First Look Review Of Tales of Suspense #46

One good thing I can say about this issue of Tales of Suspense is that the bad guy ends up working for the good guy. Yup, after Iron Man defeats the Crimson Dynamo, he ends up coming to America and working for Tony Stark.

Tales of Suspense #46: Iron Man Faces The Crimson Dynamo! by Stan Lee, R. Berns, and Don Heck. Published by Marvel Comics, 1963.

I suppose we’ll see how that works out in the long run but Professor Vanko starts out quite opposed to Iron Man and America as he begins the story as a staunch Commie.

Sure, he has some distain for the leader of the Soviet Union, but he knows who his sponsor is. The underlying trouble is that Khrushchev has some serious contempt for his leading scientist as well.

Needless to say, the two evildoers conspire to send the Crimson Dynamo to America to mess with Tony Stark and to destroy Iron Man. It seems like this is the perfect adversary too since the red guy’s powers focus on electricity. But while electricity messes with metal, Iron Man’s transistors save the day.

This issue seems to revolve around government mistrust…Vanko and Khrushchev have some serious issues but the American government comes to be suspicious of Stark as they begin to think he might be causing the troubles in his weapons factories to weaken the U.S. While things work out in the end, the levels of paranoia in this issue are pretty high with only Tony seemingly able to rise above the fray and work to do his job regardless of what governments and leaders think. I suppose the high point for the American leadership is that at least they’re only looking to conduct and investigation into Stark while Khrushchev was just gonna have Vanko killed on sight.

This was a pretty good issue that brought a bit more to the table than the usual 1963 Red Scare so I give this issue a First Look Rating of a B.

This comic can be found on Marvel Unlimited, Comixology or at your local comic book shop.

Comics Corner | First Look Review of Tales of Suspense #46