WHITE DRAGON

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Human (Chinese?) technology user

Occupation: Scientist, terrorist; would-be world conqueror

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Council of Nine, Shara-Lee, his troops (including Commander Kreol, Davina, T'Zin)

Enemies: Avengers (Captain America/Steve Rogers, Goliath/Clint Barton, Thor/Odinson), Falcon (Sam Wilson), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Shara-Lee's father, the United Nations

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: "He Who is a Coward" <translation of White Dragon>

Base of Operations: Mobile in his submarine, apparently based in the East River while in the USA

First Appearance: Iron Man I#39 (July, 1971)

Powers/Abilities: Although having no paranormal abilities, the White Dragon was a talented weapons inventor and a trained scientist. He was served by a small squadron of armored agents.

He operated out of a submarine armed with various weapons.

He used a device called a Transcriber on Tony Stark.

Height: 6' (by approximation)
Weight: 180 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed

History:
(Iron Man I#39 + 40 (fbs) - BTS) - Although his origins were largely unrevealed, at some point in the past, the man who would become the White Dragon served as a scientist in a Chinese(?) organization known only as the Council, or the Nine. While the scientist was known to be quite brilliant, his abilities--or more specifically his ability to handle his own talents--were called in question by one of the Council, and he was considered to be a coward. As a result, the scientist lost face and went into self-imposed exile until he could prove himself. He was joined by Shara-Lee, his lover and the daughter of the man who had denounced him.

(Iron Man I#39) - The White Dragon had his agents implant a gas bomb within the car of one of America's top industrialists, Anthony Stark. Stark succumbed to the gas and drove off a bridge. The unconscious Stark was rescued from drowning by the Dragon's agents and taken to the Dragon's submarine, where he was placed within the Transcriber, which allowed the Dragon to reprogram his mind.

(Iron Man I#39 - BTS) - The White Dragon implanted a small pin-shaped tracer under the skin of Stark's skull; he also gave Stark blueprints for a new weapon system, which the Transcriber had made Stark believe that he had designed himself.

(Iron Man I#39) - Upon being released, Stark returned to his factory with no memory of his capture, only suffering from a passing headache. He handed off the blueprints for production and arranged a meeting with the United Nations to discuss his plans. The Dragon schemed to cause Stark to create weapons which would fail, and would thereby disgrace the United States; consequently, all of the weapons designed by Stark in the past would be junked, leaving the nation virtually defenseless. The plan would hopefully also enable the Dragon to infiltrate and destroy the USA's Department of Defense.

   However, not much later, Stark donned his Iron Man armor and flew toward Avengers Mansion; but wearing the armor weakened the transmission being sent into his mind by the White Dragon, although Stark still suffered from a headache. Meanwhile, the White Dragon detected both his loss of control of Stark, and Iron Man passing overhead on his submarine's monitors, so he sent some of his armed agents to attack Iron Man, who was still in a mental fog from the weak transmissions. Iron Man was defeated by the armored agents, but before they could take him back to the Dragon, they were attacked by Iron Man's allies, the Avengers and the Falcon. After a short battle, the Dragon's agents fled from the Avengers, and Iron Man left as well, wondering if there was some connection between his headaches and the squad which attacked him.

   Figuring that his efforts with Stark were a failure, the White Dragon triggered the destruction of the device he had implanted in Stark's skull, which would also kill Stark. But blunted by the armor, the signal's destruction of the device did not kill Iron Man, and merely knocked him unconscious while he was in mid-flight over the Stark Industries complex; Iron Man dropped to the ground, where he was recovered by his ally, Kevin O'Brien. The White Dragon observed on his monitors that Iron Man dropped from the sky when he triggered the device in Stark, and he correctly reasoned that Stark actually was Iron Man.

(Iron Man I#40) - The White Dragon's agents planted a nuclear bomb in the East River by the UN Building, with which he planned to destroy the committee present at Stark's meeting. However, Stark knew something was awry with the weapons blueprints of which he had no memories of creating, and so he cancelled his meeting with the UN. The White Dragon then tried to take control of Stark anew, but found him in his Iron Man armor. The Transcriber's power had been drained from its recent use, and was ineffective at penetrating the armor at so great a distance.

   The White Dragon sent his armored agents after Iron Man again. While they knocked Iron Man into the East River, he proved capable of disabling them and their undersea crafts.

   When they saw Iron Man's approach on the submarine's monitor screen, and realized their defeat was imminent, Shara-Lee encouraged the White Dragon to detonate the nuclear bomb by the UN Building. But the White Dragon hesitated to press the button, because they were too near and would die as well; Shara-Lee chastised him for his cowardice, and reached for the button herself. But suddenly, the entire submarine lurched as Iron Man destroyed the craft's ballast tanks, causing it to sink to the bottom of the river, where it would remain trapped. The White Dragon was stunned by Iron Man's blasting of the submarine, but Shara-Lee was fully conscious when Iron Man boarded the ship. She revealed that she had been in control the whole time, and that the White Dragon was just her pawn.

   Shara-Lee then presented to Iron Man a video image of Stark Industries, which showed the plant blowing up. She figured that Stark's technicians had built and triggered the weapon from the blueprints that they had forced upon Stark. Laughing at this victory over Stark, Shara-Lee cared little that Iron Man had maneuvered himself close enough to disable the detonation device for the bomb by the UN Building. Iron Man then took off to see if he could save anyone at his plant.

   The White Dragon, having heard Shara-Lee mocking him and calling him her dupe, decided there was only one way to regain his self-respect: He triggered the submarine's self-destruct mechanism, killing both himself and Shara-Lee.

   Iron Man returned to Stark Industries, to learn that O'Brien had found the White Dragon's spy cameras, and had faked the explosion with simulated film footage in order to draw out the saboteurs.

