Synopsis
Iron Man (1968 series) #135 synopsis by
T Vernon
Rating:
In Times Square, the Titanium Man is wreaking havoc, aiming to destroy New York. Bethany Cabe suggests Tony Stark go summon Iron Man to battle the villain. A grateful Tony takes a room in a massage parlor and dons his armor, dashing back to clobber his enemy. Hearing the crowd refer to him as a killer distracts Shellhead so that T-Man focuses his stasis beam on him, immobilizing him. T-Man takes the time to bring his foe up to date on his story: he left Russia to join Crimson Dynamo and Radioactive Man as the Titanic Three, operating independently. Defeated by the Avengers (AVENGERS #130), he soon missed his home and to assure his Soviet masters of his loyalty, he first faced Iron Man using the Unicorn as his pawn (IRON MAN #113-115) to gauge the hero’s weaknesses and now he has come now to wreck America’s largest city, defeating Iron Man along the way. But now Shellhead reveals that he has made improvement to his armor since beating Unicorn and now pushes his way through the stasis beam and punches T-Man in the face. The baddie heads underground where the two battle in the subway, Iron Man using a judo hold learned from Captain America (issue #125) to overpower his enormous opponent. T-Man flattens the hero with his boot jet and returns to the surface, Iron Man in pursuit. On Sixth Avenue, Shellhead stops T-Man from wrecking a tour bus full of passengers so the bad guy topples a building onto him; Iron Man manages to set it upright again. Titanium Man decides to cut and run so Iron Man knocks him out of the sky so that the villain crashes onto the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. T-Man gets him in a deadly bear hug so Iron Man rips open his foe’s helmet and punches him in the unprotected face, knocking him out, a dislodged Russian flag fluttering down onto his chest. The crowd cheers Iron Man—and Tony decides things are looking up.