Iron Man: "Ultimo Lives"

Tales of Suspense #76-78 (1966)

By Stan Lee, Adam Austin*, Gene Colan, Gary Michaels

Background: Iron Man battles his friend Happy Hogan, accidentally turned into The Freak. 

So, What Happens? A nearly depleted Iron Man manages to turn the Freak back into Happy, who suffers from amnesia and appears to have forgotten Shellhead's secret ID. Tony Stark is forced to travel to Washington in order to testify under oath and reveal the identity and secrets of Iron Man, but en route is kidnapped and teleported away to China by the Mandarin. The villain wants revenge against Iron Man following his last defeat and has created Ultimo, a gigantic android so big and powerful he had to build and hide it inside a sleeping volcano. Obeying his master's wishes, Ultimo awakens and attacks the Chinese army trying to invade the Mandarin's fortress, easily cutting through them. Unaware that Tony and Iron Man are one and the same, the Mandarin attempts to kill Stark, who survives thanks to his chest plate and wears his armor just in time to face Ultimo. Iron Man is completely outclassed by the massive Android but thanks to his superior manoeuvrability manages to stay alive  long enough to figure out a plan. He tricks Ultimo into firing his eye beams against the volcano, reawakening it and causing an explosion that seemingly destroys the Android. Too low on power to fly back to the States, Iron Man steals a military plane and gets back home, only to discover that in his absence his factories have been shut down by government order.

Notes: Tales of Suspense featured both Iron Man and Captain America, each with a 10-page story. Hence, this story spans over three issues but is only about 30 pages long. Despite its defeat, Ultimo has not really been destroyed and will come back several times over the years. Future stories will retcon his origin revealing he was actually created by an alien race, only to be later found and reprogrammed by the Mandarin. The Official Index to the Marvel Universe credits Jack Abels for the inks of #78, but the story lists Gary Michaels.

Something Silly This Way Comes: The Mandarin can pinpoint and teleport Tony Stark across the globe with his "inter-dimensional trans-scanner", but apparently not detect that Tony is Iron Man.

Review: Ultimo Lives is a classic, action-oriented Iron Man story from the '60s, but not a great one despite the introduction of a somewhat recurrent villain. The battle is a simple David vs Goliath scenario, as Iron Man spends most of his time running away before setting up the trap that wins him the day. Unable to speak and nearly expressionless, Ultimo comes across as powerful rather than menacing, but we never really get the feeling that Iron Man is trying particularly hard to win, nor that he could really be defeated. All the long-winded exposition about how and why Ultimo was created doesn't help either.

The Mandarin is one of my favourite Silver Age villains, and one that has sadly been mostly ignored for the last couple of decades, mainly because he is considered somewhat politically incorrect by today's standards. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, stories like Ultimo Lives are clearly set in their own current historical and political timeframes with an eye on propaganda: China is always Red China, Chinese soldiers are depicted as cowardly, there are plenty of references to the "decadent" Western world, and Iron Man is even called "armored champion of the capitalistic imperialists" (they do know their English well, these soldiers). On the other hand, it's quite quickly made it clear that the Mandarin doesn't champion or even represent the Chinese state. He isn't the Titanium Man or any other servant of his country, but a would-be world conqueror who just so happens to be Chinese. He isn't a Yellow Menace any more than Dr. Doom is a White Menace, and with hundreds of European or American supervillains, there's no reason there can't be a Chinese one. Having said that, his original pink and green costume (with a purple M on his chest) is absolutely awful, and this story showcases his scientific intellect and arrogance more than his power or cleverness. He can build a machine teleporting a man across the globe but doesn't wonder how Iron Man happens to get there so fast.

The art is credited to Adam Austin (#76-77) and Gene Colan (#78), but in fact they are the same person as Colan was using a pen name (likewise, Gary Micheals is Jack Abel's pen name). The artwork is dynamic and detailed, but the inking by Gary Michaels at time is a little heavy, with plenty of shadows and thick black lines that make it harder to read the facial expressions of middle distance characters. Thankfully, Iron Man's nearly featureless mask doesn't suffer from it. Colan will gradually become more involved in the plotting of the stories, but this is his first issue and he is only credited with the art.

Final Verdict: The creation of a classic villain and some strategic action, but nothing memorable. 2.5/5