"Can You Top This?" (1989/04/01) from Iron Man Annual 10 (1989)

Reader Rating: Below Average; Thunderbolts Interest: Low

Summary: Super-villains sit around at a bar, discussing how they were pummeled by Iron Man.

Seen, in the bar and/or in flashback: The Beetle, Blacklash, Blizzard, The Crimson Dynamo, The Space Phantom (!), The Titanium Man, and some losers I can’t identify. The Avengers (the Hulk, Giant-Man, Thor and the Wasp) appear in a one-panel flashback.

Continuity: The characters in the bar are in civvies and only a couple of the more physically unique (i.e. the Space Phantom) are completely recognizable. The guy at the bar could be Abe, dressed in toupee and glasses, as seen in “Counter Force” (1987/10/01). That might be Donny hitting on a woman in the first panel, although that's hard to reconcile with his nervous Nellie personality. This event, if it is really part of Marvel continuity at all, occurs during the downtime between Iron Man destroying Abe’s armor (“Stark Wars”, Previous/Jenkins) and the creation of his next version.

Comments: The losers-whining-in-the-bar serves as a weak framing sequence for a series of Iron Man pin-ups, with a preposterous punch line.

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This page was revised on January 3, 2005

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