Iron Man is admired by many for a multitude of reasons, including his sarcasm, wit, intelligence, and relatability. When Stan Lee conceived the Iron Man persona, he wanted the billionaire playboy to be someone everyone detested.
His unstable nature and sarcasm were supposed to irritate fans, and his attributes were not always in line with those of other heroes when he initially arrived. As any fan of the superhero genre will tell you, Tony Stark, the man in the Iron Man armor, is a fan favorite inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) today.
Iron Man, on the other hand, has a lengthy history of battling his alcoholism, and while the issue largely receded from the comics in the 1970s and 1980s, Tony Stark’s problems have never totally vanished. Even the most physically and psychologically strong people, including superheroes, can be crippled by addiction.
With art by Ryan Bodenheim and colors by Rachelle Rosenberg, readers may experience the never-ending ramifications of addiction on a person’s daily existence in Alex Paknadel’s The Death of Doctor Strange: The Avengers #1. His addiction is depicted in other places as well. It is best known for its appearance in David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr., and Carmine Infantino’s 1979 film “Demon in Bottle”
Iron Man has had a number of famous adventures during his long superhero career, which spans more than 50 years and includes his role as a co-founder of the Avengers. This is a critical turning point in the character’s growth.
The multi-issue drama, which was even addressed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, would torment and inform Tony Stark for years to come. Because the MCU must be kid-friendly, it typically avoids presenting issues like these, but the comics have embraced it.
Despite the fact that today’s Iron Man is nothing like the one who first debuted in the late 1970s, “Demon in a Bottle” remains Stark’s defining event. Let us take a look back at this classic story, as well as others that provide insight into the less-than-ideal aspects of Iron Man’s opulent lifestyle.
It starts with The Old Man and the Sea Prince and ends in Demon in a Bottle
At the beginning of the story we see that while Tony loves his work as a golden avenger, he has his own worries, a major one of them being that SHIELD had secretly been buying stocks for his company and was dangerously close to having a controlling percentage. Clearly, Nick Fury didn’t care much for their friendship and we are just a couple of pages in when Tony has his first drink.
The action starts right after as the wing of a passenger airliner which Tony Stark was traveling in, is struck by a military tank launched through the air. Stark dons the Iron Man suit he keeps in his bag, save the plane, and pilots it to a safe landing in the ocean. When the navy ships arrive, soldiers assist the passengers in getting to safety and transport Iron Man to an island base.
They claim that Namor threw the tank because he was defending a resident of the island who the troops were attempting to evict due to the island’s use as a toxic waste dumping site. Before it’s revealed that the soldiers are actually from the Roxxon Oil Corporation, which is secretly occupying the island to mine the vibranium it contains, Iron Man confronts and fights Namor.
However, once he figures out their true identity, Iron Man and Namor band up to fight and defeat the soldiers, who flee and set off explosives on the island, destroying it and all evidence of their presence. Up until here, it seems like a regular superhero comic with action, bad guys, and life and death situations however, that is all going to change as the comic delves into a much darker theme.
The troubles are only beginning here as Iron Man’s armor begins to malfunction while flying home, sending him soaring wildly through the sky and crashing into the ground. He regains control and tests the armor in his lab, where he discovers no apparent flaws. When Blizzard, the Melter, and Whiplash arrive at a casino with Bethany Cabe, they attempt to rob the casino’s vault.
Stark eludes the villains, dons his armor, and battles and defeats them. During the fight, he overhears Blizzard saying that “Hammer” wants Iron Man to live. Later, Stark receives and accepts a request for Iron Man to attend a public ceremony and meet with a foreign ambassador on behalf of his company, Stark International.
They say that once things start going wrong, they usually snowball until it stops and things get better and the same happens with our beloved Tony Stark. Iron Man’s armour malfunctions again at the ceremony, killing the ambassador with a repulsor blast.
Iron Man informs the authorities about the issue, saying that he did not kill the ambassador on purpose. The cops are skeptical, but knowing they can’t fight him, they let him go with the condition that Stark turns over his armour for inspection, which he does. Stark’s drinking substantially grows throughout this time because nothing seems to be working out for him, even when he really tries to do good.
Stark then meets with the Avengers, agreeing to Iron Man’s request to temporarily step aside as their leader, and asks Captain America for hand-to-hand combat training, a request that is granted by the super-soldier. He then meets with Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, and begs him to allow him to sneak inside Whiplash’s prison to find out more about the guy known as Hammer.
Stark takes advantage of the information and travels to Monaco with James Rhodes to conduct an investigation. When Hammer is informed of their presence, he dispatches troops to assault them. They are both knocked out; Stark is taken into custody, while Rhodes is left in the open and arrested by local cops when he awakens.
When Tony Stark wakes up, he is accosted by Justin Hammer, who claims responsibility for Iron Man’s armour faults. Angry that he had lost a lucrative contract to Stark International, Hammer, with the help of scientists on his payroll, took control of Iron Man’s armour and forced him to kill the ambassador in order to smear the company’s name. Stark tries to flee Hammer’s complex by scaling a wall but instead finds himself on a massive floating island at sea.
