Tales of Suspense #88: Review

Apr 1967

Stan Lee, Gene Colan

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Story Name:

Beyond All Rescue!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Tales of Suspense #88 Review by Peter Silvestro (February 15, 2010)

First of a four-part story.

Tales of Suspense #88 Review by T Vernon (July 2, 2012)

Review (Iron Man): And to give the Mandarin and Titanium Man a little break, herein Iron Man takes on a FF baddie, the original one, in fact. The Mole Man’s chief strength has always been home field advantage: anyone who encounters him is already trapped far underground and desperate to escape, making him easy prey for a crazed ugly dude with an army of creepy followers. Usually the hero is able to play MM off against Tyrannus or one of the other subterranean rulers and make his getaway but Shellhead does not have that luxury here. He’s alone and has to protect the helpless Pepper Potts. No matter, he wins in the end. Oddly (or not so oddly, since Stan Lee is involved), Mole Man’s scheme makes no sense: he snatches Tony Stark’s factory so he can get his hands on the Earth-digger to bore tunnels to the surface to invade. Problem: he already can create tunnels—the device he uses to pull the factory down leaves a… anyone? that’s right, a hole! …leading up to the surface. That’s how Shellhead and Pepper escape in the end. So does Harvey want to corner the market on comic book tunneling technology or something? No matter, Gene Colan makes this an effective tale.

Comments (Iron Man): Mole Man returns in UNCANNY X-MEN #34 and FF 88-90. Iron Man decides not to tell the surface people about the Mole Man, forgetting he had already informed the military when he radioed earlier.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Tales of Suspense #88 Synopsis by T Vernon

Iron Man digs his way out of the rockslide caused by the Mole Man last issue to discover Pepper Potts, who had refused to leave the Stark factory before it was dragged to the underground land by the villain. Adopting a cold attitude toward her to hide his concern and worry, Iron Man then goes into battle with a squadron of Subterraneans as the Mole Man explains his devious plot: he covets Tony Stark’s new Earth-digger to allow him to invade and conquer the surface world (the other buildings pulled underground were the villain trying to pinpoint the factory). The hero dodges Mole Man’s concussion blasts and tricks his foe into causing a cave-in so that Iron Man can whisk Pepper to safety further back in the caverns. Realizing the military will be trying to mount a rescue mission, Iron Man radios them to warn them not to, that they will be overwhelmed by the Subterranean army. Meanwhile, Mole Man unleashes a huge robotic dragon on Iron Man who battles it and manages to defeat it by tossing an explosive pellet into its gaping jaws. While he was distracted the villain has captured Pepper so Iron Man pretends to surrender to the Mole Man in order to get the baddie to try using the Earth-digger; once he turns it on, the nuclear reactor builds up in a chain reaction. Iron Man jets Pepper to safety through the hole made by the falling factory as the Earth-digger explodes, destroying the Mole Man and his underground kingdom. Iron Man and Pepper agree to not mention the Mole Man when they get back to the surface.

Story #2

If Bucky Lives..!

Writer: Stan Lee. Penciler: Gil Kane. Inker: Gil Kane. Colorist: ?.

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

By Peter Silvestro

One day at Avengers Mansion, Captain America receives a message over the monitor: his late partner Bucky, claiming to have been held prisoner for years and pleading with Cap to come to Sea Gull Island near Nova Scotia and rescue him. Confused by Bucky’s maintained youth, Cap takes Tony’s Stark’s supersonic cruiser and heads for the island. Before Cap can arrive at his destination, a huge plastic bubble containing the villains Power Man and the Swordsman descends to the island and enters a secret high-tech base underground. They are contacted by their mysterious employer who explains that their mission is to destroy Captain America. A giant ray gun creates another bubble around Cap’s jet, bringing him to the island base as a prisoner. The two villains attack the Avenger but he is able to defeat them easily. Their mystery leader speaks to Cap explaining his plan for world domination using the plastic bubbles to threaten any city on Earth. By way of demonstration, he traps Captain America in one such bubble and, to explain the secret of Bucky, he steps forward revealing himself as….

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