At a US military base, Army tanks
collapse, their vital joints having melted mysteriously. When word
reaches Tony Stark, whose company built the tanks, he visits his lab
to investigate and is surprised by a villain called the Melter, who
knocks him unconscious. The Melter is Bruno Horgan, a one-time
competitor of Tony Stark’s, whose use of inferior materials in
military contracts was exposed by Stark. Horgan had accidentally
discovered the secret of dissolving iron and designed a portable
raygun to fit on his chest as part of a super-villain costume;
objective: revenge! So now the Melter leaves Tony unconscious where
he is discovered by Happy and Pepper. They help him to his office
where, in private, he recharges his batteries. An alarm goes off and
Tony heads to answer it as Iron Man. He finds the Melter destroying
one of his main generators and confronting him discovers that the
villain’s weapon also dissolves Iron Man’s armor off as the
covering on his left arm melts away. Shellhead runs off and splits an
overhead steam pipe (with hovering magnets!) to prevent his foe from
pursuing. Over the next several days, Tony tries to come up with a
way to stop the Melter but draws a blank. He is summoned to
Washington where officials accuse him of making up these absurd
stories about a saboteur to cover up his company’s poor
performance. During this tense meeting, Tony receives a call about an
emergency at the plant. Donning his Iron Man armor, he rushes back to
his New York lab to try to repair the latest massive damage. There he
is confronted by the Melter—who finds that his beam no longer works
on his armored enemy. To cover his escape, the villain melts a crane,
dropping a heavy load on Happy and Pepper; Iron Man is able to
prevent it from hitting them and pursues his foe. Trapped, the Melter
burns away an iron drain cover and leaps into the sewer system and is
quickly whisked out of sight. Iron Man changes back to Tony Stark to
get back to business as usual.
“The Green Man”
Writer: Unknown.
Artist: Unknown.
Synopsis: A barfly
claims to have been a test pilot who saw an alien ship crash and went to help
the dying green man, absorbing radiation in the process. No one believes him
and he collapses and dies in the bar; the next day, the newspaper reports that
the dead man was glowing green!
“Shock!”
Writer: Larry
Lieber. Plot: Stan Lee. Pencils: Larry Lieber. Inks: George Roussos. Colors: ?
Letters: Artie Simek.
Synopsis: A member
of the Space Corps agrees to betray Earth to the Bimmu invaders when he is promised
the hand of the most beautiful girl in the universe; the Bimmu are defeated and
the Earthman is exiled and he is shown his bride: beautiful by Bimmu standards,
scaly and one-eyed!