Iron Man #151

cover date: October 1981

     The credits for “G.A.R.D.’s Gauntlet” aren’t the straight-forward writer/penciler/inker kind. David Michelinie is listed as plot/writer, and by writer I presume they mean the script. Luke McDonnell is the guest penciler. Bob Layton is given credit for plot/finished art.

     The story begins with Tony Stark looking out a large hole in his office wall at Stark International. Tony’s thought balloons (remember thought balloons?) tell us that the damage was caused by a villain called Blacklash and that Tony, as Iron Man, just returned from fighting Dr. Doom fifteen centuries in the past. He looks at various personal items that were damaged or destroyed in the attack until he comes to a singed photograph of Bethany Cabe. A one-page montage gives us the history of Stark & Cabe from their original meeting to their break-up.

     Tony decides to stop feeling sorry for himself and do something about his problems. He steps right out the hole in his wall…into a waiting man-lift. Suicidal, he is not. In the temporary reception area, he apologizes to Mrs. Arbogast for the rough conditions and assures her that the new offices will be ready very quickly. He calls Cabe & McPherson, Security Specialists but not to talk to Bethany Cabe. Instead, he asks her partner, Ling McPherson, to go clothes shopping with him—just as a friend. Much of Tony’s wardrobe was destroyed by Blacklash.

     As Tony leaves Stark International to meet his lunch-and-shopping date, S.I. security chief Vic Martinelli is talking with a construction crew. He explains to them that they can’t begin work on a particular lab annex until a specially appointed technician finishes taking inventory and filing classified papers in the lab. Martinelli doesn’t like that the tech is an ex-con but Stark personally assigned him the task.

     The tech in question is Scott Lang. He’s impressed at how little damage was done by the caustic liquid that Blacklash used in his attack. He breaks for lunch, taking a mini-cart from the lab he was in to his locker. While he rejects the sandwich his daughter made for him (marshmallow & sardines on rye with mayo), a bit of acid does make it into the computer of the lab. It causes a short and steel shutters slam down, surprising the security squad outside the building and Scott Lang inside the break room. The accidentally activated system is called G.A.R.D.: Graduated Automatic Radical Defense. Lang’s computer access tells him that G.A.R.D. now thinks he is an intruder—and wants to kill him!

     Gas begins to quickly fill the chamber. Lang hurries to his locker and grabs his Ant-Man helmet. Activating the seals in the helmet, Lang is able to breath clean but limited air. He dons the rest of the Ant-Man costume. He can’t shrink, though, because he would need to lift the shields protecting his air in order to breath in the shrinking gas. He tries using mini-cart to break through the steel door. What he ends up with is a wrecked ride and a still secure door. Thinking more strategically, he summons ants to enter the door’s controls and short-circuit the controls. The door opens up and he escapes, re-shutting the door behind him to trap the poison gas. Now able to breath freely, he goes to find out what is wrong with the computer.

     Meanwhile, Tony Stark shops for clothes.

     Ant-Man shrinks down and hitches a ride on a flying ant. No longer able to track its prey by visual scans, G.A.R.D. switches to heat sensors to track Ant-Man and his flying ant squadron. Ant-Man nearly makes it to the central computer room but a laser barrage starts eliminating his help. He signals his ant and the others to avoid the beams but G.A.R.D. sees what he is doing and changes the pattern. Ant-Man’s steed is zapped and his helmet’s antenna are sheared off. He’ll still be able to talk to the ants but only at a (ahem) short range.

     Outside, Martinelli decides that if the security team can’t break in then Iron Man is needed. He has Mrs. Arbogast page Stark. Unfortunately, Stark’s pager is in his jacket—which he isn’t wearing. So much for that plan!

     Ant-Man accesses the computer mainframe and orders the emergency to be cancelled. G.A.R.D. tells him to, “Go suck an egg.” Oh, yeah. This computer has gone crazy. A defense drone starts firing glass darts at him. The content of the darts evaporates if it his non-organic material but enters the bloodstream of humans and kills them. Ant-Man sends his ants into the air to distract the drone, runs under it, and enlarges. At full size, he is able to throw the drone at the ceiling hard enough to disable it.

     Tony Stark finally checks his pager. Seeing that it is an emergency signal, he gives Ling a stack of cash to pay for the clothes & hire a cab home. Stark finds a private dressing room and tries on a very different kind of suit—the armor of Iron Man! As he takes of for Stark International, Ling wonders how he is going to travel there with his car still sitting out front.

     Ant-Man figures that since he can’t solve G.A.R.D.’s problem at the keyboard, he must go inside the computer. G.A.R.D. starts blowing capacitors and circuits inside itself in an effort to eliminate its miniature intruder. Ant-Man dodges the small but deadly explosions. He finds the circuit that caused the problem in the first place. He has to linger just long enough to cause G.A.R.D. to blow the circuit but jump before dying himself.

     Iron Man arrives at S.I. (finally!). Martinelli briefs Iron Man on how & why the building is sealed. Iron Man pulls open the heavy doors with apparent ease to find—Scott Lang waiting for him! Lang (without his costume) explains that it was all a computer error and that the burn on his hand is from a blown circuit. To say that he leaves a few details out is an understatement.

     Back in his office later, Stark decides to relax with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. The first thing he sees: “American Spy Captured!” This startling headline is right above a picture of his love, Bethany Cabe!

     Okay, this barely counts as an Iron Man story. It’s a great Ant-Man story, though. My only real problem with the plot is the idea that a building at Stark International would have lethal measures as part of its security system.

Next week: Okay, Iron Man was barely in this issue so next week is my first issue that actually featured Iron Man!