Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark! Extra!: Says toro toro taxi / See ya tomorrow my son

It's the feature that's too good to restrict to just the Mid-Day Matinee, Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark! (Also, I had more than five installments for this thing.)

Hey, who's the most famous roller-skater in the Marvel Universe?


Panel from Dazzler #7 (September 1981), plot by Tom DeFalco, script by Danny Fingeroth, pencils by Frank Springer, inks by Armando Gil and Frank McLaughlin, colors by Don Warfield, letters by Janice Chiang

Well, yes. We all know that. Well, okay, then, who is the second most-famous roller-skater in the yadda yadda yadda?

If you have read the title of this post I think you can guess.


Panels from Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

Yes, it's The Free-Wheelin' Tony Stark, rollin' rollin' rollin' on transistor-powered jet skate wheels. Since this was 1963, we laugh at this primitive interpretation of electronic technology, now that we're all zooming around on our resistor-powered jet skates. Yet another way in which Stan Lee was wrong about the future! (Also, that whole thing with Galactus never showing up.)

Stark's roller-skating technology was light-years ahead of its time, however. Before he stopped making weapons for the military and turned his roller-skating blueprints over to the carhops at A&W Drive-Ins, he shared the tech with this Army General! Tony Stark: he's got a brand-new pair of roller-skates, and you've got the brand-new key!


Panels from Tales of Suspense #45 (September 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

This general was busted down to corporal after the US Army purchased 30,000 pairs of skates and quickly came to realize there were no superhighways in Vietnam. Tony Stark...a genius...like a fox! (Hey, that does make sense!)

But as Dazzler showed us above, you can roller skate in different ways other than just upright on your feet. Tony Stark invented that move, you know...with a little beanie propeller and roller skates on his back! For fighting The Evil Pharoah! To protect Cleopatra! And remember, he can fly at this point. And yet, he still does this:


Panels from Tales of Suspense #44 (August 1963), plot by Stan Lee, script by Robert Bernstein, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Sam Rosen

Well...that certainly happened. In fact, it was such a draw that we got to see it on the splash page first!



So, Tony Stark! Without his amazing technological innovations we would never have had roller-derby, the movies ATL or Xanadu, or this, the most amazing scene of skating ever seen in history:

















Tony Stark! He's Steve Martin's best friend. Because he's the only guy who in comparison makes Steve feel less compulsive.

Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark!, Day 4: He gets dressed the same way you or I do...

...one transistorized wafer-thin interchangeable arm-leg adaptor at a time.




Pages from Tales of Suspense #48 (December 1963),
script by Stan Lee, pencils by Steve Ditko, inks by Dick Ayers, letters by Sam Rosen


This makes a dandy little trivia puzzler. "Who first drew Iron Man's iconic red-and-gold armor?" "Steve Ditko!" I bet some people don't know that!

Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark!, Day 3: Years go by I'm lookin' through a girly magazine / And there's my Iron Man on the pages in between

Tony Stark! He not only is a playboy...


Cover of Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas #1 (July 2008), cover art by Adi Granov

....but he's also in Playboy! Well, the Marvel Universe version of it (Playmates). And as an interview subject, not as a model. (Sorry, girls!)

Pages from Iron Man Annual #15 (1994), script by Len Kaminski and Scott Benson, art by Kevin Hopgood
(Click each image to Hefsize)

So, in conclusion: Tony Stark does like the fabulous babes...



But he reads Playmates for the articles.

And for that centerfold of Pepper Potts.

Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark!, Day 2: Iron Pitchman

Not only does Iron Man shill for Marvel products...

Marvel house ad from Tales of Suspense #66 (June 1965)

...but so does his boss, Tony Stark!

Marvel house ad from Tales of Suspense #70 (October 1965)

Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark!, Day 1: If you keep making that face it'll freeze like that

The Mid-Day Matinee this week, all week: Let's Learn Stuff About Tony Stark! Is he a cool exec? Has he a heart of steel? Well, sit back in your StarkTech comfy chair, fire up your iStark computer, and load up my blog on your FireStark browser to find out all this week! Stark!

Tony Stark made his armor flexible like rubber...

Panel from Tales of Suspense #54 (June 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils and inks by Don Heck, letters by Artie Simek

...so he could make his mask do this!

Panel from Tales of Suspense #48 (December 1963), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Steve Ditko, inks by Dick Ayres, letters by Sam Rosen