Iron Man #154
The Other Side of Madness!
To try and get over the end of his relationship with Bethany Cabe, Iron Man decides to head to the Yonkers Raceway to try and forget his troubles. He is unaware that someone is following him on a sky-cycle. When his pursuer tries firing at Iron Man he strikes a building by mistake. Alerted by the blast, Iron Man quickly flies down to a rooftop patio and uses a magnetic shield to protect the patrons from the falling debris. After blasting the rubble to dust, he finds no sign of his attacker and continues on his way. Meanwhile, his pursuer continues to follow so he can destroy Iron Man for his master, the Other.
When Tony arrives at the raceway, he doesn’t get stay long after he gets a call from his secretary, Bambi Arbogast. She tells him that one of the technicians at the cryogenics lab went missing and a sky-sled has gone missing from the research wing. Although Bambi assures Tony that Vic Martinelli has everything under control, he decides to head back to work. Tony is about to take a cab back to Stark International, he decides to book it there as Iron Man after getting an emergency notification.
When Iron Man arrives on the scene he quickly finds Vic Martinelli who tells him that there is something going down at the loading docks. Iron Man races there and finds the Unicorn riding around on the sky-cycle lugging around dock workers in a net. He threatens to kill them all if Iron Man doesn’t come out and face him. When the Avenger arrives, the Unicorn tells him that he has come to finish him off for his master, the Other. He reveals that he got out of his cryogenic prison thanks to an explosion overloading the holding chamber. The surge of electricity and cryogenic chemicals apparently curing the illness that was slowly killing him.[1]
What becomes clear to Iron Man is that the Unicorn has gone completely insane and has convinced himself that by destroying Iron Man he will win the Other’s love. Iron Man tries to convince the Unicorn that “The Other” was actually the Titanium Man and that he was deported back to Russia some time ago.[2] Iron Man frees the captured dock workers, but the Unicorn tries to knock a freighter ship on them. It takes all of Iron Man’s strength to prevent from falling on the workers. This greatly drains Iron Man’s power supply leaving him at the Unicorn’s mercy. While waiting for his solar cells to recharge his batteries, Iron Man tries once more to convince the Unicorn that “The Other” is gone. When he points out that Titanium Man hasn’t contacted him since he got free, the Unicorn finally realizes that he has been abandoned.
The Unicorn then turns away and walks into Long Island Sound to drown. Iron Man tries to stop him but is still too weak to go after him.[3]
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Unicorn, Vic Martinelli, Bambi Arbogast
Continuity Notes
The Unicron goes into a lot all at one here. The facts:
After receiving a power boost the Unicorn had greatly shortened his life span, as seen in Iron Man #4. This later evolved into a brain disorder after having the Mandarin briefly take over his body as seen in Iron Man #57-58 and 68.
He was later recovered by the Titanium Man — then operating as “The Other” — who offered him a cure if he destroyed Iron Man. Unicorn was defeated and Iron Man put him in cryogenic suspension until a cure could be found. See Iron Man #113-115.
The explosion that damaged the Unicorn’s cryogenic suspension pod was caused by Blacklash when he recently attacked Stark International. See Iron Man #146-147.
Titanium Man’s deportation happened after Iron Man defeated him in Iron Man #135.
This isn’t the end of the Unicorn but he will remain MIA for a long time. He will resurface again in Captain America #619 as a prisoner at a prison in Siberia. As of this writing (January, 2022) how he ended up there has yet to be explained.
Topical References
Tony is depicted as having a pager for emergency alerts. This should be considered topical as pagers are obsolete technology. One could assume that Tony instead has a cell phone and received a text notification of some kind.
The cabbie about to take Tony as a fare complains that Tony owes him $1.10 for waiting time. This should be considered topical because of inflation. I’m not about to look up what waiting time for a taxi in New York is now, consider it your homework assignment if you’re curious.