IRON MAN 317
technology, however, Stark fell
victim to an attack by warlords in
Vietnam; he was taken prisoner
and seriously injured by shrap-
nel wounds to his chest. Aided by
fellow prisoner and physicist Ho
Yinsen, Stark was able to stabilize
his injury and escape the prison by
constructing the fi rst rudimentary
Iron Man suit. Later discovering
that his wound would kill him
if he ever removes the magnetic
chest-plate that keeps shrapnel
away from his heart, Stark’s very
life became reliant on his techno-
logical prowess—a blunt reversal
of his previous work as an arms
manufacturer whose goal was to
more effi ciently take life away from
others.
Imbued with a new sense of
purpose after his time in captiv-
ity, Stark continually develops new
versions of his Iron Man suit to
help him fi ght crime and the still-
lurking communist threat. Th ough
he no longer maintains a strict ideological stance of U.S. intervention against Soviet
expansion abroad, communist villains—including the Black Widow , Crimson Dynamo,
and Titanium Man—play a signifi cant thematic role in the Iron Man story by provid-
ing a background of foreign foes through whom the narrative can explore confl icted and
confl icting positions of the role the United States should play internationally. Th at the
Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man also use mechanical armored suits provides a
neatly packaged metaphor for the arms race between the two international superpowers.
Th e Mandarin, a recurrent supervillain fi rst introduced in Tales of Suspense #50,
further complicates the question of internationalism in the narrative by utilizing
stereotypically-derived imagery of a magical Chinese descendant of Ghengis Khan—
despite the Mandarin’s “magic” being sophisticated alien technology in the form of
10 powerful rings. In battle after battle, Iron Man’s superior Western technology struggles
to overcome the seemingly mystical Eastern powers of the Mandarin, encapsulating major
political themes of imperialism and military struggle in the wake of the Vietnam War.
Th e Black Widow, a Soviet spy and assassin fi rst introduced in Tales of Suspense
#52, is one of the primary female supervillains to continuously cross paths with Iron
A stamp released by the U.S. Postal Service in July 2007,
commemorating the first issue of The Invincible Iron Man,
published in May, 1968. Marvel Comics/Photofest
