Red's Dead Baby, Red's Dead
Iron Man must battle not only the villainy of The Red Barbarian, but also the cunning and deception of The Actor in this tale of cold war espionage. After busting up a “commie spy ring” Tony Stark starts demonstrating his newest weapon, a disintegration ray. The Red Barbarian sets his sights on the plans for this dazzling new weapon and dispatches The Actor, a man capable of impersonating anyone even our fabled hero Tony Stark!
I thought this was a grounded, well told Cold War espionage story. In The Actor we have an intelligent sub boss, whose motivations and methods make sense. The page one stinger foretells his shocking discovery that Tony Stark is Iron Man, which offers more intrigue than normal. The Red Barbarian was less interesting, more of a stereotypical brute than the master of espionage you’d expect him to be. I found the ending disappointing, the way the writers dealt with The Actor’s knowledge was a bit of a let down. Yet any story in which the villain throws a full ham at another human being is alright by me.
I’m quite the fan of Don Heck’s art it’s a little more subdued, dare I say a little more grounded than Kirby’s. The color’s are a little darker than Marvel’s standards of the time which suits the tale at hand. Some wonderful creative license was taken with the uniform of a general of the communist army, the man wore a fur cape! A Fur Cape! This comic had no stand out panels, but everything in it was thematically consistent and there was nary a poorly drawn face in sight. Oh I would be remiss if I forgot to mention the cover. It’s fantastic Iron Man is tearing through a wall looking menacing as all hell as The Red Barbarian screams at him.
This is a solid Iron Man comic, coming off a decent issue featuring Dr Strange it feels like Stan Lee is onto a winner here. There’s not a lot of character development, and the disintegration ray is a pretty stupid MacGuffin, but we have two decent villains and dusting of intrigue that make this an early Iron Man comic worth checking out.
No quote can top The Red Barbarian throwing a ham at a soviet spy.
This Reviewer
