Wong-Chu | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Marvel Comics |
First appearance | Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) |
Created by |
Larry Lieber Jack Kirby Don Heck |
In-story information | |
Abilities | Expert martial artist |
Wong-Chu is a fictional character, a terrorist that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He usually appears as an adversary of Iron Man and was the first figure that he faced and creates the moral dilemma prevalent throughout the Iron Man canon.
Created by writer Larry Lieber and artists Jack Kirby and Don Heck, he first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963).
Wong-Chu once served as a commander for the Vietnamese congress during the Vietnam War. At the start of the story, he was shown offering to free the village if he could be beaten in wrestling When a reckless American contingent triggered a booby trap in the Vietnamese jungles while testing a new weapon, one of Wong-Chu's commanders found a survivor in the form of Tony Stark. Wong-Chu reviewed the unconscious civilian's papers and learned that Stark was a famous weapons inventor. Wong Chu's assistant Hsaio informed him that the shrapnel in Stark's heart should kill him within the week. Wong-Chu tried to capitalize on this by telling Stark that he was dying and that, if he created a powerful new weapon for him, then his surgeons would save him. Stark realized that Wong-Chu was lying, thinking that if they could have removed the shrapnel then they would have done it then so that Stark might live long enough to continue to develop weapons for them. Hoping that his last act would be to defeat Wong-Chu, Stark pretended to agree. Wong-Chu then supplied whatever tools and scrap iron Stark might require, and eventually lent the American the assistance of his own manservant, Ho Yinsen, a once highly respected and brilliant Nobel laureate physicist. Tony and Yinsen needed six days to complete the weapon Stark was building, the very first suit of Iron Man's armor. On the seventh day, the two finished the Iron Man armor just as Stark's condition became critical, and he could no longer stand. Stark was no sooner outfitted in his new armor for the first time and beginning to recharge it than the alarm they had installed earlier in the week went off, warning them that Wong-Chu was approaching. Yinsen ran outside, distracting the guards long enough to give Iron Man time to charge his armor. Wong-Chu killed Yinsen as Iron Man finished charging his armor, but failed to notice that Stark was in the Iron Man armor, and hiding on the ceiling. Unable to find Stark, Wong-Chu had Hsaio prepare his favorite sport, which involved wrestling with the local peasants. After defeating a peasant, Wong-Chu demanded the next challenger, and a man in heavy clothing challenged him. To his dismay, the next challenger ended up being Stark in the Iron Man armor who ended up defeating Wong-Chu. After small arms fire failed to kill Iron Man, who used a crude repulsor mechanism to turn away heavy artillery, Wong-Chu made an attempt to call for backup over the loudspeaker in a nearby observation tower. This failed because Iron Man interfered with it and instead sent out a message for the guards to flee. Wong-Chu then tried to escape Iron Man and kill the prisoners. But instead, he was killed in an ammo dump explosion that Iron Man caused.