[Zeke]

Ten out of ten, plus one for style. For his first few issues, Stane was an unidentified shadowy figure who sent chess-themed henchmen -- the Chessmen -- to do his dirty work. First came the Knight, then the Bishop (who not only dressed like a clergyman but talked like a parody of one, demanding that Iron Man "repent"; his mitre contained a device that weakened Iron Man's will, giving him the advantage). The Rook was interesting because he was a more abstract threat; while there was a guy who dressed like a rook, instead of fighting Iron Man personally he set up a series of deathtraps for him in a castle, so the guy and the castle together were the Rook. (Stane had pawns too, but they were just short guys who acted as pageboys for him.) And yes, as Gatac noted, the Queen was a metaphor. Stane hired a woman named Indries Moomji to fake an accident at Stark Enterprises so she would meet Tony and he would fall for her -- we later found out this was because she had some kind of pheromone powers. At just the right moment, Indries not only dumped Tony but tore into him personally; with his business already under heavy attack and his strength sapped by weeks of fighting, this was the final push that drove Tony back to the bottle.

Sorry. As you can see, I love to talk about comics. The Stane arc was revolutionary at the time; it took a hard, realistic look at alcoholism, was the prototype for countless "brilliant villain wears down the hero mentally and physically" stories to follow (the biggest being Knightfall), and introduced Marvel's first really prominent black superhero when Jim Rhodes took over as Iron Man. (The Black Panther had been around for a while, but he didn't have his own title.) Interestingly, DC Comics did the exact same thing with Green Lantern at about the same time, replacing Hal Jordan with John Stewart.