Monday, April 15, 2013

Tales of Suspense #49

Cover Date: January 1964

Plot Overview: Angel is flying back to Xavier's school when he comes across Iron Man. Iron Man tries to warn him about an upcoming nuclear blast but doesn't make it in time. The blast catches Angel and turns him evil. Iron Man tries to catch up to the Angel as he flies off but his thrusters run out of power. Iron Man saves himself from the brunt of the fall with his repeller but suffers some damage. He sets about repairing the damage to his armor.

The Angel returns to the school and quits the X-Men. He says he'll be joining the evil Mutants and then escapes when the other X-Men try to restrain him. Professor X returns and mentally tries to talk sense into the departed Angel. After failing to reach Angel, X begins to doubt his mission.

The X-Men decide to call for the Avengers and Iron Man is the only one to answer. He heads out to find the Angel. Meanwhile, the Angel steals some TNT and sets it off above town to try and draw attention to himself. The police are aiming to shoot him down but Iron Man convinces him to wait. Iron Man chases the Angel through one of his hangers and tries to trap him in there. The Angel outsmarts him and tries to lock him in. Iron Man easily escapes and decides he has one chance to try and turn the Angel good again.

Iron Man grabs Angel and flies really high into the air until his thrusters give out. He begins to fall to the earth and the Angel snaps out of it and saves him at the last minute. Iron Man and the Angel return to the Xavier School and they thank Iron Man for helping the Angel. As Iron Man leaves, Professor X mentally tells him that he'll repay this act one day.

The Watcher appears in a backup and tells a tale of an alien race that follows the progress of mankind. They begin to worry that humans may one day rival them. But the humans discover nuclear power and the Cold War begins. The aliens relax and figure the humans will destroy themselves. The tale ends with the Watcher warning humanity to not let this alien race take over the galaxy.

My Take: This issue was a rough one to get through. For starters the dialogue was really bad. I mean, brutally bad. I know they had to show Angel was evil but he probably said "evil mutants" 20 times in an 18 page story. Having him say Magneto instead would have been a lot better and not so fake sounding. Also, when the nuclear blast he had an awful inner monologue that I'm adding a picture of here.

On top of the poor dialogue, Iron Man's plan to make Angel a good guy again was asinine on multiple levels. For starters, what if the Angel wasn't strong enough to stop his fall. Iron Man is a guy in a suit of armor and Angel is a mutant with wings that can fly. There's no indication that he had the strength to pull that off. And what if it hadn't snapped Angel out of it. Iron Man didn't have a plan B to save himself. It just wasn't a well conceived idea.

On top of those problems. There was a typo as they refer to Tony Stark as Anthony Blake early in the issue. There might have been another one but I don't recall it now. Not a huge deal, just thought I would point it out.

The art was good though. The Iron Man armor looked better than in the last issue. It seemed more refined and just overall better designed. As I said last issue, this newer armor will prevent some of the wonky contortions that some artists had him doing in the old tank armor. I think that will be a giant plus in the long run.

I give this *1/2 out of *****.

Notes: There was nothing of note in this issue.

Next Issue: Amazing Spider-Man #8

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