Tales of Suspense #39:

In March of 1963, Iron Man made his debut in the pages of Tales of Suspense #39, and what an entrance. The first thing you're greeted with is a one page splash of Iron Man pushing his way between two stone walls. The words "Iron Man is Born!" are proclaimed. At first glance that looks like a pretty innocent way to open the first issue of an all new super-hero, but take another look at that picture. A closer look.

Remember, the title is called "Iron Man is Born!" now take a closer look at those rocks. Turn the picture upside-down if you need too. No you aren't a pervert, that really does look kind of like a vagina. A vagina that Iron Man is stretching out with all his super-human might. I think I saw a porn video on the internet that went something like that.

Our story begins by introducing us to Tony Stark, brilliant inventor who is creating brand new weapons for the US Military that use "miniaturized transistors", which apparently is supposed to impress the reader. Now I know what you're thinking, "But this comic book was made in the 60's, they had computers the size of whole rooms, this must have been impressive back then, you're just being an overly critical asshole again." Well I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but thanks to Wikipedia I'm going to make you sound like a retard: This is because the transistor was originally invented in the 1920's, and became common use in electronic devices since the 1950's (in things like radios.) These "miniature transistors" as presented in this first issue of Iron Man's adventures are big

enough to hold in the palm of ones hand. That's hardly revolutionary.

Anyway where was I? Oh right, transistors. Anyway, he's in some undisclosed communist country watching the US army use his devices in combat so that he can see if they work or not. Remember, this is Cold War era America, so this sort of anti-communist theme is not uncommon, but in this issue of Iron Man it takes almost racist proportions.

The other interesting thing to point out is the fact that Tony Stark is probably one of the only CEO's of a multi-million weapons manufacturer that will go out on the battlefield to watch his weapons being used. That's cold man. I mean considering that this unnamed Communist country is probably Vietnam, it suggests that he probably got his kicks from watching soldiers napalm civilians and stuff.

While he's out and about checking out his latest murder machine, Stark trips off a booby trap that explodes and lodges some shrapnel into his heart, and he soon finds himself found by the evil Wong-Chu (enter the very stereo-typical Asian dictator here) who realizes that Stark will soon die in a couple of days when the shrapnel pierces his heart and so decides to lock him up and force him to make weapons for the Communists, promising to have his doctors cure Stark if he does Wong-Chu's bidding.

Stark finds himself locked up with renown scientist Professor Yinsen, who was long thought to have been deceased. Stark and Yinsen soon become buddies on the account that the handsome gaijin read some of Yinsen's books in university. Since Stark realizes that Wong-Chu can't cure him otherwise he'd have already done it to get more work out of Stark, the two begin working on a pace maker device to keep Stark's heart beating once the shrapnel pierces it in a few days.

Yes folks, a super hero that has a pace maker. That's reassuring isn't it? That's exactly the kind of guy you want to swoop down and save you from certain doom. A guy who's heart will explode if he goes anywhere near a microwave. Hey how about we go a step further? How about a hero with a dialysis machine? Or sticking with the whole iron routine, let's give the bastard and iron lung. He can be wheeled around disturbing his villains with the sound of his mechanical breathing. Or how about a hero in a high tech wheelchair... Oh wait, they've already done that... Twice.

The question I have is how a physicist and a munitions engineer would even know the first thing about building a life preserving pace maker to begin with? It's not like these guys have backgrounds in medicine or anything.

Anyway, the two scientists are left by themselves to work on devices for the Communists to use. Left unattended, they instead not only build the pace maker that will keep Stark alive, but also build him a suit of armor in which he can fight his way out of the prison. Now this here, this is interesting considering the fact that these communist soldiers are leaving two enemy scientists alone in a lab to build whatever they want unsupervised.

It's stunning logic like this that makes me wonder how the Communists ended up losing the Cold War? Well the positive side of it all at least I don't have to salute Khrushchev or Mao whenever I wake up in the morning, so I suppose at the end of the day we can all be a little thankful.

With the armor complete, Tony puts it on and Yinsen plugs him into an electrical supply to charge the armors batteries. Which takes long enough for Yinsen to distract the guards and get himself shot. Now considering it's 1963, I find it very difficult to believe that it would take

such a short time for his battery to charge. Here we are some 45 years later, and my laptop's batteries only last for about six hours on the lowest power settings and they still take about two to charge to full strength, and you expect me to believe that it only takes a few minutes for a large cumbersome armor with batteries that were build circa 1963 to be charged to full capacity?

So at first Iron Man hides by clinging to the ceiling with batteries, and then ends up fighting the communist soldiers and confronting Wong-Chu, who he defeats rather easily by causing an ammo dump to explode thereby killing him.

Iron Man then walks off into the jungle to be rescued (a story they don't bother explaining for a good 20 years after the fact.)

Some of the more ridiculous items in Iron Man's arsenal back then was his heavy reliance on magnets, apparently if your high tech device used magnets it was light years more advanced than anything else. Another fine point, is that he has a gun that shoots oil slicks and a mini-flame thrower. Without the flame thrower option the oil device wouldn't be all that impressive, and it was so impractical they got rid of the device shortly after. I don't really blame them, I mean how useful could squirting oil at your opponent be after a while?

And that my friends is the first appearance of Iron Man, things don't get any better from there for quite some time, but don't take my word for it, let's take a look at some of Iron Man's other early appearances!