Iron Man Vietnam : Patriots, Heroes, and Other People, 1967
So- Iron Man versus his Russian counterpart, the Titanium Man. We’re basically in the business here of Marvel’s heroes battling villains. The villains are becoming increasingly complex and humanized, themselves, but it’s action-adventure, very visual, and super-imposed across various settings so as to make each comic unique. What I find interesting here, in a strip whose identity revolves around industrial espionage with a hi-tech weapons/ survival equipment-inventor hero, is the way that background reflects attitudes about real life beliefs and events.
Those attitudes will become conflicted in mainstream America, a haunting division which still holds interesting reflections today.
In the national capitol battle (TOS #81-83) we see a pair of characters- intended, I think, to be Washington professionals- mull over the dream of reason replacing brutality. What Stan couldn’t know: Peace was sued in a plan code named “Pennsylvania” July of 1967, where two French scientists, working with professor/President Johnson adviser Henry Kissinger, negotiated an exchange with Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and specifically, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.
Reason today has transformed warfare via technology, to be sure, though open, direct communication between citizens has yet to remove governmental enmity. The motives behind opposing governmental interests deserve the sort of look that doesn’t quickly translate into flashy, visual action prose. That said, in 1966, Marvel’s effort is adult and ambitious- a metaphor-filled touchstone to their signature “world outside your window.”
Flash forward, 1967: a year later, Iron Man is the one superhero who actually takes the fight to Viet Nam, at a time when American attitudes about the emerging war there were beginning to shift, particularly among the youth-based counter culture.
For Tales of Suspense #92 (cover dated August, 1967-on stands in May), we have an intriguing opening that might be seen as a fake-out. A soldier’s opening fire on a powerful, zooming Iron Man. He declares: They work! Stark’s tracer shells are zeroin’ in on Iron Man—Just as he said they would!
Why is Iron Man a military target- of his alter ego’s own device, no less?
A terrific story involves you along the way in its possibilities: the mind automatically seeks out predictive queries to probe the undefined elements of the tale, piecing together alternatives that appeal to the imagination.
Here, the possibility of Iron Man as an enemy of the U.S. Army for any reason gets resolved quickly: he’s testing a new weapon soldiers will use in the field. The Stark of this era is very clearly still in the exotic munitions business, albeit he’s clearly loyal to U.S. government contract affiliation. (It’s not certain to me if he also provides weaponry for other international allies. If this weaponry’s put in the hands of the Vietnamese recruits, we get a pretty uncomfortable scenario when, as so many did, they switch sides to fulfill family loyalty-based vendettas.) While he’s in the neighborhood, he’s called to help with an insurmountable fortification, containing a deadly science-wielding enemy. Only as the last page arrives do we get the approach of the Big Heavy, and then, with no clue foreshadowing the returned Titanium Man. It’s not yet apparent, since a new homegrown foe, “Half Face,” is mentioned as his objective.
First, Iron Man suspensefully enters the jungle, a kind of substitute G.I. taking on VC’s in his super-heroic idiom. He’s more than a match for his human foes; I think it’s meant to be a kind of imagined wish fulfillment for the tough but always vulnerable Army and Marine soldiers trekking those sweltering jungles. As reported this year in the New York Times by veteran Bill Reynolds:
We experienced numerous small firefights and booby traps; often we mused that if the enemy didn’t get us, surely the treacherous terrain, excessive heat or the swarms of irritating red ants and mosquitoes certainly would.
His resistance to snipers (he senses them- his armor’s “spider-sense” style detectors are rarely mentioned) goes a step further when he powers up to rock them out of a tree! (I find the finite nature of his power- the choices he has to make in diverting it to one cause or the next- always kind of cool.) As he approaches the stronghold on foot, we see he’s been identified, and meet Half-Face, in a sequence that clearly reflects Colan’s affection for gothic Frankenstein’s laboratory. We get a preview of Colan’s horror art we’ll see one day in Tomb of Dracula, with creepy castle shadows and the covered figure flickering to life beneath a storm of directed electricity. Iron Man defeats robot dogs, before pausing in the distant presence of Half-Face’s living secret weapon!
I like the blurry tunnel-shaking panels on page two as the opponents converge in the dark in TOS #93. We’ll soon discover this story’s of a pattern of Titanium Man and the Russians recurring as arch enemies each year. In this case, however, the disgraced Communist champion’s operating without official sanction, his loyalty tied more directly to Half-Face, who has improved the armor and given him renewed purpose. Iron Man automatically puts forward the author’s intention-without observation first- that this will be a deadlier, improved version of his emerald foe. (I’m not so sure Titanium Man’s armor’s big enough to displace water rather than sink- he’s said to have been found floating in the ocean after their last battle!)
