MRL - Tales of Suspense (1959) #49-50

[sonotadream]

Tales of Suspense (1959) #49-50 -Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/Don Heck

Iron Man and the X-Men crossover when Angel goes evil!

Angel is taking a shortcut over Tony Stark's factory as a nuclear bomb test is about to start. Iron Man tries to warn him away, but Angel doesn't understand and the radiation blast changes his personality: he renounces the X-Men and decides to join the evil mutants.

The X-Men call for the Avengers help in a special radio frequency used by crime fighting groups, while Xavier worries that he's training future villains.

The only Avenger available is Iron Man and he goes searching for Angel. He's easy to track because his first idea to attract evil mutants is to blow up some TNT over New York - no evil mutants appear.

In the end, Iron Man's plan is to appeal to Angel's better nature. He exhausts his transistors and seeing him in free fall finally snaps Angel out of his evil personality.

After that, we have the introduction of the Mandarin, Iron Man’s biggest enemy. He was inspired by Fu Manchu, who is a peak example of Yellow Peril tropes - there’s a lot here that I don’t feel qualified to unpack, but there’s a reason he’s not actually in Iron Man 3…

Despite being Chinese, the Mandarin has no consideration for the current communist government - or anyone else, tbh. He wants to rule the world. The American government asks Iron Man to check the Mandarin’s castle out and discover his intentions.

Tony goes, but finds the Mandarin was expecting him. His power comes not from technology, but from ten magical rings. He’s also a master of Karate, and he almost beats Iron Man. Tony evades his attack with some last minute math to turn his body to the best angle to avoid the Mandarin’s karate chop - yes, it’s that ridiculous.

Iron Man escapes and the Mandarin lives to plan his revenge.