7: Guest starring Iron Men

Iron Man Annual #5 (1982) 

Co-plot: Ralph Macchio
Pencils: Jerry Bingham
Inks: Dan Green

Don McGregor was a big influence and mentor to Peter Gillis in his early Marvel days. This likable, if overly familiar romp, is essentially a straight sequel to McGregor's classic Black Panther run, with Iron Man playing a peripheral role from the outset. 

T'Challa is apparently killed and usurped by a revived Killmonger, resulting in a climatic battle for the crown over a precipice. Stop me if you've heard this one before, from the pages of Jungle Action which was later revisited in the first movie. It reads like a nostalgic highlights reel of McGregor's original. Stark gets the B plot, rescuing Rhodey who's tied up next to a bomb like in some old movie serial. Turns out the Mandarin was behind it all, for Iron Man reasons. On the whole it's fun fan fiction, with effective art. Green's inks really bring out the best in Bingham.

Iron Man Annual #6 (1983)

Pencils: Luke McDonnell
Inker: Roy Richardson

By the following year's annual, Rhodey had taken over the suit, but Gillis (this time on full writing duties) seems no more interested in this novice version of Iron Man, again using it as a vehicle to spotlight old favourites. This is an Eternals story, which Iron Man gets unwillingly caught up in due to a convenient tractor beam. The Eternals have been captured and put in stasis by the Deviants, so Brother Tode can feed on their life essence in a PG fashion. The main thread revolves around Thena and Kro's Romeo & Juliet, Beauty and the Beast romance that went on to play a central part in Gillis' Eternals mini. Gillis gets to stretch his literary chops in an enjoyably bizarre scene where Jim Rhodes gets caught up in Thena's baroque waking nightmare.

The rest is largely unremarkable, although I was tickled by Rhodey getting out of this jam by chatting with a proto Alexa. On a rushed final page, there's an impromptu proclamation from Thena that The Eternals must now leave Earth, which sets up the next chapter in Roger Stern's Avengers.

That rounds up most of his early Marvel odd jobs. Next, something completely different...