Comments on: 365 Reasons to Love Comics #290

By: Comics Should Be Good! » 365 Reasons to Love Comics Archive

Comics Should Be Good! » 365 Reasons to Love Comics Archive — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:41:37 +0000

[...] 290. The Melter [...]

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 01:25:50 +0000

See, the idea that somebody could beat him, just because they didn’t have any metal on them… that’s terrible.

And I blame the Melter for this.

By: Kirk G

Kirk G — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 01:14:06 +0000

I remember that second appearance of the Melter as being pretty desperate also. Didn’t Iron Man beat him the first time by donning a paper outfit?
Or did he alter the composition of his armor?
Remember, the Metal Master in Hulk #6, wasn’t he also beat the same way? A machine made out of paper mache and cardboard boxes.

I thought he might have gone away for good, but like a bad penny, when the writers were stuck for a story, up he’d pop!

By: km

km — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:12:14 +0000

What, you’re saying you can’t change the past by punching the wall? I’m crushed. Or at least, my knuckles are.

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:39:46 +0000

The whole “in a world of superheroes, anything’s possible” argument only goes as far as the reader’s suspension of disbelief. You have to have some level of relatability in the reality of their world. Otherwise, you end with characters who can change the past by punching a wall.

By: Matthew E

Matthew E — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:50:28 +0000

He was great as Phoebe’s brother on Friends.

By: avengers63

avengers63 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:47:39 +0000

Suedenim was posting while I was writing my post. This explanation in the all-ages Avengers doesn’t fly. In order to be a chemical process, the chemicals need to be applied. He uses an energy ray. Energy can induce a chemical reaction, but energy cannot apply chemicals. No matter how you slice it, he uses a ray gun, not a splat gun.

By: Ben Herman

Ben Herman — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:45:04 +0000

It’s interesting that Lee, Ditko & Heck are credited on the cover of Tales of Suspense #47. Okay, not so much a surprise for Lee, who is a master of self-promotion, but I think it was pretty rare for the artists to be listed on the cover way back then.

By: avengers63

avengers63 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:43:14 +0000

Here’s an obvious problem with the Melter. His melting ray is energy based. Being an energy process, not chemical, the melting is a result of heat. I have no problem that the heat can be generated almost immediately and projected. These are comic books, after all. The problem is that heat radiates. It’s just what it does. Whatever is melted would give off an extreme ammount of heat.

Steel melts at about 2400F. For arguements sake, let’s say that the heated metal radiates a heat of half that – 1200F. The armor melting off of Starks body would destroy the flesh beneath. Stark is dead, multiple times over.

There is only one explanation: Tony Stark is a mutant. He can resist extreme heat without damage.

Now that he’s a mutant, can we shove him off into the X-titles and get him the heck out of mainstream Marvel?

By: suedenim

suedenim — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:36:53 +0000

Actually, wells are pretty much the only things that guy *can’t* stick to! I remember several occasions where Spider-Man was trapped in a water tower or somesuch and unable to climb out because “the walls were too slick.”

Anyways, the Melter was reintroduced in Marvel Adventures: Avengers recently, with a slightly new angle: he’s not *truly* “melting” objects, but reducing their “molecular cohesion” for an effect that’s similar to melting, but doesn’t require or create a lot of heat. Presumably they wrote it that way because it’s an “all-ages” book, and high-heat melty action might be a little too lethal for that? OTOH, he *does* threaten Giant Girl in the same issue, noting that he *could* “melt” organic matter if he wanted to.

By: jazzbo

jazzbo — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:41:22 +0000

He can stick to WALLS, as well as wells. Just in case anyone was wondering.

By: jazzbo

jazzbo — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:40:36 +0000

We’re talking about a world where a guy can shoot lasers out of his eyes and another one can stick to wells and sense danger coming. I don’t think a melting ray is really that far-fetched.

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:39:36 +0000

if you get the temperature/chemical mix right, it can actually be a pretty quick process.

Even from a projected ray?

I guess it’s time I built that melting gun.

By: km

km — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:36:00 +0000

Eh. Melting is a slow process, and one that requires constant application.

Not necessarily – if you get the temperature/chemical mix right, it can actually be a pretty quick process. I rather like the comic-booky logic behind a mad scientist in a tchnological battle to destroy IM’s armour as quickly as Stark can compensate. Don’t think you could sustain many stories with it, however.

By: Johnny Bacardi

Johnny Bacardi — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:28:45 +0000

Yeah, Melty was pretty much a C-list badguy. But I remember really liking one of his appearances, a Tales of Suspense two parter in #’s 89 and 90 (You’ve got one of the covers posted above), in which Melter damaged Stark’s newer armor so much that he found himself having to don his old gray armor in order to come out victorious. I remember it being quite a tense situation.

Then again, I was 7. Make of it what you will.

By: Apodaca

Apodaca — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:22:23 +0000

Heâ€™s an industrial terrorist who can melt anything he wants. Thatâ€™s cool, right?

Eh. Melting is a slow process, and one that requires constant application. All in all, I think he suffers from being too specific in his gimmick.

By: Chris Heide

Chris Heide — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:43:35 +0000

I’m pretty sure The Scourge killed him