As the tale opens, Iron Man is rescuing
a Stark factory worker from a vat of molten steel. Afterwards, Happy
Hogan approaches the Armored Avenger and asks if Iron Man would ask
Tony Stark to persuade Pepper Potts to go on a date with him. Tony
complies but there is a misunderstanding and Pepper thinks Tony is
asking her to go out with him. That night, to avoid seeming romantic,
he takes Pepper to the Coney Island midway where they see a display
of archery by Hawkeye, “the World’s Greatest Marksman,” though
no one in the audience is impressed. At that moment the flying
pinwheel ride goes out of control and Tony slips away to don his Iron
Man armor and prevent a major disaster. Iron Man is hailed as a hero,
which provokes Hawkeye to jealousy. He determines to become a popular
hero as well and devises a purple costume and a set of trick arrows
and heads off to fight crime. The fledgling hero spies a crook making
off with loot from a jewelry store and fires an arrow to pin the
hood’s coat to a telephone pole. The crook gets loose however and
flees the scene. The police come upon Hawkeye with the recovered
jewels and assume he is the thief. The misunderstood hero runs
through the streets until a car stops and the driver offers him a
ride; it is the Black Widow and she proposes to the smitten Hawkeye
that they become allies (and the goof agrees without asking “Allies
in what?”). She takes him to her secret lab provided by her
Communist masters where she provides him with technology to improve
his arrows—and asks him to destroy Iron Man to win her love. One
stipulation: no harm must come to Tony Stark…and Hawkeye realizes
he has a romantic rival….
Tony, meanwhile, is planning to make it
up to Pepper for their disastrous date at Coney Island but he walks
in on her and Happy and she exacts her own revenge by agreeing to go
to the movies with the dour chauffeur. Outside, Hawkeye uses his
arrows to sneak onto a truck heading into the Stark complex and he
blows the lock off the factory door with an explosive arrow to bring
Iron Man running. Sure enough, the Armored Avengers arrives on the
sceen and the misguided archer bombards him with arrows containing a
fast-acting rusting chemical. Iron Man quickly removes his boots and
gauntlets and makes his way back to the office where he dons
replacements; Hawkeye, meanwhile has recovered the abandoned boots
and gauntlets with the idea of studying them to learn Iron Man’s
secrets and is escaping by car. Iron Man flies overhead and uses a
power ray to blast the front off the villain’s auto. He then uses
his repulsor rays to deflect the hail of trick arrows coming his way.
The battle leads to a pier where Iron Man tosses his foe into the
water and pulls him out half-drowned and unconscious. As Iron Man
heads to Hawkeye’s car to recover his stolen pieces of armor, the
archer awakens and fires an explosive arrow at the hero’s back. The
demolition blast ricochets harmlessly off the Golden Avenger’s
shoulder but the Black Widow, who has arrived at the rendezvous point
is seriously injured. Hawkwye panics, scoops up the beauteous spy in
his arms and takes off in her boat. Iron Man starts to follow but
realizes that he is near the airport and he might pose a danger to
aircraft in the fog which has rolled in, so he reluctantly allows the
villains to escape.
“The Runner [Part
One]”
Writer: Unknown.
Synopsis: A misfit
kid named Hermy moves into the neighborhood and Mike stands up for him to a
bully. Story continues next issue.
“The Watcher’s
Power!”
Writer: Larry
Lieber. Plot: Stan Lee. Pencils: Larry Lieber. Inks: George Roussos. Colors: ?
Letters: Art Simek.
Synopsis: A band
of space pirates sets up their weapons on a planet inhabited by the Watcher,
intending to destroy a neighboring world, knowing the Watcher will not
interfere in the affairs of other races. But the Watcher destroys their weapons
and transports them all to a savage world inhabited by metal beasts. The
explanation? The world the pirates had targeted was the home planet of the
Watchers, hence, not an “other race!”