In Tales of Suspense #63, Tony finally figures out how to fix his chest plate. But naturally, he has to be very melodramatic when he puts his solution to the test. "Let me die with valor!" Oh, Tony. <3

And just in case you thought escaping the armor would solve Tony's problems:

Nope. He's still lovelorn. In fact, his self-enforced loneliness is so central to these early comics that, eventually, Stan decided to straight-up hang a lampshade on it:

Yeah, look at that caption on the right. The self-awareness there makes me laugh out loud. "Oops! This comic turned into a Gothic romance so quickly, everyone has started to notice. Better laugh at myself before I get complaints!" (Seriously, though: what if today's creators followed Stan's example and freely made jokes at their own expense? I think we'd have a much healthier comic book industry.)

And, of course, this story ends - like many early Iron Man stories - with Tony brooding over the mandatory bleakness of his personal life. Ah, classique!