Iron Man in 1967

One thing I’ve noticed: Iron Man doesn’t seem as strongly integrated with his Avengers comrades as his partner in Tales of Suspense, Captain America. Not saying it’s a good or bad thing, just making the observation. In my review of Iron Man in 1963, it had initially looked like this book was becoming an overflow series for Avengers, but not so.

The villains this year… oof. We’ve got a return of the Mole Man to Marvel villainy, alongside The Melter. Titanium Man returns once again, but it’s a big bag of blah this time around. Finally, there’s the Grey Gargoyle, who may provide the best story of a bad batch. The introduction of SHIELD’s Agent Sitwell shakes up a quickly calcifying story, but it’s not quite enough.

The series has largely dried up on development. I have promised myself to avoid delving into typical fandom talk of plot holes and story logic. Instead, I’ve dedicated myself to looking at how appealing the story’s grand concepts and packing are presented. There’s a distinct challenge in this late 60s material, because the sheen of NEW Marvel has worn off, yet the writers have seemed to find comfort in the mundane formula.

In other words, you take an overall concept forward into perpetuity, and just plug in the monster of the week ad nauseum. Boring.

I fully expect that these statements will annoy some readers who adulate every ounce of early silver age Marvel heroics, but there’s room to be critical. Very hard to hit it out of the park 100% of the time, and a small batch of creators were handling a huge workload at the time. Clearly, some of the stuff was pushed out to make deadlines and isn’t pure gold.

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