On Leave of Absence: Iron Man

Villains: Kang, Spider-Man robot

Guest Appearance: Rick Jones, Spider-Man

Cameo: Wonder Man, Executioner, Baron Zemo, Radioactive Man, Mysterio, Magneto, Dr. Doom, Crimson Dynamo, Kraven (all in flashback)

Innovation: Tower of Tirod

Gadgets & Technology: Atmo-Duplicator, Iso-Nuclear Duplicator

Letters Page: Page One • Page Two

He uses his combination Atmo-Duplicator/Iso-Nuclear Duplicator to feed all known information about Spider-Man into the shell of an android body. This amazing construct duplicates nearly every facet of Spider-Man's powers and personality, while maintaining total loyalty to Kang. He sends it into the past to do battle.

Kang has also sent a bunch of robots disguised as gangsters to take on Captain America in a fight. The robot Spider-Man is there to help Captain America defeat them and get into his good graces. He tells Cap that he would like to join the Avengers, and they go off to meet with the rest of the team so he can make his case for membership. Once there, Thor reminds Spider-Man that there are tests one must go through to gain membership, so the robot tries to speed up his application by telling them he knows where Iron Man is. Thor takes affront to this kind of power-brokering and threatens him to tell them where Iron Man is. The robot tells them that he was swinging through the city when he saw Iron Man kidnaped by the Masters of Evil and taken to the Temple of Tirod in Mexico. Thor goes ballistic when he hears that Spider-Man has known this all along and did not tell them, but the team decides to go into swift action to find their teammate, instead of seeking reprisal against Spidey.

Giant-Man and the Wasp are the first to arrive at the Temple of Tirod, and as they investigate the grounds looking for Iron Man, the robot Spider-Man is there to trap them! The robot manages to tie Giant-Man to a post with his webbing, and swats the Wasp unconscious with a fly-swatter made of webbing. Then Thor comes on the scene, fighting the treacherous "Spider-Man." They exchange fierce blows and toss boulders at each other until the robot manages to bind Thor up inside a huge ball of webbing. Little does the robot Spider-Man know, though, but he is being tracked by another form, hiding in the shadows....

Captain America is the last to arrive and parachutes in to the pyramid. He sees the robot Spider-Man and calls out to him for help looking for Iron Man. He is stunned to see his supposed ally pushing a large slab of rock down on top of him. Cap and the robot Spider-Man start to brawl, and finally Cap is pushed aside after getting a glob of webbing in his face. Kang looks down on the action approvingly, and talks about how it was a good idea to fumigate the temple with a nerve gas that would numb the powers of the Avengers so his robot could more easily fight them. Finally, the robot makes its move to the control panel where he will send the Avengers bodies into the future, but there to stop him is- SPIDER-MAN!

After hearing rumors of an impersonator, the real Spider-Man has followed the fake one all the way out to the Temple of Tirod. He realizes that the robot Spider-Man is very powerful, but does not have the imagination of a human being, and so is able to outsmart and outwit him in the finaly analysis. He finds the power button on the robot Spider-Man, pushes it and deactivates him. Captain America has witnessed the battle as it went down, and explains everything to his teammates. They realize that it was likely Kang who created the robot, and is likely watching them right at that moment, so Thor issues an explicit warning to Kang: don't mess with the Avengers!

And so, Kang rages in disappointment that his foes in the 20th Century still live.

Pin-Up: Kang, checking out images of Rama-Tut and Dr. Doom on his monitors.

-- synopsis by Gormuu

-- panel images and letters pages provided by Avengers Assemble

Issues Reprinted
Avengers #11-20

Click on cover image to learn more about each issue.