Stories were half the pages of the full-book offerings over in Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Daredevil. Colan made more numerous use of bigger panels than his compatriots Kirby and Ditko, the prime artistic architects of the Marvel Age. This speeds up the pace. The splash with Titanium Man’s unveiled first attack is filled with force lines, but also a remarkable Colan worm’s eye angle behind Iron Man that “puts you right there” ! His action work depicts fluid figures, who almost dance in their curving dispositions. Iron Man, a fairly tough customer already at this point- but still vulnerable- spends much of his time battling Titanium Man by dodging and ducking his massive blows and plentiful laser beams. We get a nice merging of the usually powerful, strong-looking hero with Colan’s predilection for evasive poses. The tunnel setting provides a unique fight maneuver, Iron Man skating in dizzying loops as T-Man blasts and gouges its walls.
As usual, Stan’s not sympathetic to the Soviets, but does feature a Vietnamese scientist appearing as the villainous Half-Face, who acquires a humanizing dilemma. Too bad they didn’t get there first with “Trap Jaw”! Now, our villain’s near-victory rant segues to a painful flashback, to his anonymous enlistment to develop explosives within this castle, for “the Red Regime.” His indoctrinated belief in The Party over Family does not keep his mind from wandering to his wife and child, whose sorrow distracts and moves him. His hope to reunite with them upon success meets an ironic cataclysm, when the chemical synthesis sharing his attention blows up in his face. Now in the present, considering himself a monster, the nameless scientist abandons thoughts of ever seeing them again, and triggers a power surge in the Titanium Man armor at his command. T-Man wrecks the tunnel, ignores Iron Man’s divisive taunt, and begins crushing the Golden Avenger.
Iron Man’s power runs low against his potent enemy, leaving him little choice but to feign helplessness. From the floor, he hears their plan: Titanium Man is to destroy a local village, concurrent with a U.S. fly-over- and make the carnage seem to be from American bombers!
As the quickly-paced story poises at that climatic cliffhanger, we also see a shadowed figure request access at Stark Industries. This intruder will test security for deliberate reasons- for he is S.H.I.E.L.D.’s newly-assigned security attache, a brand new supporting character, Jasper Sitwell.
One element of the previous conflicts with the Titanium Man- and I notice it more in those stories than is usual for Iron Man stories- is a use of crowds to affirm his popularity within the Marvel Universe America. People root for him between the panels of his struggle in a way you won’t see for Spider-Man. They’re united in fear of the enemy and bolster one another’s faith in Iron Man to prevail. The one time they battle before a crowd -in the last of three chapters- will be quite interesting, as both he and the T-Man are foreign elements. The villagers clearly comprehend what’s at stake in a way that’s quick, a kind of comics shorthand, yet compelling. They want to run, but a man among them points out, should Iron Man fail, they’re doomed anyway. Their hopes lie with the American.
Some might claim Half-Face’s origin telegraphs the ending: he discovers his family’s fled to the very nearby village he’s ordered to destroy. That seems disingenuous: I think it’s a pretty decent surprise. It’s unlikely his wife would be there free of Half-Face’s clan, as wives were subordinate to the husband’s family, but the change of heart from her acceptance quells his villainous intent.
Especially considering the order to make the attack look like bombers, I don’t see why T-Man’s flight capacity is forgotten, most egregiously in the moment when Iron Man’s demolished the controls for his armor/body coordination and he simply falls off a bridge to lie defeated. It’s frankly a bit convenient to declare this to be the end of both Half-Face- who, it’s hinted, killed G.I.s who previously came to his castle, but now declares himself loyal to “freedom”- and Titanium Man, who is incapacitated but hardly destroyed. There’s no effort mentioned to apprehend him. The drama of the moment relies on a recharged Iron Man’s breakthrough when routing his repulsers to a sensitive area of his foe’s armor, and Half-Face’s decision to blast Titanium Man when he attempts a last sneak attack.
I can’t say how excited fans were to see Titanium Man yet again, the third time in three years, simply because, tactic changes aside, there remains a sameness to their set-to. I think the creative team was uncertain of their super-villain, despite his more interesting personal stakes and motivations, and so relied on a proven seller to provide the encounter’s muscle.
