Warning: SPOILERS for Spider-Man Noir #3.
When facing his latest foe Electro, Spider-Man Noir lets his off-world experience of battling unusual foes get to his head and underestimates his shocking new adversary. But just when Electro is about to go bug zapper on our 1939 noir wall-crawler, he gets an assist from a quick-thinking and well-equipped new ally who’s handy with explosives, who looks oddly familiar. With the German forces on alert, Spider-Man and his female allies need a place to hide and figure out how to get out of Germany. Now, introducing wealthy speakeasy/cabaret club owner and secret government spy, Tony Stark aka Agent Ironsides!
Taking place in 1939 during the early stages of World War II, this latest chapter in the life of Private Detective Peter Parker began with a waitress murdered in the Black Cat Club. The circumstances of her death appeared tied to the coveted Cicada Stone, and the mystery took Peter and Doctor Huma Bergmann, the dead waitress’ sister, to London where the Stone was eventually stolen by thugs working for a foreign enemy. After arriving in Nazi-occupied Berlin with the help of a female pilot named Harry, they discovered Doctor Bergmann’s contact dead and their discovery interrupted by piercing lightning announcing the arrival of Electro.
After disabling Electro with a small explosives charge, their new friend reveals himself to be an acquaintance of Harry’s family as well as someone who can offer them sanctuary and escape from Berlin. Despite some objections, they follow their well-dressed friend to an eyeglasses shop which is actually a cover for a secret speakeasy/cabaret show below. Walking like he owns the place, which he does, the man referred to as Herr Stark by the doorman is beloved by patrons as well as the scantily-clad female performers. But underneath the speakeasy, “Byron Ironsides” is revealed to be London’s top-secret agent, a man whose considerable wealth allows him a basement full of employees with access to all sorts of information helpful to the fight against the growing threat of Adolf Hitler and his forces.
This Noir version of Iron Man is different from the version of Tony Stark introduced in 2010’s Iron Man Noir. In that incarnation by Scott Snyder and Manuel Garcia, Tony Stark was a millionaire industrialist, inventor and well-publicized explorer whose abilities and attitude matched the Tony Stark from the modern-day universe. Also suffering from a heart condition, Stark and his allies fought Nazi forces in search of powerful occult artifacts and even wore a Noir version of his famous Iron Man suit. Since it’s been ten years since we last saw any Iron Man in the Noir-inspired Earth, it would appear Tony has been reinterpreted into a secret agent whose abilities include modified explosives, enemy information, playboy status, and how to wear a fashionable red jacket.
Driving a fast and fancy car, Ironsides is pleased to meet the Spider, proving Peter’s reputation is not only limited to New York, and fills him and his allies in about the superstition regarding the Cicada Stone and how it is the recent acquisition in Nazi Germany’s search for supernatural artifacts, an interest which also includes people with special abilities like Peter or Electro. At the airfield, Ironsides bids them farewell and tells them to look for Checkpoint Red when they arrive in Istanbul. When asked the coordinates, we learn that it’s not a place but a person, another familiar face making her Noir debut in the international spy game. Regardless which Noir version you prefer, one can hope Agent Ironsides will make further appearances in other Spider-Man: Noir stories thus cementing his place among the other versions of Tony Stark in the Marvel Comics multiverse.
