Technically Miracle usually ends up stuck in the traps as well, but it doesn't necessarily feel like he's sticking his head in the noose every time. Unlike this issue! From 1982, Iron Man #165, "Endgame" Written by Denny O'Neil, pencils by Luke McDonnell, inks by Steve Mitchell.
In Scotland, in the deathtrap castle of "the Laird of Glen Travail" Rhodey is already being held hostage and chewed on by spiders, and it's up to Iron Man to save him before he succumbs to the poison. After the Laird escapes through a trap door, Tony follows a power cable: since the castle didn't have electricity, Tony presumes the video feed of Rhodey's plight must be from it, and can follow it to him. But a shadowy figure has put his best man on the job of killing Iron Man; or at least his third man: the Rook, third of the Chessmen after Knight and Bishop. Rook gloats that he's laid three traps, but there's no way Iron Man would get past the first: three tons of granite!
Putting aside how they got that block into the castle, does granite usually come in three ton blocks? Obviously they cut it into a cube shape, but even that seems like a lot of work, and I don't know that it wouldn't collapse under its own weight. Iron Man is able to lift the block off, but that drains a lot of power, and his repulsors were damaged by the Bishop the previous issue. Rook is disappointed, but sure his "clever, clever, clever" second trap will stop him: manacles! Counter-weighted to hold him in place, and Tony didn't have enough juice to just snap them. Still, by using his boot-jets to curl into a ball then release, Tony snaps the chains...although the manacles are still stuck on him.
Tony tries to rush the next trap, but instead smashes into the room of new love interest Indries Moomji. I just barely recognize the name, so I don't think that relationship took off, or maybe she betrayed him? There's a cutaway here back to America, where an older hausfrau Pepper Potts watches a news report featuring Tony and Indries; but Pepper is with a young girl who calls her mommy? I have no idea who that kid is; since I don't recall her having a kid later. Back in Scotland, still following the power cable, Tony walks right into trap #3: "the purple mist," an aerosolized acid that will dissolve his armor, and then him!
Thinking it through, Tony deduces the castle's stone walls are being protected from the acid by ceramic tiles, and cuts the sheet of them off the door and lets it melt. Only then does he realize that 'power cable' he'd been following wasn't plugged into anything. Furious, Tony then decides the video he had seen of Rhodey had to be broadcast, and traces it back to find him. Getting Rhodey to a doctor, he recharges his armor, then he returns to capture the Laird: I don't think Tony even saw the Rook. As Iron Man, he tells Indries to meet Tony at the doctor's, where Rhodey is not in good shape, and Tony asks Indries to keep him company. Which is a loaded phrase, coming from him.
Some years ago, we saw IM #161 with Moon Knight, which may have been the last issue I read until IM #197, the Secret Wars II crossover. I would start reading the title fairly regularly shortly after that; so I'm still missing several from around this issue. Sooner or later.
1 comment:
Damn, they almost had Tony there. Almost as that last acid trap just about did it.
Smart ploy tricking Tony into following that power cable like that though.
I wonder how come we don't see the Chessmen anymore.
Post a Comment