This is the first time we see Natasha Romanoff. On the cover she’s billed as “the gorgeous new menace of…the Black Widow!”
Tony falls for her right away.
He’s such a slut.
But at least the moon-eyes are mutual…
Despite being a socialist, Black Widow is obviously enamored of the millionaire (see panel above). Frankly, Black Widow is a lame sexpot in this issue. She’s nothing like what she will become
We also meet her partner…
Her partner is named Boris.
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Because of course he is. Boris and Natasha. They are sent by the Russian government to steals the Crimson Dynamo armor back from Tony Stark.
When we last saw the Crimson Dynamo armor, its inventor, Professor Vanko, had defected to the U.S after being charmed by Tony Stark
Despite Stark crushing on her, her attempts to steal the armor fail.
Vanko destroys the armor and blows himself up rather than give it to the USSR. this means Widow has to go on the lam–because the penalty for failing a mission in the Soviet Union is death.
So she decides to make it up to her bosses by stealing new tech from Tony Stark.
Specifically, an anti-gravity device.
Look at that. He’s about to kill himself in his lab. He’s so smart and so dumb.
He shows it to Black Widow (to impress her).
She seduces Tony, gets this terrific new tech, and then uses it…To steal jewelry.
Seems kinda petty. Still, it redeems her to her Russian handler….
…who then tells her to rob Fort Knox.
Iron Man catches up to her and gets his machine back, but she escapes again.
Iron Man diagnoses her real problem as just not digging Americans.
Each issue has a Tales of the Watcher story. The first is about Earth’s future. I think this is the first time we learn that Watcher can see into the future. It’s dumb.
But issue #53’s tale has the origin of Uatu!
By this time, the character had been around for almost two years with no hint as to his roots.
Turns out, he was from a race of aliens who discovered the cure for everything, became immortal, but got greedy. Pretty standard. But as a result, they’ve chosen just to watch, as immortals, and never interfere.
(Except of course that they interfere all the time.)
The Iron Man stories were plotted by Stan and scripted by “N. Korok,” which was a pseudonym of Don Rico. He wrote novels at the time, and comics paid less, so he wrote under a fake name because didn’t want to lower his page rate for other work.
Creators: Stan Lee (plot), N. Korok (script), Don Heck (art) (Iron Man stories)
Stan Lee (plot), Larry Lieber (script and art) (Watcher stories)
Grade: C+