MYSTERIOUS AMERICA

Tony Stark makes you feel He’s a cool exec with a heart o’ steel As Iron Man, all jets ablaze He’s fightin’ and smitin’ with repulsor rays! Amazin’ armor! That’s Iron Man! A blazin’ power! That’s Iron Man!

There is another Universe out there.

The gateway for me was a Mom & Pop’s Candy store on 30th Ave, on the corner of 50th street right on the border of Woodside and Astoria, Queens, across from the Bohack. (Pretty sure non-New Yorkers will be lost on that reference. (Backroads Swag for the rst reader to tell me what a Bohack was)

To get to the “Gateway” all I had to do was walk into the shop and on the left the entirety of what would become the MCU was at my ngertips; a circular, spinning wire rack full of the new month’s latest editions of super-hero comics.

For 12¢.

Let me slingshot forward a half-century later. Mom & Pop’s is gone replaced by the 4 Your Convenience Candy, Beer & Stationary - Woodside still has its priorities, I see. Yes, let me have some skittles, a six-pack of suds, and some writing paper to pen a ransom note.

But I bet they still have comics. How many of us became avid readers of Spidey, Cap, and Iron Man?

A bunch, I’d wager.

Spidey has a place of honor here at Backroads Central – but as a kid, I always knew that each month Tony Stark’s Iron Man would be action cover to cover.

Most of you probably didn’t have the deep Marvel Comic upbringing I did. To this day Marvel outshines DC in every way. No contest. Why? Seriously? It is easy. Peter Parker was from Queens, Tony Stark from Manhattan and Captain America—Steve Rogers—hailed from Brooklyn, New York. Not Smallville or Metropolis or Gotham. New Friggin’ York. I never thought I’d run into Iron Man on the backroads of Pennsylvania. But rst a bit of Iron Man history…

BACKROADS • DECEMBER 2022

The Golden Avenger - Iron Man - rst appeared in 1963 in Tales of Suspense # 39. His creation is of cially credited to four people: writer and editor Stan Lee, who plotted the rst story; Larry Lieber (Stan’s brother), who scripted it; artist Don Heck, who drew it; and Jack Kirby, who designed Iron Man’s original armored battle suit.

Iron Man would get his own comic in 1968.

Much like the movie adaptation, Tony Stark was a capitalist billionaire, something that went against what most readers were expecting.

According to Lee: “I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military ... So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist ... I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him ... And he became very popular.”

That is an understatement.

And, for the record… we like capitalists and billionaires – they keep the lights on.

In both the lms and the original comics, the story is the same. Genius inventor Tony Stark continued his father Howard Stark’s weaponry business after his parents’ untimely deaths and ew it to even greater heights of innovation. While in Afghanistan or Viet Nam to demonstrate a new missile for the U.S. military, Stark was taken prisoner by the group. Stark awoke in their headquarters to learn that shrapnel near his heart had nearly cost him his life, but swift action by scientist and fellow prisoner Ho Yinsen—who had inserted a powerful electromagnet in Stark’s chest—would prolong it temporarily.

Stalling his captors after they demanded he build them a new weapon, Stark replaced the magnet with the RT, a miniature version of a device originally designed by his father, the Arc Reactor. Furthermore, he and Yinsen created a crude suit of armor that could provide them the means with which to escape. The suit worked as planned, though Yinsen sacri ced himself in order to allow Tony enough time to power it up to ght their terrorist captors. Page 13

The rst Iron Man was not the sleek gold with a splash of “Hot Rod” red – but a hulking, rotund, and slightly slow warrior; but that all changed as Tony Stark and Iron Man’s saga continued.

We have yet to meet someone who didn’t like Tony and Iron Man. So, back to real-time.

We were motoring along Summer Valley Road (Route 895), on our way to Hermy’s BMW / Triumph for some service on our BMW R 1250 GS, when my eyes ashed to the left as we were

passing a huge used car parts lot called J.W. Zapranzy in New Ringgold.

Was that… Iron Man.

