COBALT RAY WEAPON

Classification: Terrestrial technology

Creator: Tony Stark

User/Possessors: Grey Gargoyle (Paul Duval)

First Appearance: (mentioned only) Tales of Suspense I#95/1 (November, 1967); (seen) Tales of Suspense I#96/1 (December, 1967)

Powers/Abilities/Functions: The Cobalt Ray Weapon was a device which could fire an energy beam. At its lowest setting, the beam was capable of stunning a person -- it is unknown what the full capabilities of this device were.

History:
(Tales of Suspense I#95/1 (fb) - BTS) - Tony Stark had developed the Cobalt Ray Weapon, and he announced it to the press.

(Tales of Suspense I#95/1) - Following his escape from prison, the Grey Gargoyle read a news story in the Daily Globe regarding Stark's new weapon. Thinking he could use such a weapon to defeat Thor -- and thus gain his enchanted hammer and immortality -- the Grey Gargoyle went to Stark Industries to steal it. After turning several guards to stone, the Grey Gargoyle battled Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D agent Jasper Sitwell before turning Iron Man to stone and throwing him from the roof of a building, leaving him to shatter on the pavement below...

(Tales of Suspense I#96/1) - Iron Man had thankfully been saved by the timely intervention of Sitwell, who drove up in a sand truck and caught him as he fell. While the golden Avenger was in a petrified state, Grey Gargoyle went to the lower level of Stark Industries and broke into the vault containing the weapon. After smashing the plexiglass dome covering the device, he left the area and was once again confronted by Sitwell and Iron Man (who, by that time, had returned to normal). The two battled the Grey Gargoyle again, until the ceiling of the lower level (weakened from the fight) collapsed, temporarily trapping them below as the Gargoyle made his way outside.

  Security guards faced the Grey Gargoyle, so he fired his first shot from the device, stunning one of them. Iron Man arrived and threw a tarpaulin over the Grey Gargoyle, who instinctively put his hand up to fend it off, turning it to solid stone and fusing it to his body. The Grey Gargoyle ran around in a blind panic and hit a brick wall, shattering the petrified tarp. Once more he fired the cobalt ray, stunning several guards in a clean sweep. When Iron Man continued to fire his repulsor rays at him, the Grey Gargoyle resorted to setting the weapon to its highest intensity. But before he could fire, Iron Man set his own chest transmitter to an exact frequency in order to completely short circuit the Cobalt Ray Weapon, causing the cobalt power to feed back to the Grey Gargoyle, turning him back to normal, at which point he was arrested.

Comments: Created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan.

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Cobalt Ray Weapon has no known connections to

• Cobalt, of the Elements of Doom @ Avengers I#188 (human mutate), Thunderbolts I#8 (pure element)
• Cobalt, of the Ravens @ X-Factor I#56
• Cobalt, of the Amalgam Universe's Magnetic Men @ Magneto and the Magnetic Men#1
• Cobalt Cannon, used by Damocles @ Thor I#267
• Cobalt Flame, sacred flame in El Dorado @ Avengers I#30
• Cobalt Man (Ralph Roberts), X-Men, Defenders, etc. villain @ X-Men I#31
• or any other character with a similar names

images: (without ads)
Tales of Suspense I#96, p4, pan3 (main image)