In
Iron Man: The Legend #1 (1996),
Peter Sanderson gives a list of "
Iron Man's Lamest Foes."
And he declares
this guy "
Undeniably the lamest Iron Man villain of all time":
Oh no you didn't!
Look, I'm sorry, but that is just
nonsense.
I've written tangentially about the Black Lama before, but allow me to recap.
Black Lama was, indeed an alternate universe version of
Gerald Ford (from
Earth-7511...dammit, I
love Marvel). Interdimensional travel drove him mad, and he took on the Black Lama identity, and started the
War Of The Super-Villains. This
would have become Marvel's first actual line-wide crossover, 10 years before
Secret Wars, except the contemporary Marvel management found it
too complex to co-ordinate something like that, especially as writer
Mike Friedrich was in California and the rest of the
Bullpen was in New York (actually answer from
Iron Man's letter column in issue
#71!).
So, really, Black Lama
wasn't lame, he was just
ahead of his time! He was the
Beyonder a decade early!! That's not lame, that's
hyper-impressive!!
(Plus. yesterday was Gerald Ford's
100th birthday, so show some respect!)
Meanwhile, Sanderson put
this guy on the list of Iron Man's "
Greatest Foes":
The
Unicorn? Really? "
Greatest" foes? With judgement like that, you don't get to call Black Lama lame...