Tales of Suspense #51:

I'm really going to jump ahead here, because as stupid as some of these old Iron Man stories get, I can really poke fun at this next one the best, because it introduces probably one of the saddest characters I've ever seen: The Scarecrow.

That's right, just like DC Comics, Marvel has a character named Scarecrow (actually they have two, but who's keeping count?) and I can tell you, the one that's a pain in the ass to the Batman is a lot less ridiculous than the one that is introduced in the pages of this issue of Tales of Suspense.

This issue begins with Iron Man flying through the city where he notices a crook robbing the box office of a theater that is featuring a performance of a popular escape artist. Naturally, Iron Man chases after the crook and ends up interrupting the show in order to catch the crook. The people applaud Iron Man, much to the ire of the escape artist who is jealous of Iron Man's fame.

Okay, so this I don't get, the guy is paid to escape from traps on a daily basis, and yet he's jealous of a guy who puts his life on the line to stop crooks, for free? Look I can understand the adulation factor, but fuck man, you're getting the better deal in the end!

But of course, that's not enough for this guy, he hasn't been embarrassed by Iron Man enough yet, and trust me by the end of this one he's going to be thoroughly embarrassed. First off, he decides to dress up like a Scarecrow. Yeah, a scarecrow. Why? Because a scarecrow is apparently "flexible" and therefore best suited for a disguise for a escape artist. Yes, because we all know how flexible scarecrows are, what with all their sitting on posts in the middle of fields and all, they certainly do a lot of flexing.

But that's not all, every super-villain --in lieu of super-powers -- needs a gimmick they can use in their crimes right? So what does the Scarecrow have to offer? Not exactly the most menacing character is a scarecrow, so it's any wonder what sort of scarecrow related gimmick he'd use I mean there must be something... Oh wait, he steals a bunch of trained crows.

Yes folks, the best enemy they can come up with to fight a guy with high tech armor is a contortionist dressed up like an off broadway version of Wizard of Oz who has a bunch of trained crows. This should be an even match.

Now that you're dressed for success, what would a super-villain do? Well the most natural thing: Steal secrets from an inventor and sell it to the communists! Yeah here we go, you're going to break into Stark International's factory, steal top secret plans with an army of crows --- not exactly known for their ability to remain quiet -- and make it out and also be able to find Communists to sell your plans too.

Of course, he ends up getting attacked by Iron Man, who somehow manages to bungle the whole stopping the robbery thing because the crows kept on dropping stuff on him. Our villain manages to steal a boat (not bad for his first crime) and offer the plans to Communists (and a leader who looks surprisingly like Castro) before Iron Man can come and easily pull the plug on the whole thing and defeat them all. In the end the Scarecrow ends up stuck on a deserted island.

Epilogue:

I could go on for hours about these early Iron Man stores, but I should save some comments for another rant, but let's recap and find out where all these kooky villains have ended up since their appearances? (This of course is all at the time of this writing since this may change in the future because some writer or another will think it's cool to bring these characters back.)

Wong Chu: Surprisingly Wong Chu manages to make another appearance in Iron Man Annual 2000, where it turns out he survived all the intervening years and ended up joining up with AIM, and also keeping Professor Yinsen alive. He ends up getting blown up or something and so far as anybody is concerned is deader than the lunch meat slowly rotting in my fridge.

Gargantus: Gargantus is never seen again, however apparently the aliens who built him also planted other robots in another attempt to take over the world in Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #5, that invasion plan went just as well as the first time.

The Scarecrow: Would go on to getting his ass kicked on a regular basis by a number of heroes, until writers decided to make him a spree killer to give him some edge (and probably as an attempt to make him as cool as the DC Comics Scarecrow) and appeared another number of times before he was killed in a fight with Ghost Rider... And this is where things get really lame.... He is later resurrected as a super-natural character and has his ass kicked a few more times by Ghost Rider. Then after a long hiatus, Brian Michael Bendis decided to bring the guy back, and he was one of the many villains who broke out of the Raft Prison as part of the New Avengers plot line, apparently very undead (Hey maybe it's all part of that Secret Invasion plot line they're doing now) and has since been seen getting the shit kicked out of him by Spider-Man in the Civil War storyline.

Iron Man himself would advance on over the years, with writers of varying competence handling him, his armor always upgrading and changing and being more with the times. He'd battle alcoholism, have a replacement take his spot for a while, start a shitty group called Force Works, get replaced by a teenaged alternate reality counter part who get's totally ignored after Onslaught and Heroes Reborn on the account that it was a fucking stupid idea to being with and then eventually be the front runner for the Super-Human Registration Act in the recent Civil War event.

But those are tales for another day, and perhaps someday I'll get tired of making fun of old comics and start making fun of new ones... but until then, let's all enjoy comics from a foregone era and laugh at their use of the word "boner" even though it had a different meaning back then.