As for the villagers: we’re at a stage where America differentiated between the powers in control of the North and South, but the native culture’s not really different. In reality, woman were volunteering to join the Northern Army, provoked by increasing cruelty on behalf of American soldiers- reports of which soon undermined draft efforts further. If Stan could’ve known that, would he have dared make Half-Face’s wife a soldier? The story’s dramatic beat required her innocence, anyway.
The story about war splitting a family- motivating conflict- actually echoes reality, even in these ambitious twelve-page stories splitting twelve cent comics.
I can’t say the propaganda stories-as reasonable and passionate as they seemed, with our military, a long-standing comics constituency, were in harms’ way- brought out the best craft in the creators. I do think Stan Lee came his editorially point of view honestly: his stint in World War Two was spent crafting propaganda and media directed at concerns of enlisted men. I think he maintained a genuine affinity for the U.S. Army and worked with numerous military veterans. It’s fair to speculate the dark days of McCarthyism- the House of UnAmerican Activties Committee and their “Red-Baiting” approach to patriotism through paranoia in 1953 through 1955- and their fall out in the form of comics censorship shaped a sense among comics creators that they did not want to be seen as divergent, unwholesome, degenerate- un-American.
Better-executed stories are on the way for Iron Man: the Grey Gargoyle assault on Stark Enterprises has more surprise and suspense, and the Maggia/A.I.M. story pouring out of that’s engaging, with new settings, villains (Whiplash), and better subplots than we’ve yet seen, resolving in great stuff like the Madame Masque ruse in the next year.
Senate Committees, investigations of an embattled Stark (branded a traitor): these themes, repeated from the 60s, might even remind some readers of embroiled figures of today. If you want to understand how people feel about President Trump, for example, imagine the Mandarin’s conspiracy to frame Tony Stark as a collaborator with Russian agents in Invincible Iron Man #10, with a very different “champion of freedom” at its center! It’s another metaphorical refraction -like with the cyber-hacking conflicts- of these decades-old stories in the news stories of an increasingly-divided readership. In a time when trust in institutions has eroded a common bellwether of facts, Iron Man stories are still a prism with something for everyone. Arguably, the requisites that sell news are now nearly as lurid, and sometimes as fantastic, as those comics!
Despite the controversies of Vietnam, Marvel continued, in Iron Man, depicting patriotism identified with heroism. A general public trust in institutions defined heroic spy figures like Nick Fury and his CIA-like agency, SHIELD, represented monthly in Iron Man by “bromide-spewing” regulations stickler and daring bow-tied good guy, Jasper Sitwell. He’s deliberately written as square as Les Nesman, almost a counter-cultural parody of a federal agent in his buttoned-up demeanor. This sets up nicely his resultant entanglement with Madame Masque, and a twist that’s not a twist, but nonetheless, a neat surprise. (Can you believe he’s a HYDRA agent movies?) Despite fall-out from Tony’s almost-pointless secret I.D. hassles, here and in Nick’s own mag and in CAPTAIN AMERICA, there’s still little doubt SHIELD are the good guys- a position that won’t be undermined for years. Reading these stories, I’m struck by the strangely flipped attitudes about trust in government agencies and Russians, between swaths of individuals who considered themselves now and then as conservatives or liberals.
The World Outside Your Window Even as this storyline hit the stands:
Protestors planned to march in October in Washington.
Plan Pennsylvania: Americans agreed to covertly cease bombing; in exchange, North Vietnam halted their military advance into key areas of South Vietnam. As detailed in a New York Times article by Robert K. Brigham: “Once North Vietnam acted, the United States would freeze its combat forces at existing levels and peace talks could begin.” How very unfortunate that Reason failed: despite initial negotiations on July 24th , on August 20th, 200 sorties flew, the most yet against North Vietnam, explained as “orders (had been) delayed by inclement weather.” Most likely, Johnson, convinced of the value of the strikes, couldn’t pass up a chance to hit key areas, in case the deal prevented him from doing so later. Brigham writes: Johnson...was desperately trying to keep his options open by escalating the bombing just before a pause, but in the end he actually narrowed his choices.
Trying to placate both antiwar members of Congress and his generals, who wanted a wider war, Johnson tried to find a middle ground when there was none.” His choice to “pour on the steel” led the Viet Cong-who believed taking Saigon would end American influence- to a retaliatory push known as the Tet Offensive, which in turn called for an even great increase in American forces, controversially drafted. Months after Pennsylvania’s secret failure, over half a million American soldiers now fought in Vietnam.
