, though I’ll admit I’m not used to seeing Tony Stark look so Classic Hollywood-y.  It’s like they stuck Errol Flynn and Clark Gable in a blender. 

…Aaaand I just noticed what a stupid complaint that is to have, so I’ll just get back to drooling the review.

I for one am having a great time reading and reviewing these comics.  The Bronze Age has long been my favorite era; it seems to have a balance of seriousness and goofball antics that suits my tastes perfectly.  (This was also the era of the famous Hostess ads.  Coincidence?)  So far, Demon in a Bottle has been no exception.  Later on it’ll lean more heavily towards the serious side for obvious reasons, but for now, I’m enjoying such comic book relics as Cold War references, rollerblading Iron Man and Caucasian Nick Fury screaming like a hillbilly.

 

It will never get old.

Next Time: Hammer Time! (I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry)

Images from Iron Man #120, Iron Man #121, Iron Man #122, Iron Man #124 and Iron Man #119