Prior to this date, I'd only found one example of a mythically concrescent IRON MAN story, the Stan Lee-Don Heck tale "Suspected of Murder." The mythic discourse behind that story was basically psychological, but it always seemed strange to me that the feature wasn't stronger on the sort of resonant fake science that made for good mythcomics in, say, FANTASTIC FOUR. I sampled a number of Iron Man stories from different periods, and though technology is often mentioned in many narratives, most authors just seem to pull any old sort of fake-science out of the hat, without trying to relate it to real-science. This relation isn't absolutely necessary, but it generally helps.
I would've liked to have found a mythic Mandarin story, since he stands as one of Iron Man's better villains, politically incorrect though he is. Instead, I found the Living Laser.
Though the character debuted as a solo villain in an AVENGERS tale, he was often utilized as a "cannon fodder" type, often teamed up with other low-ranking malcontents. However, in both of these stories, respective writers David Micheline and Howard Mackie at least attempt to pattern the villain's powers after what real lasers can do.
Though "Light Makes Might" picks up from the ongoing plot of the previous issue, that issue only introduced the hero's main foe in the last few pages. A "B-plot" was established, in that Iron Man rescues Tony Stark's then-current girlfriend Bethany and her estranged (and drug-addicted) husband Alex from an evil organization, and that B-plot concludes in #153, as well as ending the three-year collaboration of David Micheline and Bob Layton during that period. But the focus of "Light Makes Might" is the creators' attempt to beef up the mojo of the Living Laser. Not only does he put the captured hero in a pretty clever death-trap-- one whose solution is just as clever-- he also shows off new powers: to create laser holograms, to blind enemies with light-flares, and to turn functionally invisible.
At the conclusion of "Might," the Laser's powers go berserk, and the hero, to keep him from triggering the weapons in the sanctuary (poised to strike at the U.S.), hurls the Laser into the sky, where he explodes into a display of colored lights. The sacrifice doesn't make Iron Man happy with himself, but the story doesn't dwell on the hero's emotions in this regard. Bethany, after her rescue, chooses to stay with her husband and to leave Tony, which act contributes to Tony's later return to alcoholism.
At the time issue #211 appeared, the IRON MAN feature saw a number of short-term creative talents before Micheline and Layton returned for another run. Assistant editor Howard Mackie and artist Alex Saviuk collaborated on "Seeing the Light," which established that the Living Laser was still alive. Neither individual worked on the feature again, but Mackie followed the lead of Micheline's story quite well, getting a certain amount of decent melodrama out of the Laser returning as an insubstantial phantom-- though this did not nullify his laser-powers, nor his desire to be avenged on Iron Man.
Considering that he'd never written the feature before, Mackie also did a better than average job of catching the character-interactions of regulars Tony Stark and James Rhodes. Even the Living Laser, who is in all likelihood is no one's favorite villain, is at least two-dimensional. Mackie's versions of the characters are all somewhat tentative about their ability to function-- Tony at one point tells James "we both know what it's like not to be able to help ourselves"-- and this may've been intended to gloss this issue's B-plot, in which Bethany comes back long enough to watch her husband Alex die of an overdose. This death had the effect of freeing up Bethany Cabe for a possible return as Tony Stark's girlfriend, though after her role in #211 she disappeared from the feature for some time, indicating that her creators Micheline and Layton had no interest in such a comeback.
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