The Invincible Iron Man (1968) #54: "Sub-Mariner: Target For Death"

We soldier on reading about meetings between Namor and core Avenger members. This time, we look at an Iron Man issue from the early 70s.

The cover is by Gil Kane. That man could draw a punch!

We are quickly introduced to Madame MacEvil (really?) as she argues with her computer and states her goal in life.

That's quite the outfit. At first glance, I was convinced this was Moondragon.

She fires a missile that strike an iceberg near Namor. It caused huge chunks of ice from the iceberg to collapse onto a passing ship so Namor has to come to the rescue!

Is that a hammer in your shorts, or...

Namor tracks the rocket's trail, little knowing that MacEvil has taken control of Iron Man's armour. When Namor catches up to her ship, she unleashes Shellhead on him.

That's tellin' him.

They fight for a spell until Namor dodges a repulsor ray blast and it hits the ship from which MacEvil was giving Iron Man orders instead. That causes MacEvil and her smart-mouth computer to lose control over Iron Man.

The armoured avenger is relieved but takes off without explanation which may not be the best course of action when dealing with someone of Namor's temperament.

Makes me wonder about how well these two got on when they next met.

There wasn't a lot of substance to this issue but in trying to determine whether MacEvil showed again later, it came to light that she is, in fact, the character we know best as Moondragon.

I joked about that earlier because the costume design was near-identical (colour aside) to the one Moondragon was known to wear in the 70s and, well, there are only so many bald women in the Marvel Universe. Her personality was so completely different than that of the Moondragon character I remember that I still did not think it was the same character, however.

This book is then, under a different name, Moondragon's first appearance so it's interesting in that respect and provides a touch more Avengers content than anticipated.