It’s Christmas 1982, and the first artificial heart has been implanted on the 2nd of that month. Time Magazine also announces their Person of the Year is… the computer. It seems fitting that, in a month where the future was coming true, Iron Man was starting to become one of Marvel’s best-selling works as well. Indeed, Iron Man was about to change with the times in a most remarkable way. However, we still had quite a few issues to go until we reached that point.

As we left off last time, Tony Stark is in a pickle. Tony took himself, his current squeeze Indries Moomji, and best friend and pilot James Rhodes, out to Scotland to investigate the mysterious (and fictional) Glen Travail. Tony fought the mysterious Bishop, an old man with a staff and murderous intent. And now, returning back to Glen Travail, and Moomji is nowhere to be seen either!

Oh, and Rhodey is on closed-captioned TV, being eaten by poisonous spiders. As you do.

Luckily, Tony shrugs off a bunch of spears tossed at him, and threatens the lord of the castle. What’s interesting is that, despite Laird Jamie being the one in charge of the deathtrap, there is another named Rook who is currently reporting his progress to the mysterious chessmaster. He is the one who devised the death traps, and vows that Iron Man will not survive the night.

Meanwhile, Tony inspects the wiring of the castle.

To be fair, a massive flatscreen television isn’t something you would expect to see on a castle wall, and the electricity has to be coming from somewhere. Stark figures a direct line between TV and poor Jim, only to fall into the first of the Rook’s deadly traps: a massive block of the strongest granite!

Luckily, Tony built himself some armor that could withstand some punishment. Special mention goes to Luke McDonnell’s page layout here, which really helps show how screwed Tony could be if his armor was just a little lower on power or if he was weaker. However, he is now running low on power after that display of strength.

After checking in with Ms. Arbogast and Tony’s head of security at Stark International, the readers come back just in time to see the Rook’s newest trap sprung!

A techno-rack! While it would certainly kill any normal man, it does seem weird that someone would choose to spring something like this on a man with a ridiculously strong suit of armor. However, Rook notes that even if Stark won’t be pulled to pieces, he’s certainly trapped there for good, and will starve to death in the armor. He didn’t count on Tony having rocket boots, though. Tightening himself into a small ball before cutting out the jets, Tony makes all four weights rip at his limbs simultaneously and breaks the chains rather than ripping off his limbs. The Rook vows that the Purple Mist will make short work of him, though.

Tony rips through the next door in front of him and-

Oh, good. Indries is safe. Doesn’t change the fact that Jim Rhodes is still being tortured and tormented, but at least one of the two missing are safe. Tony asks the woman to remain behind in the torture castle, but I do love the thought bubbles from Tony on that last panel there. It’s a nice bit of pathos for Tony, and one that feels genuine from O’Neill.

Finally, Iron Man comes across the end of the cable… disconnected in the middle of an empty room. Or, as he finds out, not quite as empty as it first seemed. Dozens of nozzles ripple across the wall, with ceramic materials surrounding them. Within seconds, a purple gas sprays out of them. Tony isn’t concerned, as he has air filters and an internal air supply, but then the chain left around his arms and legs bubble away. The Purple Mist is a corrosive acid gas!

But Tony should be fine, right?

Well, crap. Even Tony’s powerful punches aren’t able to break through the ceramic wall. With his power running low, and the mist eating away at his armor, there isn’t much Tony can do. Inspiration strikes, however, as he uses the diamond-edged saw hidden in one of his gloves to cut away the ceramic insulation and use it to bounce the mist onto the unprotected door. With seconds to go, Tony is free!

Fun science note! A Micron, as Tony cites as the remaining thickness of his armor in some places, is remarkably small. As in “a human blood cell is 5 microns wide.” It is a genuine miracle that his armor didn’t crumple up like a sheet of paper during that escape attempt, and that the armor continues to hold up after he left the mist.

Also, I am utterly in love with the detail of the melting armor from McDonnell. The bubbles, and streams of melting metal are utterly amazing. Special credit to Rick Parker’s colors for keeping up with that, letting the red flow down like water.

