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The 1970 Avengers #83 story titled "Come On In... The Revolution's Fine!" features the debut of Valkyrie (sort of), and a theme that has made it a topic of discussion.
Posted in: ComicConnect Sponsored, Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: bill everett, George Tuska, iron man
George Tuska and Bill Everett on Iron Man vs Sub-Mariner, at Auction
Best known as the 1st app of Moondragon, Iron Man #54 by Everett, Friedrich, Tuska, and Colletta also features a visually spectacular Iron Man vs Sub-Mariner battle.
Article Summary
- Iron Man #54, by Bill Everett, Mike Friedrich, and George Tuska, features Iron Man battling Sub-Mariner.
- This 1973 issue is renowned as the first appearance of Moondragon, with Everett’s unique artistic influence.
- Everett's involvement may extend beyond inking Sub-Mariner’s face in this issue, perhaps shaping Moondragon’s design and key visuals.
- The story combines a classic Iron Man versus Sub-Mariner conflict with quirky artificial intelligence references.
Iron Man #54, with story by Bill Everett and Mike Friedrich, pencils by George Tuska, and inks by Vince Colletta and Everett, is best known as the first appearance of Moondragon, and is also the issue before Thanos was introduced into the Marvel Universe. Cover-dated January 1973, the issue hit newsstands in October 1972, and was part of the final handful of comic books that Everett worked on before his death on February 27, 1973. Everett was in the middle of his involvement on a run on most issues of Sub-Mariner #50-63 at this time, and had a previous noteworthy collaboration on this particular pairing of characters by inking Gene Colan for the cover of 1968's Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1. Tuska was midway through a decade-long stretch on the title that would ultimately last for most issues of Iron Man #5-106. Friedrich was also in the middle of a lengthy run on the title, scripting most of Iron Man #48-81.
Notably, most sources credit Everett with inking the Sub-Mariner's face throughout this issue. Of course, there are some well-remembered instances of similar things happening during this era, such as Marie Severin redrawing the Hulk's face for Jim Steranko's cover of Incredible Hulk Annual #1, Curt Swan redrawing Superman's face on Alex Toth's Limited Collectors' Edition #C-41 Super Friends cover, and Murphy Anderson and Al Plastino redrawing faces for Jack Kirby's Superman in some of the Fourth World material (and it's even more complicated in that case). Everett's artistic involvement in Iron Man #54 seems a bit more extensive than just inking the Sub-Mariner's face, as the look of Moondragon (Madame MacEvil, originally) feels like an Everett-influenced design, and other places in this issue seem more like Everett than Tuska/Colletta.
Aside from a plot designed around getting Iron Man and Sub-Mariner to fight, one of the highlights of the story is Moondragon's quirky artificially intelligent companion. The usage of the computer science-related phrase "garbage in, garbage out" here in a 1973 story caught me by surprise, though a glance at newspapers from the era confirms that the phrase was already making its way into the mainstream by that time. Beyond that, Iron Man #54 is purely meant to be a battle issue, and it delivers on that front, as evidenced by this spectacular splash page by George Tuska, Vince Colletta, and Bill Everett, which is up for auction at Comic Connect today.
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