IRON MAN #14 (June, 1969)
"The Night Phantom Walks!"
Script: Archie Goodwin.
Art: Johnny Craig.
It begins with Voodoo drums hear over an island in the Caribbean. The drums awaken everyone on the island. There is a division of Stark Industries on this island, Project Caribbean. A masked man breaks the chain on the gate and enters. The person breaks through the steel walls and is confronted by a security guard whose bullets fail to stop him and is cast away too easily to be by natural means. He moves a switch to overload the machinery causing the industrial plant to explode. As Stark and the chief investigator (Christophe) look in on the student/guard who was put in the hospital, he keeps repeating that it was supernatural. As they leave, Stark is confronted by Travis Hoyt an older man in a wheelchair, a writer who claims that Stark's factory is destroying the island. Stark who now employs most of the people on the island intends to rebuild. Stark reflects on the dangers that others have when around him. They travel to the project site. It is decimated. But, Stark's Geiger counter watch detects radiation - none was used at the factory. As they leave the sight, the drums and the Night Phantom strikes again, hitting the car and throwing it - casting the men into the jungle. Tony awakes later by the hand of Janice Cord. She is visiting a friend of her father's (he died in issue 2). The friend is Hoyt who yells at Stark to get out of his house. Tony returns to the wreck to find his briefcase. He becomes Iron Man and uses his unibeam as a Vario-beam to track the radiation. Janice wants to go after Tony Stark but Hoyt stands and stops her. He was paralyzed by a plane accident or so she thought. He was doused by radioactive water on the island and restored. His skin was boiled away - that's why the wrappings over his fake skin. He is the Night Phantom. Iron Man shows up and fights him. They struggle until Janice and Hoyt fall to the radioactive water in the cavern. Iron Man saves Janice. Hoyt goes into the water again, but this time a hole opens up in the cavern and swallows him up.
Appearances: Iron Man (Tony Stark), the Night Phantom/Travis Hoyt, Janice Cord, Christophe, and the student/Security Guard.
Hube's Review: No review available
