Super Sunday Special: The Big Three - History Of a Friendship

The following essay was originally written by me for Assembled! 2, a book by Van Allen Plexico and the rest of the AA Boards published in 2009. I was moderator of the boards back then, and we were all offered the chance to contribute to this and the unfortunately unpublished Assembled! 3. I decided to chronicle the 45+ years of friendship between Cap, Thor and Iron Man, from the early days until the original Civil War. For various reasons, it took a while for the book to be printed, by which time it wasn't completely up to date anymore and some changes were necessary, but the following is the essay as it was originally written. Incidentally, two more contributors - Doug and Karen - have gone on to create the Bronze Age Babies blog. I recommend you check it out. 

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“When I awoke, decades later, the first thing I heard was a deep, jovial howl. Thor’s laughter. And then another voice. Educated. Proper. But hollow – as if it was spoken through a metal pipe… They were the future. The Avengers.” (Captain America @ Avengers V3 #63).

Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, often referred to by readers as “The Big Three”. The history of the group owes a lot to them: they are founders – retroactively in Captain America’s case – have been team leaders and served some of the longest stints of membership, and when you see them interacting with each other, using their real names, asking or giving advice, or discussing private matters that they hide from everybody else, you can almost feel how close they are.

But it was not always this way: like every real relationship, the friendship between Captain America, Thor and Iron-Man has evolved through the years, starting as simple respect between “colleagues” and going through good and bad times, moments of confidence and of betrayal, of support and of hostility. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how this evolution occurred throughout the 500+ Avengers issues, and to try to understand what makes the Big Three essentially like each other, and where their disagreements stem from.

Iron Man: "Hawkeye, The Marksman!"

Tales of Suspense #57 (1964)

By Stan Lee, Don Heck

So, What Happens? After a misunderstanding, Tony Stark takes Pepper Potts out on a date to the carnival on Coney Island, where one of the attractions is Hawkeye the marksman. Suddenly the flying pinwheel goes out of control, forcing Tony to switch to Iron Man and fly to the rescue. He makes short work of it, but Hawkeye is jealous for having been upstaged and decides to become a more famous hero than Iron Man. Overnight, the archer prepares several trick arrows and a costume, confident that his great skills will make him the equal of any other hero. He almost immediately prevents a robbery, but the arriving police believe him to be the culprit and force him to flee. He is rescued by the spy known as the Black Widow and is immediately taken by her beauty, quickly agreeing to defeat her enemy Iron Man to impress her. Later on, he breaks into Stark's factory and attacks Iron Man with rusting arrows, forcing him to flee to replace the damaged parts of his armour. Hawkeye leaves to analyze the parts left behind, but a furious Iron Man intercepts him for round two and quickly gains the upper hand. A final demolition arrow accidentally injures the onlooking Black Widow, so Hawkeye runs away to take her to a doctor while the fog prevents Iron Man from following. 

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.