Tales of Suspense #74
If This Guilt Be Mine —!
Iron Man has been left behind after Happy Hogan is rescued from the Black Knight’s castle. His power running low and at the risk of death, Iron Man manages to use his transmitter to send a distress call to Stark Industries. This call reaches Pepper Potts who uses one of Tony Stark’s fastest cars to come to the Golden Avenger’s assistance. Along the way, Pepper thinks about how her attitude toward Tony Stark and Iron Man has completely reversed and she now finds herself in love with Iron Man, unaware that both are the same man.[1] Pepper quickly finds him in the castle and lugs Iron Man back to the car. There, the hero prolongs his life by plugging into the car’s power supply to recharge. However, this is only a temporary measure and Iron Man has Pepper bring him into the lab at Stark Industries where she plugs him into a super-charger that brings him back to full power and saves his life.
Answering a phone call, Iron Man is berated b Senator Harrington Byrd who is calling from Washington, DC. He demands that Iron Man and Tony Stark appear before congress so that Iron Man’s identity can be revealed. If they continue to dodge this request, Byrd warns that he will get a subpoena to force them to come. Iron Man doesn’t have time for this as Pepper has informed him that doctors are planning on using an untested enervator device to treat Happy. This is dangerous because Stark Industries has not tested it enough to deem it safe. The Iron Avenger then races to the hospital to stop the surgery.
Unfortunately, he is too late to stop the doctors who do their work while Happy is kept alive by the enervator. Although the surgery is a success, the enervator causes Happy to transform into a mindless freak. Iron Man arrives to save the doctors, but questions how he can fight the Freak when the man-monster is also the man responsible for saving his life.[2] Knocking Iron Man aside, the Freak is suddenly motivated by a dim memory about Pepper Potts and leaves the hospital. Iron Man follows after his friend and is lured to a nearby power station where the Freak prepares to ambush his pursuer.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, the Freak, Pepper Potts, Harrington Byrd
Continuity Notes
Pepper recounts how she used to love Tony Stark and hated Iron Man and these feelings completely swapped.
Pepper has had a thing for Stark since she first appeared in Tales of Suspense #45. However, she came to dislike Iron Man and suspected him of harming her boss during a period that Tony was forced to wear his armor 24/7 from issue #60-63.
Later, when Iron Man was answering a challenge from Titanium Man, the absence of Tony Stark and his apparent lack of concern of Happy being injured in the battle has changed Pepper’s opinion. See Tales of Suspense #69-71.
Tony, who has been pushing Pepper away in the hopes that she and Happy end up together has been encouraging this because he believes he is on borrowed time because of the shrapnel that has been in his heart since Tales of Suspense #39. He will be cured of this condition via a heart transplant in Iron Man #19.
Happy has saved Tony on two different occasions. First, he pulled Tony out of a burning car wreck which landed his job as Stark’s chauffeur in Tales of Suspense #45. Happy later saved Iron Man by bringing him a device to defeat the Titanium Man in issue #70, even though it led to his getting injured.
Topical References
The adaptor in the car that Iron Man plugs into is referred to as a dashboard cigarette lighter. While these kinds of adaptors still appear in modern cars, they are more commonly used for other electronics and do not come with a lighter element. Since most electronics are going to USB style plugs, I wouldn’t be surprised if they completely replace the adaptors that were once used for cigarette lighters.
The phone in Tony Stark’s lab is depicted as a rotary phone.
The Final Sleep!
With two of the Red Skull’s Sleeper robots activated, Captain America is desperate to prevent the third and final Sleeper from being activated. Arriving at a nearby NATO base, Captain America tries to rush his way to a plane without properly identifying himself. It takes an entire team of soldiers to stop him. However, he is let go once their commanding officer recognizes who they are trying to stop. Cap quickly tells them of the threat the Sleeper robots pose.
Meanwhile, the first two robots have arrived in the town of Molnitz where the final Sleeper has been hidden since the war.[1] There, a Nazi war criminal who has recognizes the Sleepers for what they are and believes he will be spared if he gives the old Nazi salute. He’s wrong and is blown up by the passing robot. By this time, Captain America has finished explaining what the Sleepers are and suspects that they have been created to end all life on Earth. Soon a full deployment on NATO troops are sent to try and destroy the two Sleepers, but their weapons have no effect.
The final operative, a man named Schlag, has reached the location of the third Sleeper which is hidden beneath a statue in the center of town. He presses a hidden switch on the statue causing a massive explosion that kills him and frees the final Sleeper. This robot is a rocket-powered head that resembles the visage of the Red Skull. As the other two robots arrive, the third Sleeper attaches itself to the cradle on the back.
Following by plane, Captain America suspects that the third robot is a massive bomb and theorizes that it is headed for the North Pole where it will burrow to the center of the Earth and detonate, destroying the whole planet. Putting on a flame thrower, Cap has the NATO pilots fly over the Sleeper robots and leaps down onto the robots. Landing on the robot, Cap turns on the flame thrower and bails out by parachute. Moments later, the Sleepers harmlessly explode in the air before they can carry out their final deadly mission.[2]
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Sleeper robots, Schlag
Continuity Notes
Because of the Sliding Timescale, the idea that the Red Skull would still have operatives waiting for Der Tag since World War II becomes increasingly impossible without some means of slowing or completely stopping the aging process. While the Nazi’s of the Marvel Universe did have access to such technologies, the Sleepers entry in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #10 is somewhat vague. It simply states that the people that wake up the Sleepers are either the Red Skull’s “chosen agents or successors”
These are not the only Sleeper robots created by the Red Skull. There are many, many more that are revived later:
A proto-type to the Sleepers was discovered during the war in Captain America 65th Anniversary Special #1.
The Red Skull activates the fourth Sleeper in Captain America #101-102.
A fifth Sleeper was activated in Captain America #148.
Yet another was found buried under London in Captain America (vol. 5) #20-21.
The Black Widow and Ms. Marvel fought a swarm of tiny Sleeper robots in Black Widow and the Marvel Girls #3.
The so-called “Final Sleeper” was seen in Fear Itself: The Fearless #10.
Yet another was uncovered by the Kingpin in Egypt in Amazing Spider-Man: Family Business #1.
