All Shall Fear the Melter!

Another Iron Man comic today (I have a lot of these, okay?), this time Tales of Suspense # 47 (written by Stan Lee, art by Steve Ditko and Don Heck), the introduction of the villain known as The Melter, in what the cover touts as an “18-page epic.” It debuted in November of 1963, when “epic” apparently had a very different meaning than it does now.

I’ll just go ahead and state from the beginning that “The Melter” is one of the lamest villains ever. Really, I longed for the Unicorn. You don’t have to take my word for it, since you’re about to see for yourself, but I would like to point out that this is actually a villain that continued to appear in comics and other spin-off media as late as a 2008 Iron Man video game. If you look him up on Wikipedia, you’ll even see that Mark Gruenwald put him on a list of completely lame villains, and yet, the guy kept popping back up. Even after he was killed off. Some things just defy reason.

Atomic Science, the Marvel Way

I know I’ve done more Iron Man comics than anything else (and this makes two in a row), but they tend to strike me as particularly hilarious, so here’s another one: Tales of Suspense #49, originally printed in January 1964. It’s written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Steve Ditko.

This comic is the first meeting between Iron Man and the X-Men, who originally appeared only a few months earlier. But is it a team-up, with Iron Man and the X-Men working together to stop some great evil? Er, not exactly. It’s more Angel beating the hell out of everyone. Why? Because a nuclear explosion made him angry, of course. (That’s how it works in the Marvel U, after all.)

Hulk’s Journey to the Center of the Earth

Even though I don’t read Hulk regularly (I’m sure some of you out there can guess why), I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy. (Okay, I have a Hulk poster on my bedroom wall and several Hulk toys on my bookshelf. What of it, huh?) So today I bring you The Incredible Hulk #5, “Beauty and the Beast.” There’s technically two stories in this issue, but I’m only doing one. You want both of them, tough. Don’t be greedy.