When Hammer learns of Stark’s escape, he instructs the supervillains he employs to track him down. The supervillains track down Stark, who has dressed up after discovering the confiscated briefcase holding his spare armour. Iron Man fights and overcomes the enemies before pursuing Hammer. Rhodes has persuaded the police of his claim, and police helicopters strike the island.
Hammer flees, and Iron Man flies into the air and falls to the ground, causing the island to be damaged and sink. Stark gets home and proceeds to binge drink, yelling at his butler, Edwin Jarvis, in a drunken manner. The next day, Jarvis resigns. The descent into alcoholism is depicted in a beautiful ye tragic manner where you can’t help but feel bad for IronMan as he keeps resorting to the bottle.
Stark is confronted by Beth as he keeps resorting to alcohol as his escape from the various things going wrong around him. There is a scene here where Tony sits at his desk, in his armour, with a few of mostly-empty bottles strewn around. He talks to his helmet, confessing that using Iron Man as a scapegoat for his troubles hasn’t been fair.
He reveals that he’s worried about losing Stark International and considers whether he should just keep being Iron Man all the time. To clear his mind, he chooses to fly through his window. On Long Island, he finds himself at the scene of a derailed train.
The authorities are concerned that a chlorine-filled tanker car may leak, but Iron Man simply swoops in and snatches it. It slips from his fingers and lands on the ground, where it begins to leak. Tony comes to his flat and prepares to pour himself another drink when Bethany Cabe interrupts him.
She tells him a moving story about her past husband, Alex, who had become hooked on narcotics to cope with his stress and fears, which wrecked their relationship and ultimately killed him.
Beth acknowledges that when she was younger, she didn’t try to understand his fears, but now that she’s older, she won’t forsake Stark as she did Alex. She warns Stark that he is becoming his own greatest enemy and that he must open up to his friends and let them help him, or he will continue to drink until he dies. Stark admits to having a drinking problem and accepts Beth’s offer to help him quit drinking and cope with withdrawal symptoms.
Stark subsequently apologizes to Jarvis and he agrees to work with him again. He discovers that Jarvis’ mother is ill and offers to cover her medical expenses, but he also learns that Jarvis has sold the two shares of Stark International stock that prevented S.H.I.E.L.D. from acquiring a controlling interest in the company. Stark emerges from the book positive about the future, having overcome his drinking and determined to reclaim the stocks and keep control of his company.
Critics have hailed “Demon in a Bottle” as the classic Iron Man story, one of the best super-hero sagas of the 1970s, and one that continues to inspire Iron Man writers today. The story was nominated for an Eagle Award in 1980 for “Best Single Comic Book Story.” Michelinie’s “clever” prose, as well as Romita and Layton’s “very identifiable” artwork, was praised.
Tony isn’t the wisecracking persona we’ve seen since his movie triumph, which is interesting. The tone is much darker, and it’s evident that he was having trouble. Tony would be relaunched for the twenty-first century by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov in “Extremis,” where he enhanced his viewpoint and technological powers.
Tony was on the verge of relapsing into alcoholism during the Civil War, suffering from the murder of his old companion Happy Hogan, when the Invisible Woman intervened. Tony purposefully relapsed during the Fear Itself crossover, jeopardizing his sobriety in order to get Odin’s attention in order to defeat his brother. Tony remained mainly sober for the next several years after that.
Tony has always been troubled by his own personal problems, including his history as a weapons dealer, but even after becoming a superhero, his alcoholism served as a brutal reminder of his underlying shortcomings.
Stark’s portrayal of Alcoholism in the MCU
Tony Stark was quickly established as a habitual drinker at the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, indulging in alcoholic beverages in the morning and during business meetings in the 2008 original Iron Man film.
By Iron Man 2, the pressures of being a superhero and facing his own impending death due to blood poisoning had led Tony to significantly increase his alcohol consumption, much to the dismay of Pepper Potts and James Rhodes, resulting in an armored brawl between Tony and Rhodey when an inebriated Tony loses control at his birthday party.
Tony is seen drinking more responsibly in Avengers and Age of Ultron before seemingly giving up drinking entirely. Tony’s more defining moments in the MCU appear to be rooted in his heroic hubris, as he proclaims himself Iron Man to the world at a press conference in the original film’s final scene would inform Tony’s life throughout both sequels, as well as his decision to support superhero registration in Captain America: Civil War.
The remark would be repeated as his final words prior to wielding the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet to destroy Thanos and his army at the cost of his own life in Avengers: Endgame, his final chronological appearance.
Thus, this comic receives bonus marks for introducing the concept of alcoholism. In any case, this is a must-read for Iron Man fans since it depicts a critical period in the character’s history, one that has continued to reappear and/or play out in both the comics and the movies. Tony’s drunkenness has become a defining point in his development as a character.
It’s nice to see the character conquer it, but everything was wrapped up a little too cleanly and simply, and, as I noted, there wasn’t a consistent progression that made his descent into alcoholism a believable or worthwhile storyline.
As has been seen, the alcoholism storyline has remained a theme in the character portrayal and development of IronMan even in the movies, although it has definitely been toned down in comparison to the comics. Even heroes have their own demons.