Metamorphosis Oddity

Following his recent battle with Advance Idea Mechanics, Tony Stark is examining his armor to find out what device has been causing him neurological damage. Upon closer examination, the suits cloaking device is the culprit and he removes it before it can cause any more damage.[1] That’s when Tony’s smart watch reminds him of his morning press conference. Tony is delighted to publicly unveil Stark Enterprises to the world and heads down from his penthouse to his office below. He once again finds his new secretary being bombarded with employees who have administrative issues. Believing that she is in over his depth, he knows who he can hire who will be able to handle the pressures of the job.[2]

After the press conference, Tony shows members of the media around the his new Los Angeles facility. Along the way he is impressed with the questions being asked by a reporter named Marcy Pearson, so much so that he asks her out to lunch so he can offer her a job as Stark Enterprise’s new head of public relations. Flattered by Tony’s charm, Marcy agrees to meet with him in a half hour.

To pass the time, Tony oversees the delivery of Jim Rhode’s new Adap-Tor, an aircraft that can change from jet to helicopter. Jim is exited to try it out and tells Tony that the manufacturer even sent them the latest model instead of the one they ordered.[3]

When Tony meets up with Marcy he decides to take her up to the cliff-side mansion he is having built before they go to dinner so he can make sure construction is going according to plan. While Jim is trying to make sense of the Adap-Tor’s instructions, Tony takes Marcy for Disneyland for lunch, having rented out the entire park so they aren’t disturbed. Pearson is impressed by Tony Stark’s display and agrees to take on his job. This happens just as something is going wrong with the Adap-Tor, prompting Jim to send a distress call to Tony. Receiving the notification, Tony excuses himself so he can slip away and change into Iron Man.

When Iron Man arrives at Stark Enterprises he sees that the Adap-Tor has converted into a walker and is trashing the place with weapons that were hidden inside its construction. When the Avenger attempts to destroy the Adap-Tor, he discovers that Jim is trapped inside and realizes there is nothing he can do without hurting his best friend. Soon, the Adap-Tor attaches itself to the Stark Enterprise head office and activates its self-destruct system. Jim tells Tony to evacuate the building while he tries to disarm the bomb inside the Adap-Tor. Iron Man complies and once the building is evacuated he returns to Jim who still hasn’t figured out how to disarm the self-destruct system. With time running out, Jim orders Tony to blast the Adap-Tor with his repulsors. Since he’s going to die either way, Jim pulls the right wire, causing the Adap-Tor to shut down at the last moment.

A few days alter, Marcy Pearson’s first job for Tony Stark is to minimize the negative publicity generated by the Adap-Tor fiasco. After congratulating Marcy on a job well done, Tony gets a phone call from his old rival, Justin Hammer.[4] Justin reveals that he was the one who sent the Adap-Tor as a present, welcoming him back to the world of commerce but also to warn Stark to not to become a thorn in his side in the future. Hanging up the phone, Tony vows that if Hammer interferes with his business again, he will become a very large thorn indeed.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Justin Hammer, Jim Rhodes, Atha Williams, Marcy Pearson

Continuity Notes

1. Tony’s recent battle and the discovery of his neurological damage was covered in Iron Man #215-216.

2. Tony is referring to his former secretary Bambi Arbogast who had worked for Tony since Iron Man #118. When Obadiah Stane took over Stark International in issue #173 she quit the following issue. She’ll be back on the job in Iron Man #222.

3. Here, Tony asks Jim how his burns are healing. Jim was seriously burned while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere from space in a damaged suit of Iron Man armor. Again, this happened in issue #215-216.

4. A footnote here reminds readers of Justin Hammer’s last big clash with Iron Man. This was in Iron Man #125-127 when Hammer framed Iron Man for murdering a diplomat in order to win a lucrative government contract. This footnote omits the more recent time Iron Man foiled one of Hammer’s scheme, a drug smuggling operation, in Iron Man #141.

Topical References

• Jim quips that getting the newest model of the Adap-Tor is like ordering a Yugo and getting a Porsche. This should be considered a topical reference since these are real world car manufacturers, particularly since they stopped making the Yugo in 2008, which is a lot longer than I thought they lasted until I Googled it.

• Marcy states that Tony’s sports car with worth $30,000. Adjusting for inflation this car would cost $76,314.00 in 2022 money.

• The appearance of Disneyland in this story wouldn’t be considered topical anymore because Marvel is now owned by Disney and this sort of brand synergy now happens all the time. What is a topical reference here is the labored National Lampoon’s Vacation joke on display here. If you didn’t notice the Griswold family being rejected at the gates of Disneyland are the characters from the 1983 movie. While a classic comedy, if you didn’t know what it was before reading this then you know why this is a topical reference.

• Jim compares the Adap-Tor to the Transformers, a toyline of robots that turn into vehicles, because that’s the obvious comparison. This should be considered topical since Transformers are a real world product.

• In this story, Jim refers to himself as Vietnam War veteran. This should be considered a topical reference. Since History of the Marvel Universe #2, Jim is now a veteran of the Sin-Cong Conflict, and not Vietnam.