Synopsis
Iron Man (1968 series) #9 synopsis by
T Vernon
Rating:
Late one dark and rainy night, movers deliver a large, heavy crate to a Manhattan antiques shop. It is received by Mei Ling, a beautiful Chinese woman in traditional dress; the movers are scared away by her companion, a sinister hooded man. After they are gone, the man breaks open the crate with a karate chop to reveal a huge jade statue—but beneath the jade trappings lies something greener and meaner: the Incredible Hulk!
At his lab, Tony Stark is repairing and testing the Iron Man armor (damaged in his fight with the Gladiator in issues #7-8) to bring it back up to speed. Tony then gets a call from Vincent Sandhurst, lawyer to Janice Cord, to set up a meeting for Tony to buy out her father’s company. [We also learn that Sandhurst has an ulterior motive in pushing through this sale, which is not in his client’s best interest.]
At the antiques shop, the hooded figure is putting the Hulk through a gauntlet of tests to ensure he is suffering no ill effects from being in suspended animation. Mei Ling brings news that Tony Stark and Janice Cord will be meeting that evening, so the villain dispatches the Hulk on his mission. The Green Giant crashes the meeting, knocks Tony and Sandhurst out of the way and carries off Janice. Tony quickly dons his Iron Man armor and pursues Hulk over the rooftops. They scuffle in mid-air, with Iron Man barely surviving the malfunctioning of his jet boots. And Janice realizes that she is bait in a trap for the Armored Avenger. Hulk leads his prey to a warehouse where he beats down his foe and sets an elaborate explosive trap. After the detonation Hulk carries Janice off to a power plant but Iron Man manages to escape and follows, confused at his enemy’s being more cunning and cruel than usual. Inside the plant there is a battle of skill versus brawn, which ends with the Hulk falling into the plant’s generators. He emerges a broken, collapsing machine—this Hulk was a robot duplicate. Meanwhile, the hooded villain has learned what he wanted to know: Tony Stark always vanishes just before Iron Man appears, proving they are one and the same! And the bad guy unmasks to reveal—the Mandarin!
CharactersGood (or All)Plus: Janice Cord, Vincent Sandhurst.