Invincible Iron Man #93: Review

Dec 1976

Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe

Story Name:

Kraken Kills!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Invincible Iron Man #93 Review by T Vernon (June 17, 2014)

Review: A bionic pirate? Come on now! That’s Lee and Kirby territory (or DOCTOR WHO—see “The Pirate Planet” on the old show). The story is a bit goofy—but it seems to work, providing a whole lot of fun.

Comments: Part one of a two part story. Commander Kraken was introduced in SUB-MARINER #27, then appeared in THE CAT #3; in those issues he had an electrically charged hook for a hand. Here, he has been upgraded: a functional bionic hand replaces the hook and now he wields an electrically charged sword. He also sports a jet-powered peg leg that gives him the ability to fly. Major oddity: much is made of the sailor who may have seen Iron Man without his helmet, hinting that something may come of this but so far as I know, it is never mentioned again.

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Invincible Iron Man #93 Synopsis by T Vernon

Iron Man is testing Stark’s new para-gravity deflector—by jumping out of a spacecraft and free-falling to Earth; the device is designed to save lives in case of space accidents and is one of the inventions Tony Stark has been accused of stealing from a rival firm. Iron Man descends, then something goes wrong and the deflector explodes and the hero plummets into the Atlantic Ocean. He is rescued by a passing merchant ship, the Northern Lights, bound for London. When they receive the news that Iron Man survived the fall, Krissy Longfellow and Abe Klein fly to London to meet him but then they are abducted at gunpoint from their hotel rooms….
At sea the Northern Lights is attacked by pirates led by Commander Kraken; Shellhead fights them but the effort drains the last of his power and he is overcome by the villain’s electric sword and thrown overboard. The old-time sailing ship converts into a modern submarine and fires a torpedo to sink the ship and departs for their lair, a small city built inside an undersea cavern. Iron Man hitched a ride on the enemy sub but is caught by Kraken when he steps ashore—and he learns that he was the intended target of the attack. Kraken shows Iron Man his two hostages, Krissy and Abe, as leverage to force the hero to do his bidding….