| "Happy" Hogan | How do you figger women?  |
| Tony Stark | Women I can figure, Happy. But Pepper... she's in a class by herself! |
Appearing in "The New Iron Man Battles... The Mysterious Mr. Doll!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Stark Industries (Name revealed)
- ⏴ Pepper Potts ⏵
- ⏴ Happy Hogan ⏵
- Bill ⏵ (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Mister Doll (Nathan Dolly) ⏵ (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- ⏴ Charleton Carter (First appearance)
Locations:
Items:
- Iron Man's Briefcase
- Iron Man Armor Model 1
- Mister Doll's Voodoo Doll (First appearance)
- Iron Man Armor Model 2 (First appearance)
Synopsis for "The New Iron Man Battles... The Mysterious Mr. Doll!"
Pepper Potts delivers the news to Anthony Stark that one of his business associates, steel tycoon Charleton Carter, has backed out of a deal. Stark doesn’t understand why Carter has done this and drives to Carter's estate in order to take up the matter personally. Once there, he spots a suspicious man dressed in a strange costume slinking around in the shadows. He dons his Iron Man armor and sets out to investigate. Once inside the mansion, he sees Carter on the floor, cowering in fear, with the strangely garbed fellow standing over him. Carter tells the man to let him go, that he has complied with his demands and had cut off his business with Tony Stark, but the strange man continues to poke at a doll he holds in his hands, causing Carter to writhe in pain.
Iron Man enters the room and challenges the man. As Iron Man lifts him up into the air, the self-proclaimed Mister Doll rearranges the appearance of his clay doll to resemble Iron Man, and starts slowly squeezing it. This inflicts intense, claustrophobic pain to Iron Man, causing him to spin and fall off of Carter’s balcony into the ocean. He nearly drowns before the pain subsides and he is able to crawl out of
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the water. Mister Doll, thinking he has finished Iron Man for good, turns his attentions back to Carter.
Iron Man rushes back to his office to recharge his chest plate’s batteries. Stark passes out for several hours after barely plugging himself in to the electrical outlet in time. Later that day, Stark tells Pepper to hold all calls, as he doesn’t want to be disturbed for anything. He then sets about creating a new lighter set of armor that would place less of a strain on his heart.
Meanwhile, Mister Doll has been forcing more and more wealthy individuals to sign over their fortunes to him, and the police are unable to do anything, as it has all been done in the letter of the law. Mister Doll then decides to turn his attention to Tony, and begins to mold his doll in Stark's image.
Back at Stark Industries, Stark has completed construction on the components of his new red and gold Iron Man armor. As he dons the armor for the first time, he describes how it utilizes an intricate system of magnets to connect its form-fitting components to each other. As he puts on the armor’s redesigned face mask, the new Iron Man, champion of champions, is born!
Sometime later, the police visit Stark Industries to inform Stark that Mister Doll has somehow been convincing millionaires to turn over their assets to him and they want his help set a trap so they can catch him in the act. As they leave, a guard is left to protect Stark. He tells the guard that he needs a few minutes of private time with Pepper so that he can ask her out on a date. Pepper is extremely excited by this, and though the guard is unsure, he agrees to leave the two of them alone in Stark’s office. Much to her disappointment, Tony tells Pepper to keep up the act, while he sneaks out and finds Iron Man.
Iron Man arrives at the office and dismisses the guard. Suddenly Mister Doll appears on the scene and changes his doll to imitate Iron Man. Once again, he starts to press on the doll, causing Iron Man severe pain. He then commands Iron Man to chase out Stark's security guards. With Iron Man quivering under his control, Mister Doll explains how he stole his magical voodoo doll from a witch doctor in Africa and discovered he could use it to inflict pain in others. Mister Doll calls Iron Man a weakling and orders him to leave the room, but not to try to escape or he will cause him more pain.
Iron Man falls to the floor in severe pain and crawls into his laboratory. With the door locked behind him, he decides on a risky gambit. He will disable his chest plate, causing his heartbeat to slow down and prevent Mister Doll from being able to control his pain. With his chest plate disabled, he frantically works on a project that he hopes will allow him to defeat Mister Doll. When the project is complete, he reactivates his chest plate and sets forth to confront Mister Doll again.
As Iron Man barges into the room, Mister Doll begins to manipulate his clay doll into his image again. Iron Man uses his new transistorized ray gadget to mold the doll into the image of Mister Doll himself. The surprised Mister Doll immediately drops the doll, fearing that he might hurt himself. As the doll hits the floor, he collapses into unconsciousness. Iron Man then scoops him up and hands him over to the police.
Afterwards, Tony and Happy realize they've left Pepper in the locked room. She is NOT happy!
Appearing in "The Scarecrow"
Journey Into Mystery #2
Featured Characters:
- Tim Blake (First appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- Occult Shopkeeper
Other Characters:
- Advertisement Director
- Jim
- Millie
- Millie's Boyfriend
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth-616
- Earth
- United States of America
- Occult Shop
- United States of America
- Earth
Items:
- Potion of Power
- Potion of Power Antidote
Synopsis for "The Scarecrow"
Journey Into Mystery #2
Tim Blake finds a steady living playing a pathetic weakling in a series of ads ("Don't be like him! Use Vigomin and be a man!"). Frustrated by his lack of success in the dating world, he visits a magic shop and purchases a strength potion for fifty cents. The eccentric proprietor offers him an antidote, but it costs $100 and Tim reasons that he'd never need it anyway. The potion turns Tim into a Hercules, and he goes around beating up his rivals and bullying women into dating him. However, he soon learns why he should have bought the antidote, as he quickly grows so massive that the Earth cannot hold his weight and he plummets down into the planet's core.
Appearing in "Kraddack"
Featured Characters:
- Hans Hartog
Supporting Characters:
- Kraddak
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Somewhere in Europe
Vehicles:
- Kraddak's spacecraft
Synopsis for "Kraddack"
An alien tells a greedy mine owner that he will be killed in a fall. The mine owner hides at the lowest possible point in his mine, but is killed in a cave-in.
Notes
- Mister Doll was originally intended to be named Mister Pain, but the name was most likely changed to the less violent sounding Mister Doll at the insistence of the Comics Code Authority.
- This issue debuts the Ditko designed MK II Armor. The red and gold color scheme will come to be known as Iron Man's classic and distinctive colors.
- While the situation with Mister Doll was certainly the biggest driver for this new armor, another impetus might have been an offhand comment by The Wasp in Avengers Volume 1 Number 1 when she called his old armor hideous. By the time Iron Man appears in the Avengers second issue, he is in fact wearing this armor.
Trivia
- It is implied that Tony Stark was the 4th richest man in New York City at this point, as the Doll Man stole the money from the three richest men and was planning to make Tony Stark his next victim. The police officer also mentioned that Tony Stark was the wealthiest man whose money had not been stolen yet.
