Millionaire playboy Tony Stark attends
a charity dance for a hospital. He is called up on the stage where
the hostess announces that Tony’s gift of $100,000 will cover the
cost of the new wing. Tony has an announcement of his own: Iron Man
will entertain the children at the hospital on the following day.
After the dance, his adoring date asks him if he will ever get
married. He replies that his life is too busy for him to devote to a
wife. He ponders his munitions factories (atomic naval cannons),
biomedical research “flesh-healing serum), aerospace research
(radiation shielding for space capsules), and U.S. Defense (miniature
artillery shells). And then he reviews his recent adventures as Iron
Man: catching bank robbers, stopping commie spies by smashing their
plane, preventing a ship collision, and driving off alien invaders
(last issue)—but he must keep his chest plate recharged to prevent
his damaged heart from killing him. Summary over, as Iron Man he
entertains the children the next day by juggling cars in mid-air with
magnetic force. Iron Man then catches a cannonball and breaks it into
small pieces as souvenirs for the kiddies. In a nearby prison,
scientific criminal Doctor Strange has devised an electronic gadget
which will broadcast a sinister signal. This signal is picked up by
Iron Man and it hypnotizes him into doing Strange’s bidding. Guards
are surprised when the armored hero crashes through the prison gate,
demolishes a cell block wall, and carries the villain to safety.
Hours later, the authorities discover a dazed Iron Man wandering in
the woods; the hero vows to recapture the criminal in order to redeem
himself.
Meanwhile, Doctor Strange has taken up
residence in his island stronghold with his large team of
accomplices—a cadre of power-mad scientists and military men.
Strange is doing it all to win the love and admiration of his
estranged daughter Carla, whom he brings to the island with him.
Soon, the megalomaniac explodes his massive S-Bomb in space and
broadcasts a threat that unless all the nations of the world
surrender to him or he will lay waste the Earth. The US military
attacks with A-Bombs but Strange’s fortress is protected by an
impenetrable force field. But he reckoned without the ingenuity of
Iron Man…. The armored hero has a submarine fire him out of a
torpedo tube so he can pass under the force field and approach the
island from beneath. He tunnels upward and enters the villain’s
electrical power plant where he confronts Strange and his daughter.
Iron Man sabotages the generator, but it also drains all of the
hero’s power leaving him at the mercy of his enemy. But Carla
Strange, who never approved of her father’s life of crime, tosses
Iron Man a flashlight. The hero breaks out the batteries and
recharges himself. While Iron Man is regaining his strength, Doctor
Strange makes his getaway. The US military comes in and captures the
cadre of henchmen but the mastermind is nowhere to be found. Iron Man
thanks Carla for aiding him in his hour of need.