IRON MAN'S THIRD ARMOUR REDESIGN in fifteen months was, in my view, a bit of a backwards step. I thought Steve Ditko's makeover for the first Red-And-Yellow suit, in Tales of Suspense 48 (Dec 1963), was brilliant - no improvements needed. But just six months later, Don Heck redesigned the armour - or more accurately - the headpiece - yet again, this time giving Iron Man a line of rivets down his face. The four faces of Iron Man, from Tales of Suspense 39, 43, 48 and 54 . That's quite an evolution in a little over a year. And I'm actually not mad about the Don Heck "Rivet-Face" version. Was Heck just trying to come up with something that was easier to draw? Or did Stan think this was an improvement? I think the design change Iron Man's faceplate was supposed to be a surprise to readers, the cover blurb certainly gives that impression. But for whatever reason, the Marvel production department included the upgraded mask on the corner box figure of Iron Ma...
THERE WAS NO PLAN FOR THE INHUMANS , at least not at first. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had introduced Madam Medusa - unheralded - as a member of the Fantastic Four foe group The Frightful Four. And for eight issues of the Fantastic Four comic - 36 (Mar 1965) to 43 (Oct 1965), Medusa haughtied her way through the stories, coldly collaborating with The Wizard and his team to bring about the defeat and/or demise of the Storm family. Tea and antipathy - The Frightful Four's dislike of each other is obvious from the start. So why does Medusa hang out with a group of people she despises. In the end, Stan and Jack never really explained that. While the other Frightfuls each had a clear motive for doing what they did - mostly being previous foes of Johnny (The Human Torch) Storm in numerous Strange Tales adventures - there was no such reasoning behind Medusa's enmity towards the FF. She was literally a character with no motivation. More importantly, Stan's scripts never even hinted ...