Objectors on the same college campuses as the small, growing contingent of newly-older Marvel fans organized draft resistance efforts. One, journalist David Harris, estimates between a quarter and a half a million young men joined him in rejecting their draft notices. On October 16th, 1967, he helped organize a National Draft Card Return, in which hundreds of cards were sent back to the government during 18 rallies across America. He was one of about 3200 eventually tried and jailed (in 1968), as he denied his college exemption, reasoning another, poor young person would go in his stead, to a war that presented, he believed, a moral quagmire. His story was told in a NY Times Op Ed, June, 2017, as well as his book The War and What It Did To Us.
In his words: “Reality is made by what we do, not what we talk about. Values that are not embodied in behavior do not exist. People can change, if we provide them the opportunity to do so. Movements thrive by engaging all comers, not by calling people names, breaking windows or making threats. Whatever the risks, we cannot lose by standing up for what is right. That’s what allows us to be the people we want to be.”
Raising my children myself was so hard, I cannot even say it. You know, it was very dangerous when I was fighting in the war. You could die anytime. But raising my kids alone was much harder. Sometimes, I would just sit by myself and cry.
I still dream about the war sometimes. I dream about when a bomb is about to explode, and I shout to my unit to lie down. I have seen so many things, saw eight out of 10 people in my unit become wounded or die at once. War is cruel. Cruel. When you have a war, people and families are divided — between husband and wife, parent and child. Now my wish is that there is no war in the world, that we can help each other lead our lives instead of fighting. That is my message. I want peace. Le Thi My Le -The Women Who Fought for Hanoi NY Times June 6, 2017
Many people who fought in the war, maybe they could never forgive America. But when I joined the war, I knew everything had two sides. And the sides had the same hurt together. In Vietnam, maybe we lost our country, lost our family, had a lot of people die — but in America it is the same. All the soldiers are the sons of parents, and they lost their children, too. It is all the same, the same hurt.
- Nguyen Thi Hiep The Women Who Fought for Hanoi NY Times June 6, 2017
From the Times, I’ll close with the story of Bill Reynolds, a veteran of the Ninth Division, a.k.a. Charlie Company. It is for such men- and the children playing in the back yards and streets of America- that Stan and Gene crafted this tale, grafting their colorful adventurer onto a real world intrigue with motivations and consequences that we as a nation were only beginning to explore.
Once he was conscripted, Reynolds reported these conflagrations in the Mekong Delta, coincidentally each time happening in his true soldier life along with roughly each month of this four-color offering. On May 15th he saw his first major action, lost a good friend, as his unit inflicted 90 Viet Cong casualities in heavy, brutal fighting.
“Heavy automatic rifle fire and rocket propelled grenades screamed in along with small weapons fire. My buddies were dropping left and right, but by the grace of God I raced safely back to a small berm next to the creek where everyone able was scrambling.” Air power protected them while their enemy fired from heavily-fortified bunkers. While Huey gunships covered them, his friend Second Platoon Medic Fourth Class Specialist Bill Geir risked his life to help Reynolds’ friends, until he lost his own life to a shot that tore under his armpit. Reynolds bandaged him while the Third Platoon medic Elijah Taylor attempted to reach him...to no avail. Bill watched evacuation Hueys try to lift soldiers out of the field, only to be shot a hundred feet off the ground. One landed directly on top of Specialist Forrest Ramos, who’d rolled out to safety. 47 American soldiers died; their Alpha Company, decimated.
Finally:
“A few weeks later, on July 11, Charlie Company was caught out in the open by the enemy and we lost five more brave soldiers, including my high school classmate Phil Ferro and four buddies. The Vietcong escaped that night, so we were unable to exact our revenge.”
The rest of their grueling experience was spent on “routine patrols, with the usual booby traps and fire fights.” He eventually came home to a disapproving American crowd.
As per the Times: Bill Reynolds is a Vietnam veteran and the director of veterans’ affairs for the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. His combat experience with Charlie Company is featured in the documentary “Brothers in War” and the book “The Boys of ’67,” by Andrew Wiest.
It is more difficult to question the nature of truth, to be sure; it is human nature to accept stories that follow our own preconceptions. But for the sake of freedom, and the brave sacrifices made by those who served, no matter the games of power wielded by our governments, I hope we as a country make our way back in the direction of consensus truths, however divergent our opinions then might be!
On this June day I write, a Veterans Reform Bill, expanding previous legislation from the Obama administration to increase bureaucratic accountability and aid care closer to home for vets, was signed by President Trump into law, so there’s news relevant to patriotism and thoughts of our country’s soldiers. However imperfect we as creators and citizens might be, may we look to the well being of those who would stand strong, when time and toil has yolked them with the weak and sick.
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