Booze, Boobs and Robot Boots No. 6: Tales of Suspense 44

What's happening? Time travel! For some reason, Tony Stark heads to Egypt where he meets an archeologist, whom you would assume would know where to dig to find stuff in the ground, but no, this guy needs Tony Stark to do some figuring for him. Tony gives the guy a referral to Iron Man, who conveniently appears and shows everyone where to dig. Once the evil pharaoh, Hatap, gets out of his sarcophagus, he convinces Tony to travel back in time with him by threatening to kill whoever happens to be standing around.

Once in ancient Egypt, Tony ditches the evil, magic-wielding pharaoh, changes into Iron Man and proceeds to rip shit up. He stops Hatap's attacking armies from beating up Cleopatra's forces (using some transistor badassery) then flirts with the Queen for a bit. After an awkward moment, he beats Hatap's ass pretty bad and then immediately uses a magical amulet of some sort to zip back to the 60s without so much as even trying to put the moves on old Cleopatra.

ETC: The press knows Stark is headed to Egypt so they flood the airport to demand answers from this inventor who continues to feed the military-industrial complex. They do so by asking hard-hitting questions. For example:

By the way, speaking of Egypt, how do you think you'd have made out with the "Siren of the Nile?"

Once Tony's adventure is over and he's spending a night out on the town with some broad at a movie premiere (a movie about Cleopatra, I shit you not) while thousands die every week in the war waging in southern Asia. Again, the crack staff at whatever local newspaper covers Tony Stark happenings, takes the billionaire weapons supplier to task.

Well, Stark... Do you STILL think you could've made an impression on Cleopatra if you had both lived in the same time?

I dunno who this guy is, but he is clearly devoted to his Modern People Romancing Cleopatra Newsletter.

MVP: The complete lack of deductive reasoning. Look, people in 1963 were monumentally stupid. Logic and reason, as we all know, weren't discovered/invented until 1972, so we shouldn't rag on people in simpleton jobs like "archeologist" too much for being completely and utterly obtuse. But how in the hell does Iron Man's secret identity get by anyone? He lands in Egypt, tells the archeologist Iron Man can help him and, luckily, Iron Man happens to be on a mission in Cairo! Also, when Iron Man shows up the next day, well, of course, Tony had to stay in town on some business. Just before Tony finally does show up at the dig, Iron Man has to hurriedly leave. Morons. All of you.

MIA: A decent villain. I mean, here we go again. Hatap, a master of dark magic who not only managed to concoct a potion that would put him into a 2,000-year slumber, but also created an amulet that will allow him to travel back in time. Once awake, he decides to take Tony and his genius back to ancient times so they can kick Cleopatra's ass together. He doesn't take anything really useful, like say, a dozen AK-47s and a M48A3 battle tank. Nope, he takes Stark, who betrays him the moment they get back in time, and after his army gets ass-beat by Iron Man, he manages to accidentally fall on an upturned sword while trying to retrieve his time-travel amulet. Oh, Hatap, we barely knew ya.

WTF: Iron Man can fly. It's true. He has transistor-jets or some shit in his boots. He's flown in every issue except the first. But when he wants to smash a charge of chariots in the desert, he doesn't hit the boot-jets full power. Nah, he attaches tiny wheels to his heels and his shoulders and zooms across the sand lying on his back. The resulting impact, of course, blows the shit out of everything.