Hard on the brakes and a quick U-turn brought us face-to-face with a life-size Iron Man that was welded out of stainless steel in 2013 by Danielsville sculptor Charles W. Applegate.

Applegate has spent years creating some of the most amazing metal and wood sculptures and is one of those rare human beings

Page 14 blessed with both inspiration and talent – always a potent mix.

Applegate is a welder by trade but has been an artist most of his life. A decade ago, Elizabeth Zaprazny, owner of the scrap yard, called Applegate and commissioned him to build a life-sized Iron Man.

“It was a big job,” Applegate said. “It took me 10 months to nish.”

Using illustrations from the original Iron Man comics, Applegate painstakingly created a silver statue of the Marvel superhero that stands 6 feet tall and weighs 300 pounds.

Applegate based his Iron Man on the original 1963 comics and he absolutely nailed it.

Iron Man is de nitely a piece of art to seek out when riding in this part of Mysterious America that has a great motorcycle dealership, a store dedicated to peanuts and the wonderful Hawk Mountain Raptor Sanctuary all within minutes of the ever-vigilant Iron Man. He is certainly a hero… clearly. ,

You try for words, and for me, it is almost too easy sometimes. But not right now. I walked into our home from the barn to nd Shira talking in hushed tones on the phone. Her head slipped up as I walked in and her eyes met mine. I could see they were red and moist. Oh no. Shira was on phone with our friend Barbara Hoffman. She had called to tell us her husband, Bruce Locklin, had passed. I stood by until she nished the call and then we both had that heavy weight of nality bear down on us… one that even the tightest hug could not help support… well, maybe a bit. If you live in the northern part of New Jersey you might be familiar with the name Bruce Locklin, as Bruce was a journalist for the Bergen Record for decades; and not just another scribe – but an intrepid journalist that could, would, and did change lives, for the betterment of most and the detriment of a few others. But, in truth, if it was the former, Bruce was happy to help, if the latter you probably deserved it… and that is what made Bruce Locklin rise so far above the rest. His obit was written by Mike Kelly – another legend in NJ – and is well worth seeking out. Bruce was one of those rare men that would look for the best in everything and, much like another man I was blessed to know, looked at life with wonderment and a smile – but could, would, and was deadly serious when he needed to be. Nearly 30 years ago, over one of Barbara’s magical meals, he asked who this new writer in Backroads was. This Dr. Seymour O’Life? Always the investigative reporter, my raconteuresqe explanation of O’Life bounced off him and he continued to strip away my brilliantly contrived story… a layer at a time. He then asked, while pouring another glass of red, what O’Life looked like? This I had an answer for… You, Bruce. He looks like you, and in my mind, our good doctor – the master of mystery - was loosely based on Marvel’s Dr. Strange – but he would look alot like Bruce. From the next edition of Backroads to this very issue – the face of Mysterious America and of Dr. Seymour O’Life was Bruce – who kindly sat for a ridiculous amount of photos of him until Shira nally decided we had what we needed. What, you thought Seymour was real? Well – he was and still is – sort of. For years the duties of O’Life were handled by our friend Jeff Bahr. Jeff ew west many years back and we thought a part of O’Life died that day on a Pennsylvania backroad. This day I felt like another part of Backroads has left us as well. There was one rally, a good number of years back, that Bruce and Barbara were going to attend; with the thought of Bruce ‘method acting’ in the best Lee Strasberg way. We thought it would be so much fun to have Dr. Seymour O’Life brought right to the throngs of his adoring fans. They didn’t ride motorcycles, but they had a great love of travel and a greater love of good people. If you have ever attended a Backroads rally you know we have the best people riding along with us. Bruce… I mean Seymour, would have t right in. With Bruce’s passing the world lost a good man, Barbara lost an adoring husband, and Backroads and Mysterious America lost a wee bit of its magic. But, I am sure, somewhere down some dark and tree-shrouded road, over that next hill and across the dark river there will be another part of Mysterious America and just maybe Bruce will be waiting. Vade cum deo, my friend. ~ Brian Rathjen ,