Betrayal!

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THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN — Issue no. 115, July 1978

Book: The Invincible Iron Man

Issue No.: 115

Published: July 25, 1978

Title: “Betrayal!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Digital scan

The penciler of this issue of Invincible Iron Man gets the biggest credit on the opening splash page — “And introducing the pulse-pounding penciling of… John Romita Jr.! Marvel marches on!” I’m familiar with Romita Jr. from his work on the early 1980s Uncanny X-Men book — Romita took over penciling duties on that series after Paul Smith left, around issue no. 175. As I’ve mentioned before, that X-Men run is probably my favorite comic book run ever, so I’ll always have a soft spot for anybody who worked on it.

I’m assuming that, based on the “introducing” credit, Iron Man is the first book that John Romita Jr. was the regular penciler on (an assumption backed up by Wikipedia). Given his illustrious career (over the years, Romita Jr. has worked on several A-list characters for both Marvel and DC, including Spider-Man, Hulk, Superman, and Batman), it’s fun to see a bit of Romita’s origin story here.

Two panels from this issue. In the first, Silver Samurai attacks John Belushi (who is dressed like a samurai). Silver Samurai’s sword glows with pink energy. Silver Samurai says, “Aye, stripling. And you’ll either surrender it willingly — or I’ll tear it from your fresh-slain corpse!” Belushi says, “Yikes!” In the second panel, three men are looking at a TV monitor screen. Caption reads, “At that moment, in the control room…” One man says, “Jacko, check the monitor! Something’s happening onstage that isn’t in the director’s script!”

Moving from the creators of this book to the star, Iron Man (AKA Tony Stark) is in danger from at least three parties, and he’s unaware of two of them. He knows that somebody sent the Unicorn after him in previous issues, but he doesn’t know who that somebody is. There’s also a shadowy figure who is planning to assassinate Tony Stark. And Stark finds out about his third enemy at the end of this book, when he is attacked by the Ani-Men (as the name implies, they are animals that have been mutated into intelligent humanoids). Turns out the Ani-Men are working for Stark’s girlfriend, Whitney Frost, AKA Madame Masque.

Ms. Masque is one of the cooler characters I’ve discovered since I started Marvel Time Warp, so I am a little bummed that she betrayed Tony Stark/Iron Man. That said, it’s good drama! Also, apparently her dad is Count Nefaria, a bad guy I am vaguely familiar with — pretty sure he created the Ani-Men, and that’s how he and Masque and the Ani-Men all wind up together at the end of this story, gloating after defeating Stark.

I am wondering if the shadowy assassin from earlier in this story is going to show up next issue and accidentally rescue Stark from the Ani-Men while trying to kill him. But I might be overthinking it.

Next time — I’ll probably check out one of Marvel’s July 1978 sci-fi books, either Star Wars or Warlord of Mars.

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