Reprints Iron Man #149-150, 249-250
Written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton.
Penciled by John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton.
Inked by Bob Layton.
The Armored Avenger and the Monarch of Latveria battle each other across time!
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| Variant cover. |
Tony Stark (AKA the Invincible Iron Man) discovers that his company, Stark International, has been selling "specialized electronics components" to the nation of Latveria, even though Stark has forbidden any sales to Latveria because it's the native country of Doctor Doom. Though Doom has been recently overthrown, Stark fears that anything sent to Latveria could fall into Doom's hands. He fires the employee responsible for the sales and cancels the shipment.
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| Stark fires Zurrow for selling components to Latveria. Is it me or does Zurrow resemble Rodney Dangerfield? |
But Doom doesn't take this lightly. He needs the components to boost the power of his time machine. He's been traveling through time, meeting with various sorcerers. Doom wants to learn their spells so he can resurrect his mother, who was a sorcerer herself. His scientist, Dr. Gert Hauptmann, assists him with improving the time machine. Hauptmann hates Doom for killing his brother and secretly plots revenge.
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| Doom travels back in time to learn sorcery from Cagliostro. |
When Doom learns that the shipments were cancelled, he sends his agents to retrieve them. Iron Man fails to stop this and Doom's flunkies escape, taking the components back to Latveria.
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| Stark encounters Latverian soldiers at the airport. |
Stark decides to handle this matter personally. He takes off for Latveria and comes face to face with Doom. The Latverian tells Stark that the components are his since he paid for them. Iron Man disagrees and the battle begins.
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| Doom's "molecule expander" allows him to shoot boulders out of his finger tips. Very cool! |
Iron Man and Doom don't realize they've stepped onto a time machine. When Hauptmann turns on the machine, it sends them both back in time. For good measure, Hauptmann destroys the time machine, forever trapping Doom and Iron Man in the past.
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| Hauptmann sends Doom & Iron Man back in time. |
Doom and Iron Man keep fighting, until they realize they've been sent back in time...to Camelot! Within no time, they find themselves mixed up in a battle between King Arthur and his evil sister, Morgan le Fay.
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| Doctor Doom meets Morgan le Fay. |
Will Iron Man and Doctor Doom survive the battle? If they do, how can they get back to the present day with no time machine?
Review:
I remember picking up this story at 7-11 back in the Summer of 1981. I was fascinated with King Arthur at the time and I've always been a sucker for time travel stories, so I was in Comic Book Heaven. I loved it then and it's still great, probably my favorite Iron Man story, and one of my favorite Doom stories as well.
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| Gorgeous & frightening depiction of time travel from Layton & Romita. |
Story:
David Michelinie and Bob Layton are rightly considered the best Iron Man plotters of all time. They mix in just enough corporate politics with the superheroics.
They also write Doom with the right mix of villainy, intelligence and nobility. I especially liked the thought balloons where Doom and Stark praise each others' technological genius—it showed a mutual respect between the two.
And sending them back in time was a nice touch—it forces them to conserve their powers, since they can't plug in and recharge in Camelot.
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| Doom & Iron Man slug it out. |
We don't see much of Iron Man's supporting cast, but fans of the Iron Man movies will be glad to see a cameo from James "Rhodey" Rhodes.
Art:
It's great. John Romita Jr. and Layton compliment each other nicely here. In a previous review of an Iron Man tpb, I mentioned that in their early collaborations, Layton's work was more visible than Romita's. Here, we see Romita beginning to find his style and Layton embellishing rather than overpowering the pencils.
They also give us several two-page spreads that are very nice. I don't have access to a scanner that can do them justice, but this will give you an idea:
How does it look?:
Marvel did a great job here, it looks like it should, no weird coloring job. This page is a great example of how it looks:
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| Iron Man levitates King Arthur's throne with his "sorcery". |
Extras:
This tpb contains a sequel to "Doomquest" (by Michelinie and Layton, without Romita) that was published 100 issues and 8 years later. I don't review the non-Bronze Age stuff, but I will say that I enjoyed it more than I expected, even if it's not as good as the earlier story.
We also get an unused cover and a nice introductory essay from Michelinie.
Iron Man: Doomquest is an excellent story and a high point for Iron Man during the Bronze Age. Strongly recommended.
J.A. Morris' rating:
4 Sals!