Tony sets his helmet to receive transmissions, as he realizes that it must be coming from nearly. Thankfully, he finds the location of Rhodey’s candid camera session, and Rhodey himself! Taking Rhodey to the doctor, Tony plugs himself into the mains and somehow miraculously doesn’t fry his armor by putting 240 volts into a 120 volt receiver. Then again, seeing how Tony has been able to power his suits of armor with lightning in various canons, maybe this was an expected thing.

It takes Tony almost no time to capture Laird Jaime, and nearly pummels him into oblivion until he’s stopped by Indries. And, obviously, the Laird must be the one behind everything, since it matches the usual pattern of “evil guy and evil lair.” Right?

Well, crap. It looks like we’re not done yet…!

Unfortunately, there were no archived letters page this time for us to peek into the past, and the Iron Man comic would have some issues without letters pages so Denny O’Neill could slip in one more page of plot. It’s hard to complain, but I’m starting to love looking into the past like this. Let’s look at the Bulletins of the past, instead.

In this week’s Bullpen Bulletins, we’ve got a ton of fantastic and massive news from December 1982. For one, Stan Lee returns to pop in with news from what he’s been up to. It looks like we need to issue a retraction to our speculation last time, as Stan reveals he’s been working on:

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

The Incredible Hulk

Pandamonium

Meatballs and Spaghetti

I had personally taken the first two off the table, as they had already premiered by this point. However, multiple seasons would mean multiple chances to brag about it to the fans.

For those who don’t know Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was about the adventures of Spider-Man, Iceman, and original character Firestar (had cartoon licensing rights worked out, it would have been the Human Torch) fighting crime all over the Marvel Universe. This series would feature guest-appearances from guys like the X-Men, Captain America, and even Dracula. Stan would narrate the episode openings from the second season onward, and would record openings for the first season, as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends would be packaged with the Incredible Hulk cartoon as a comic block.

The Incredible Hulk series, meanwhile, only lasted 13 episodes. The show was fairly episodic for the time, and featured a bunch of random adventures for the Hulk and Banner to get out of. Amusingly, Banner’s clothes would magically be fixed once his transformation wore off, rather than leaving him in rags. The series is also notable for the first animated appearance of the She-Hulk, though they don’t even bother with an origin episode for her.

The other two shows… they weren’t nearly as successful.

Meatballs and Spaghetti was about a traveling duet of musicians, based off popular artists of the time like Sonny and Cher. As of now, it was only notable for being one of the last animated works to include a laugh track.

Pandemonium was… weird. An evil alien is after pieces of a magical pyramid, so it’s up to a pair of siblings to stop him. With their three talking panda companions. Who can fuse into a superhero Panda. I find myself confused and wondering if some pitch pages got mixed up to make this monster. This one is also remembered for having one of the last laugh tracks in cartoon history.

Oh, and we also had a lot of awesome comics coming out! Man, this month was huge.

The second Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, was introduced in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man Annual 16. The Romitas Junior and Senior teamed up on the art for this book, making it look utterly spectacular, but fans will certainly want to check it out for Monica’s first appearance.

Marvel Graphic Novel #4 would also hit the newsstands, but most fans will remember this comic under a different name The New Mutants! The first of many, many expansions to the X-Line of comics introduces Professor Xavier’s newest crew of crazies to be stuck with the bald man. Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Mirage, and Sunspot would all make their first appearances here, joined by Marvel Team-Up alum Karma. The comic is still fantastic, even today, though the first three issues of their ongoing comic would weirdly tie-in with the Brood Saga, confusing readers who had no context to the ongoings in X-Men.

And continuing with both Captains Marvel and the X-Men, X-Men 164 would introduce Carol Danvers’ second power set: Binary! Genetically messed with by the Brood, Carol would tap into a unique form of the power cosmic, and gain the powers of a binary star system! It’s a real high point in both the story, as well as Carol Danvers’ time as a de-powered entity after Rogue stole her powers.

Honestly, just grab a single comic from the entire checklist, and you’re going to find some gold this month. As for next month, the true face of Tony Stark’s foe is revealed! You’d better not miss it!