Comments: Created by Gerry Conway and Herb Trimpe.

Not the most memorable of stories. I read this for the first time a few weeks before writing the profile, and I was barely able to remember anything about it when it came time to write the profile. Had to re-read it before doing it.

I agree ... the White Dragon came across as little more than a Mandarin-wannabe.
--Ron Fredricks

I guess we'll never learn anything about the Council of Nine.

Profile by Snood. Expansion by Ron Fredricks.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The White Dragon has no known connection to:

The Council of Nine, aka the Council and the Nine, has no known connections to:

T'Zin has no known connection to:

White Dragon's agents

An unspecified number of the White Dragon's operatives, they served as his personal army and crew aboard his submarine.

Kreol was commander of the group; Davina and T'Zin were also named. Kreol and Davina donned diving gear to capture Tony Stark when his car drove off a bridge, then took him aboard the White Dragon's submarine; they later planted a nuclear bomb in the waters of the East River near the United Nations building.

In combat, the first squad used jetpacks and handgun blasters against Iron Man, but they quickly fled when they had to take on the Avengers and the Falcon.

The second squad used handgun blasters, and also wore armored suits that gave them superhuman strength and durability, as well as the ability to fly; but their weapons were no match for Iron Man.

The White Dragon blamed all failures on Kreol, and Davina found Kreol to be incompetent as well. When Kreol nearly killed Iron Man when they were supposed to capture him, Davina attacked Kreol physically--the distraction allowed Iron Man to destroy their mini-submarine.

All were likely to have been killed in the destruction of the White Dragon's submarine, but some could have survived.

--Iron Man I#39 (40

White Dragon's submarine

A massive submersible craft, it was where the White Dragon conducted his schemes under the waters of New York's East River.

Among its advanced equipment were missiles that launched the White Dragon's armored warriors a great distance at rapid speed; it also had at least three mini-submarines that were capable of aerial flight.

Iron Man eventually used his repulsor rays to destroy the submarine's ballast tanks, and it sank to the bottom of the river.

Following his defeat by Iron Man, the White Dragon pressed the self-destruct button, which caused the submarine to erupt in a titanic explosion.

--Iron Man I#39 (40

White Dragon's Transcriber

A device aboard the White Dragon's submarine, it allowed him to reprogram an individual's mind, and thus control his actions; although it initially required direct contact with an individual, it could subsequently transmit its mind-controlling signals over an unspecified distance.

Also used in conjunction with the Transcriber was a small pin-shaped sub-dermal tracer, which could monitor that individual from a distance, or slay that person on command.

The White Dragon used the Transcriber on Tony Stark, to make him an unwilling participant in the Dragon's scheme to destroy the United Nations Building.

But over a distance, the Transcriber's transmissions were blunted by Iron Man's armor, although Stark himself still suffered from agonizing headaches.

When the White Dragon later tried to use the Transcriber from a distance on Iron Man, he found that it had drained its energy-source when he initially used it to take hold of Stark's mind.

--Iron Man I#39 (40

Shara-Lee

She was the daughter of the scientist who had denounced the White Dragon. She posed as the White Dragon's lover, but thought him a fool and merely manipulated him to her own ends.

She led the White Dragon towards her goals, knowing that it would be he who took the blame in the event of failure, and he who would be killed if he succeeded.

She died alongside the White Dragon when he blew up his submarine after learning the truth about her.

(Comment: A few times, the White Dragon addressed her as "Princess"--perhaps her unidentified father was royalty?)

--Iron Man I#39 (40

Council of Nine

Next to nothing is known of this group, which is referred to as "The Council" and "The Nine." They would appear to be of Chinese origin, and they are enemies of the USA. I'd guess that they might have been bent on world domination as well.

At any rate, the White Dragon had lost face in their eyes as a result of Shara-Lee's father's comments. The White Dragon's goal was to redeem himself to them. Shara-Lee's father was presumably one of the Nine, but this remains unconfirmed.

--Iron Man I#39-BTS (39 + 40 (fbs-BTS)

images: (without ads)
Iron Man I#39, p8, pan1 (main image - White Dragon)
Iron Man I#39, p7, pan1 (headshot - White Dragon)
Iron Man I#40, p11, pan1 (White Dragon)
Iron Man I#40, p17, pan5 (White Dragon hesitates to detonate nuclear bomb; Shara-Lee [background])
Iron Man I#39, p17, pan3 (T'Zin, Davina, Kreol)
Iron Man I#39, p14, pan2 (using jetpacks, White Dragon's agents emerge from missiles)
Iron Man I#40, cover (armored agents battle Iron Man underwater)
Iron Man I#39, p5, pan4 (Kreol and Davina carry Tony Stark to White Dragon's submarine)
Iron Man I#39, p12, pan1 (White Dragon's submarine [top view] launches missiles)
Iron Man I#40, p11, pan4 (White Dragon's submarine [front view] launches mini-submarines)
Iron Man I#39, p7, pan2 (Tony Stark gets seated in Transcriber)
Iron Man I#39, p7, pan5 (Tony Stark connected to Transcriber)
Iron Man I#40, p10, pan3 (Shara-Lee)
Iron Man I#40, p18, pan4 (Shara-Lee explains scheme to Iron Man)

Appearances:
Iron Man I#39 (July, 1971) - Gerry Conway (writer), Herb Trimpe (pencils/inks), Artie Simek (letters), Stan Lee (editor)
Iron Man I#40 (August, 1971) - Gerry Conway (writer), George Tuska (pencils), Jim Mooney (inks), Artie Simek (letters), Stan Lee (editor)

First posted: 02/12/2003
Last updated: 03/02/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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