dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily, @ 2009-08-04 21:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | char: iron man/tony stark, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age |
Light up another one, Tony
These clips are from THE AVENGERS# 5, May 1964 and #7, August 1964. Script by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby. Tony Stark has to wear the Iron Man chestplate all the time, because it keeps a piece of shrapnel from moving into his heart. When he lets the armor's power run down, that piece of metal instantly starts digging deeper, causing pain, dizziness and weakness. (This didn't seem the way such an injury would actually work, but it was great drama.) We got a lot of panels of a tortured Iron Man crawling doggedly toward an outlet to recharge his chestplate; he was quite the suffering hero, having to use up his power in a fight and then pay for it. Despite having a damaged heart that could only be kept functioning with machinery, the idea of quitting cigarettes didn't seem to occur to Tony, though. Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne and Reed Richards smoked pipes, Nick Fury and Ben Grimm lit up stogies. But Tony was satisfied with a pack of Lucky Strikes. (I would have loved it if Kirby or an inker had added one panel of Iron Man with a cancer stick protruding from the grille of the Iron Man helmet. Just once.)
1964 might as well be another planet if you're in your twenties today. People smoked EVERYWHERE. Airplanes, restaurants, movie theatres, stadiums. Nobody thought anything of it. People smoked in supermarkets and ground out the butts on the floor. Doctors smoked in their offices. Teachers smoked (but students weren't allowed to). After the Surgeon General started hitting the public over the head with a 2X4 about the dangers of tobacco, habits gradually changed and laws were changed. Today, you see the furtive "cigarette outlaws" sullenly huddled outside buildings on their breaks. But it wasn't always today.