IRON MAN #150 (1981)
Writers: David Michelinie & Bob Layton
Pencils: John Romita Jr.
cover by John Romita Jr. & Bob Layton
Second part of the classic Iron Man vs Doctor Doom story.
Now with Camelot!
Doom really doesn’t care about being stuck in the past, but it hits Iron Man since this kind of thing doesn’t happen to him often.
(there are precedents with Iron Man being stuck in the past, because comics)
Of course, this being Camelot means that the Knights of the Round Table are nearby.
Doom doesn’t like being asked to kneel to King Arthur, so Iron Man has to break up a fight.
Both time travelers are brought to King Arthur, and they have to deal with the suspect of working with Morgana Le Fay.
Iron Man demonstrates that he’s not working for an evil sorceress by making the throne levitate thanks to comic book science magnetism.
AND IT WORKS, despite the reaction from the crowd.
How is Doom going to top that?
By being Doctor Freaking Doom, that’s how.
Now it’s up to King Arthur to decide whether to let these strangers free or to imprison them in the castle… but it’s time to take a nap, so f##k it let’s deal with this in the morning.
I have to admit that I’m not particularly impressed by this guy.
Meanwhile Iron Man is left between exploring the past or dwelling on the possibility of never see his home again.
When in doubt, always take the third option.
Especially if the third option is a hot woman.
Doctor Doom is also offered the chance of some companionship.
Which he takes… by hypnotizing the girl into revealing how to find Morgana.
We’ve seen him use a wide variety of hypnotic technology before, but by now he can just do it by himself.
DOORS ARE FOR PEASANTS.
Perhaps the reason why Doom prefers to use technology for hypnotizing people is that his direct approach seems kind of dangerous, as explained by a rather angry King Arthur.
King Arthur recounts the origin of Morgana (which I’m not going to recap because come on), including an important detail: in Marvel Comics, she’s stuck in her castle and can never leave.
Except all the times where she will leave, because comics.
Speaking of Morgana’s castle: just how big is the entrance!?
The bridge is just an illusion (a direct reference to Doom’s holograms from last issue is made), and the moat is FILLED WITH ACID.
It turns out that Morgana was actually waiting for Doctor Doom to show up, and she introduces herself.
Doom is rather impressed. Considering these two will have a rocky relationship in the future, it’s no surprise that he began to flirt as soon as they met.
Doom explains WHY he was looking to reach this time: he wants Morgana’s help to free his mother from Mephisto.
Morgana is just as impressed by Doom as he was impressed by her cleavage how similar they are.
The price is King Arthur’s death, which Doom leading an army of undead soldiers powered by a chip of Excalibur. (!!!!)
Yep! Bet you didn’t expect to see THIS in an Iron Man comic, but it’s AWESOME.
Aaaand now I get why we rarely see Doctor Doom riding a horse.
This would normally be the moment when the comic would end in a cliffhanger, but this is a double length story so we can enjoy THE MOST METAL FIGHT EVER.
As AMAZING as that is, Iron Man figures out that if he wants to take out the undead army he’ll have to deal with Morgana directly.
She deals with him by sending some magic rocks that shoot darkness…
…and by turning her pet hawk into A FREAKING DRAGON.
Which Iron Man defeats by freezing him!!!
Unfortunately we don’t get a proper Iron Man vs Morgana fight, because once he gets inside her castle she just teleports away.
And since she had to use the Excalibur piece in order to do this, her army is done.
DOOM IS NOT HAPPY.
Doom blames Iron Man for having thwarted his mission to save his mother from Hell, swearing vengeance.
But first he needs to go back to the present, and he proposes a truce to do just that.
Iron Man reluctantly agrees. This is one of the earliest, and most well done, times where Doom being true to his word is taken to the test.
And so they work together to build a makeshift time machine.
Two things of interest: first, it’s pretty clear that at least at the moment Doom is not aware that Iron Man is Tony Stark.
Which makes sense since he’s never met Stark and he’s only fought Iron Man as part of the Avengers.
Second, how often do we get to see how Doom’s helmet looks like beneath the cowl?
The time machine is a bit weird, but it does the job.
It’s strictly a one-way ticket, which might explain why Iron Man never bothered to rebuild it.
(obviously Doom wouldn’t need to because he already has the time platform)
That’s the end, including the promise of a sequel!
Which we will get. Multiple sequels, actually.
Doom significance: 9/10
This provides the backbone for Doom’s relationship with Morgana and Iron Man. The only thing that prevents it from reaching a 10/10 is that most of what actually happens has little repercussions; it’s more of a thematic impact than anything.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Come on, time traveling Iron Man fighting an army of undead warriors powered by Excalibur?
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
This is a GREAT story. It’s not perfect… for an Iron Man anniversary it’s more of a Doctor Doom story, plus King Arthur and most of the mythology except Morgana is kind of wasted… but this isn’t the same of a quality score: you can EASILY publish this today as it is.
It was a Doombot all along
It’s very unlikely that Morgana would’ve reacted the same way to a robot.
Destroy the FF! & Take over the world
Interestingly neither! The real objective was…
Times Doom has tried to save his mother from Hell: 5
I’m not really sure Doom’s plan would’ve worked, but still…
Crazy tech
It’s not the kind of story that uses a lot of technology, so by default it’s the gizmo built with Iron Man.