From the Mouths of the Marvels:

"The Pentagon has no alternative, Stark! The country's defense is at stake! If you get fouled up, we must turn to other companies!"

- - Pentagon official, page 8

Since when does anyone in comics care about "scientific law?!?!"

Iron Man from Tales of Suspense #46
October 1963 • 13 pages

Publication Date: July 9, 1963

Letters Page: No letters page was published in this issue

I: Feature Story: "Iron Man Faces the Crimson Dynamo!"

Job Number: X-411

Pages: 13

Plot: Stan Lee
Script: Robert Bernstein (credited as R. Berns)
Pencils: Don Heck
Inks: Don Heck
Letters: Artie Simek

First Appearance: Crimson Dynamo/Professor Vanko

Villain: Crimson Dynamo, Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev

Guest Appearance: Happy Hogan, Pepper Potts

Iron Man Tech: ultra-sensitive tape-recorder, transistor-powered electrical force field

Synopsis: Behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev is led into the private laboratory of Professor Vanko, aka The Crimson Dynamo, the world's greatest expert on electricity. Vanko is dressed in an outlandish red suit that channels electrical currents, and performs a showcase of the suit's abilities for the Communist leader. He disintegrates an Iron Man replica, stops a tank from moving in its tracks, and impresses Kruschev immeasurably (despite the Soviet leaders concerns that Vanko is too diabolical and egotistical to trust). Kruschev challenges the Crimson Dynamo to go to America and destroy Iron Man and Tony Stark. Vanko agrees, as he has long wanted to test his powers in such a manner.

Weeks later, at a missile testing pad owned by Stark Industries, Pepper, Happy and Tony gather to watch a test launch. Tony takes a private moment to change into his Iron Man armor just in case something goes wrong - and something goes wrong indeed! The Crimson Dynamo is on the outskirts of the launch site, and he causes the rocket to go out of control. The astronauts inside can do nothing to stop it from twisting around in the air. Only Iron Man can save the day! He attaches himself to the nose-cone of the rocket and slows it enough so that he can absorb all the impact on the ground himself. It knocks Iron Man for quite the loop, but everyone's life - and the rocket - are safe.

Frustrated by Iron Man, the Crimson Dynamo decides to take his wave of sabotage to the rest of Stark's industrial concerns. He goes from laboratory to testing site to production line to office headquarters, leaving a path of destruction all over the country, destroying each building and burning them to the ground. Stark is highly concerned, as is the military brass he deals with, that he is the target of enemy sabotage. In fact, a rumor starts that perhaps Stark is a Communist plant, sucking the military budgets of money on products he doesn't deliver because of the sabotage.

Stark worries about the government losing confidence in him and putting him out of business. Outside his office headquarters, Vanko is preparing to launch a final assault against Iron Man himself. He puts on his Crimson Dynamo armor and knocks the perimeter fence down with his electrical blast. Security alarms warn Stark about the approaching menace, and he jets into his office to change into Iron Man. Crashing outside to face his antagonist, he spots the Crimson Dynamo for the first time! He intuits that the Dynamo's powers are based in electrical currents, so he devises a counter strategy put into good effect when the Russian launches his first electrical attack, using his transistor powers to create a protective force field. He then takes flight, so as to evade Vanko's formidable electrical currents.

Iron Man goads the Crimson Dynamo into confessing to his crimes, which he conveniently records on his ultra-sensitive tape recorder. He then is inspired to another plan: he blocks the electrically armored man behind a prison made of tree trunks he has pulled from the ground; then, after a brief time away, Iron Man returns and grabs the trapped villain and carries him up over open water, and threatens to drop him into the ocean where he will electrocute himself. While he's got the Crimson Dynamo in mortal terror, he plays a recording that purports to be of Kruschev himself, odering his minions that "once Vanko returns, machine-gun him! He is too much of a threat to my power!" (What Vanko doesn't know is that it's Tony Stark imitating Kruschev on his ultra-sensitive tape recorder!) Properly galled, the Crimson Dynamo accepts Iron Man's offer to defect to America and work for Tony Stark using his technical genius for good and not evil. He also offers to give up the details on a communist plot to the FBI. Kruschev hears about the Crimson Dynamo's betrayal and flies into a rage, promising "I shall bury Iron Man!"

--synopsis by Gormuu

Issues Reprinted
Iron Man from
Tales of Suspense #39-50

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