Blacklash and the Burning…

Iron Man arrives at Stark International as Arthur Pithins — the company public relations manager — gives a number of school children a tour of the facility. When Tony changes out of his armor and reports to his secretary, the children have arrived and are excited to meet the world-famous inventor. After Pithins ushers the children out, Tony makes a point to keep himself busy on the opposite end of the compound.

He goes down to the south-west quadrant where he has one of his staff recovering the photos he took of the Roxxon space station responsible for killing the entire town of Allentown, Iowa. Unfortunately, the microwave radiation caused by his battle with Sunturion ruined the photos, ruining the only evidence he had of Roxxon’s crimes.[1]

Elsewhere in the facility, Pithins continues his tour until he is pulled aside by Vic Martinelli, the head of security. Vic is furious that Pithins published a photo of him as Vic’s contract has a privacy clause. With Arthur can’t understand why this is a big deal, Vic tells him not to do it again as it could cost a man his life.

Meanwhile, Tony has returned to his office and is told by Bambi that Yvette Avril has arrived. The former manager of the Stark International in France has accepted Tony’s offer to become the vice president for the whole company. Tony is pleased that she is accepted the offer as it takes a lot of the pressure off running a business while he is busy as Iron Man. Tony decides they should celebrate and Yvette explains that she already to spend the night out with Jim Rhodes, Tony’s best friend and personal pilot. Stark suggests they make it a double date and tries calling his girlfriend Bethany Cabe.

The phone is answered by Beth’s business partner, Ling McPherson who tells Tony that Bethany is out of town on a job and that she’ll be gone for a few days. Tony accepts this but he is bothered that Bethany didn’t tell him and is worried about how distant she has been with him recently. Little does Tony know that Beth hasn’t actually left town yet and had Ling lie for her, even though McPherson doesn’t like it. Bethany refuses to elaborate on what she learned during her recent visit to the Germany embassy but promises to explain everything when she gets back. Packing a gun in her suitcase, she tells Ling to pass a long a message to Tony telling her that she loves him.[2]

Tony decides to go out with Jim and Yvette anyway and as they leave Stark International for a night on the town, Vic Martinelli returns home to his condo in Woods Bend. There he is greeted by his dog, Peanut, and vents about his day at work. Suddenly, he is attacked by the villain formerly known as Whiplash. Now calling himself Blacklash and armed with a new high tech whip, he has been hired to eliminate Martinelli because of his past.[3] Vic tries to defend himself with his gun, but Blacklash can spin his whip around so fast he can deflect bullets. Trying to get away, Vic dives into the estate’s swimming pool. Afraid of electrocuting himself by using his whip in water and with the police arriving on the scene, Blacklash decides to retreat and finish the job later. When Vic emerges from the water he goes back inside his home to check on Peanut and is deeply upset to discover she had been killed by falling rubble.

The next day when Tony and Yvette arrive at work, Tony notices Vic luggage up to his office and asks what’s going on. All Vic will say is that there was an accident at his house and he will be staying at Stark International until repairs are done. Tony suspects that there is more to this story than he is telling and makes a note to check in on Martinelli later. As he heads to his office, Tony doesn’t notice a number of shipping crates that are being loaded into a truck to be shipped to Latveria.[4] While elsewhere on site, Arthur Pithins begins the second tour day of the facility where he shows the children a special chemical tank that is being tested as a method of safely disposing nuclear waste.

However, the calm at Stark International is broken when Blacklast is caught using a delivery truck to smuggle himself into the facility. This causes the alarms to be raised and Vic Martinelli — wanting to handle the situation himself — leads a heavily armed security team to deal with Blacklash. The alarm also prompts Tony to rush off to change into Iron Man and deal with the current crisis. He arrives on the scene just as Martinelli’s security team struggles to stop Blacklash. After blinding Iron man with a concussion blast, Blacklash then tries tossing a fire hydrant at the hero. Reacting instinctively, the Avenger deflects the fire hydrant causing it to smash into the chemical vat that Pithins just finished showing off. As Iron Man recovers his vision, Blacklash tells the hero that he won’t be able to stop him from killing Martinelli because he will have other problems. When Blacklash points behind him, Iron Man turns around and is horrified to discover that the entire Stark International facility is on fire.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Blacklash, Roxxon, Jim Rhodes, Bethany Cabe, Bambi Arbogast, Arthur Pithins, Vic Martinelli, Yvette Avril, Ling McPhearson

Continuity Notes

1. Roxxon’s satellite accidently wiped out Allantown with a misdirected microwave transmission in Iron Man #140. Tony took photos of the space station and destroyed it in issue #142-144.

2. Bethany’s uncharacteristic behavior is complicated. Back in Iron Man #128, she revealed that she was widowed after her husband — a diplomat named Alex Van Tilburg — died in a car wreck caused by his drug abuse. Recently, she was called in to the German Embassy in issue #143. What we’ll learn in issues #152-153 is that Alex’s death was faked by Russian spies who have been trying to get NATO secrets from him. Beth is traveling to Eastern Europe to rescue him.

3. It’s revealed next issue that Vic informed on the mob and was placed under the witness protection program.

4. Latveria is, of course, the homeland of Doctor Doom. We will learn in issues #149-150 that Doctor Doom ordered replacement components needed to run his Time Platform.

Topical References

• Publications that Tony Stark was profiled in are: Scientific American, Playboy and Newsweek. These should all be considered topical as they are real world publications.

• One of the kids has an autograph book that has the autographs of various comic book writers. The ones I can legibly recognize are John Buscema and Walt Simonson. These would not be considered topical. Unlike other real world people, Marvel Comics creators exist in the Marvel Universe in the relative prime of their lives.

• One of the kids says Tony is more attractive than actor Ed Asner. This is obviously a joke since this is what Ed Asner looked like in 1977….

Regardless of how funny it is, this should be considered a topical reference since Asner died in 2021. Also find a kid who knows who Ed Asner is, I dare you.

• The photos of Roxxon’s space station are depicted as being taken on film that needs to be developed in a dark room. Which was the most common method of taking photographs when this story was written back in 1981. However, in a world with digital photography it seems absurd that Tony would resort to installing such archaic technology in his high advanced suit of battle armor. Obviously this is a topical reference. One could assume that rather than having film fogged by radiation, one could assume that the storage medium in which digital photos were taken ended up getting corrupted by the same radiation.

• The German Embassy in this story is specifically referred to as the West German Embassy. This should be considered a topical reference. Following the end of World War II, Germany was split in two with each half taking on a different political ideology than the other. A constitutional republic in the west and one-party socialist republic in the east. The fragmented country reunified in 1989. As such, references to West Germany here should be considered topical.

• Tony manages to score tickets to a Broadway showing of Evita for himself, Jim, and Yvette. This should be considered topical as this story was written during the musical’s original Broadway run from 1979 to 1983. Although there was a revival in 2012 it ended barely a year later.