Iron Man's oldest
armored adversary has not one face behind his
helmet but six! Half a dozen men so far have worn the battlesuit of the Dynamo!
The first of them was Anton Vanko,
the Soviet scientist who invented the original
battlesuit. Not only did this outfit give the
wearer superhuman strength and the ability to fly, but it could also generate powerful bolts of electricity. The
USSR sent Vanko to battle Iron Man,
but when Tony Stark showed Vanko that the Commies planned to eliminate him,
Vanko defected and
became an employee of Stark's!
The Soviets retaliated by sending their top
agent, the Black Widow,
and her associate, Boris Turgenev
(Boris and Natasha, natch!) to snatch Vanko's Dynamo suit. Turgenev thus
briefly became the second Dynamo, and the original, Vanko, sacrificed his life
by killing Turgenev. Vanko's former assistant,
Alex Nevsky, created an improved version of
Vanko's suit and became the third Crimson Dynamo. Failing to defeat the Golden
Avenger, Nevsky was eventually assassinated by the KGB. The next three men to
wear the Dynamo armor were all KGB operatives: Yuri Petrovitch, Dimitri Bukharin
and Valentin Shatalov.
The latter Dynamo, Shatalov, actually switched
minds once with Tony Stark through a freak
accident (IM #255).
Shatalov also allowed Stark to wear his Dynamo armor in an effort to stop the
original Titanium Man
who had gone berserk (IM #317).
The new Russian government fired Shatalov
from his role as Crimson Dynamo, and it's only a matter of time before a new
one appears. In "Heroes Reborn" Iron Man
(vol. 2), there was a brief appearance of a Crimson Dynamo (IM
vol. 2 #10) -- he looked like a cross between the
3rd version Dynamo armor and the Mauler! According to Masters of Evil #1, the Heroes Reborn
Dynamo was the HR Anton Vanko.
A Russian student by the name of Gennady Gavrilov had discovered an old helmet of [the Marvel Universe] Anton Vanko's; he used it to become yet another Crimson Dynamo for a short while, even managing to hold off the Russian military (the Crimson Dynamo limited series). Other Dynamos have recently appeared in the pages of The Ultimates, The Hulk, and Secret War.
First ever & IM appearance: (Vanko) Tales of Suspense
#46.
Other first appearances: (Turgenev) Tales of Suspense #52; (Niven) Iron Man #21;
(Petrovitch) no IM appearance; (Bukharin) Iron Man #109; (Shatalov) Iron
Man #255.
(Thanks to TJ Burns for the help!)
Dmitri Bukharin as the Dynamo.
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