Iron Man #126-#128

 

 So far we have seen:

Justin Hammer make it look like Iron Man killed someone important.

A whole lotta booze.
Iron Man coin a new catchphrase.
DAMN YOUR METALLIC HIDE!
Tony and Rhodey get caught by a mysterious army with no fashion sense. 

We’ll begin the final chapter of this four-part review with a side note full of Iron Man 2 spoilers behind the cut.

*Spoilery Side Note*

Some of you might have noticed the similarities between these comics and Iron Man 2, e.g. Justin Hammer hiring Whiplash and trying to destroy Iron Man, Tony’s excessive drinking, important scenes in Monaco, etc.  I assume this was all intentional, in which case Iron Man 2, while a decent enough film on its own, utterly fails as an adaptation.  Movie Tony is never forced to truly confront his drinking problem, and I guess it’s kind of implied that curing his palladium poisoning and entering a pseudo-solid relationship is all he needed to feel better.  It’s basically Demon in a Bottle WITHOUT the demon in a bottle, which defeats the entire original purpose of the story.  Maybe Iron Man 3 deals with all that, but from where I’m sitting, it looks like they really missed the boat on this one.

*End of Spoilery Side Note*

The comic starts a little while after Issue 125 left off.  Rhodey is facing down the Monaco police and angry civilians, all of whom are a mite peeved about the stupid American who ruined their beach.  He tries to explain that it wasn’t his fault—that he was knocked unconscious while his rich and famous employer was dragged off who-knows-where—but no one believes him and he’s hauled in for questioning.

And where is Tony now, you may ask?  At Justin Hammer’s super-secret headquarters, of course.

 

Hammer gives Tony a tour of the place, ending up in the lab where a) Hammer’s tech guys are trying to crack the lock on the suitcase containing Tony’s spare armor, and b) Hammer explains how he used his spiffy computers to take control of the armor and murder the Carnelian ambassador, which in turn caused Carnelia to award a contract to one of Hammer’s companies instead of Stark International.

*Spoilery Side Note*

Please note that Hammer is actually intelligent and a formidable villain, not an annoying useless weasel like he is in the movie.  Man, at this rate, I won’t even have to write an Iron Man 2 review.

 

*End of Spoilery Side Note*

 

Tony tries to escape but quickly discovers that Hammer’s entire headquarters is… well… see for yourself.

 
I want one.

Hammer locks Tony up in a room somewhere, prompting our hero to switch to Plan B.

 

Dear Tony,

When a sociopathic supervillain tells you you’re drinking too much, it’s time to rethink your life a little.  Possibly a lot.

 

Love,
Me

P.S. Your face is cute.

Plan C, wherein Tony throws the aforementioned water on the floor, tricks the guard into standing on it, and electrocutes him with a broken lamp (wait, wouldn’t the carpet have absorbed all the water?), goes much better (somehow), and he makes his way back to the computer lab Hammer showed him earlier.  He blows up the armor-controlling computers, and now that he no longer has to fear losing control of his suit, he grabs his suitcase and prepares for battle with Hammer’s evil league of evil, consisting of dozens of two-bit villains.

And that’s what the first half of Issue 127 is all about: Iron Man vs. everybody.  Some of the more amusing guests at this shindig include Stiletto, who disappoints everyone by not wearing the shoes that share a name with his knives…

 
…and the token female villain, Man-Killer.  Yep.  Man-Killer.  I’ll bet you already know what her dialogue sounds like without even scrolling down to read the panel.

 

I knew you could do it.

The fun comes to an abrupt end with the arrival of the Monacan police, who have finally been convinced by Rhodey that Hammer really kidnapped Tony Stark.  A few explosions and failed escape attempts later, everyone—minus one Justin Hammer, who did manage to escape—is taken into custody, and Iron Man is exonerated in the murder of the ambassador.

Unfortunately for Iron Man, nothing is ever that simple.  Stark International stock has taken a dive since they lost the Carnelian contract, and many New Yorkers remain fearful of our hero, regardless of the dropped charges.  Tony deals with it the only way he knows how, a.k.a. boozing it up… which only makes things worse when Bethany calls to make a lunch date with him.

 

Whoops.

When Beth “fails to show,” Tony gets annoyed and deals with it the only way he knows how.  Again.  His descent seems to be accelerating, doesn’t it?

 

I probably could have just showed you that first panel, but I’m showing you all three for a reason.  The first is to illustrate my point, the second is to show any greenhorns out there how Jarvis used to be before Hollywood got their hands on him, and the third is to illustrate that weird color scheme.  It looks a little weird, but that’s the point, and I love it to bits.  Something is very wrong in Stark Town.

Tony gets snippy with Jarvis, and Jarvis responds by resigning the next morning.  That seems kind of like an overreaction to me, but his letter of resignation implies that he’s unhappy with the Avengers in general at the moment (he’s the Avengers’ butler, not just Tony’s), so there’s probably more of an explanation in other comics. 

Jarvis’s resignation is the slap that finally, finally snaps Tony out of his drunken stupor long enough to realize that hey, maybe Iron Man isn’t responsible for everything wrong with his life.  But don’t get excited just yet.  It’s not what you think.

And so, at long last, we arrive at Issue 128, which gave its name to the entire preceding storyline.  We start with Tony in sad shape: dressed in the Iron Man armor for no particular reason, summarizing the last few issues to his helmet like Hamlet talking to Yorick’s skull.  WHICH I’M SURE WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE SYMBOLIC AT ALL.  REALLY.

 

 

So just what does Tony blame for his recent troubles?  The alcohol?  No way, José!  He blames Tony Stark!  And there’s only one way to fix that…

 

This is why he’s a genius and you’re not.

Tony’s—‘scuse me, Iron Man’s—first order of duty after ditching his other identity is to… crash through a window after forgetting to open it, actually… but after that he decides to help with a nearby train derailment.  Whether they like it or not.  See, there were no casualties, and the tanker of poisonous chlorine the train was carrying has remained intact, so the civilian rescue forces are doing a pretty good job on their own.

Until.

 

The phrase “nice job breaking it hero” just came to mind.

Iron Man returns home with his tail between his legs, but before he can take another drink, Bethany arrives to talk him out of it.  She tells him the story of her now deceased husband, Alex Van Tilberg.  She didn’t have the best relationship with him anyway, and when he began taking pills to cope with the stress of his job, she left him.  Alex ended up sending his car off his a cliff not long afterward, leaving Beth to wonder if she should have stayed and tried to help him.

The first time I read this, I had to use every one of my facial muscles to keep from rolling my eyes.  Well isn’t this convenient?  The woman Tony happens to be dating right now just happens to have personal experience with addiction and its consequences.  When did this become an after school special?  But, as it turns out, Alex’s story—and, more specifically, his addiction—comes up again in later issues with significant effects on the characters, so its presence here isn’t entirely gratuitous and actually results in character development for Beth.  So instead of talking more about that, let’s focus on Tony’s reaction to Beth’s story.

The fact that he did not send her to a nunnery counts as progress in my book.

But of course, this is alcoholism we’re talking about it.  Asking for help is just the first step in a long, arduous process full of physical and emotional pain that will take weeks, months or even years to sort out, accept and move on from.

Or, you know, a page.  A page is good.

Yeah, if there’s one thing that bothers me about Demon in a Bottle more than anything else, it’s this part.  Sure, the journey here was still nice, and it is a very pretty page, but after ten issues’ worth of anticipation, a two-page payoff ain’t gonna cut it.  It’s like we took a really long hike to see what’s on the other side of a mountain, but we only stay at the top for fifteen seconds before racing down the other side in the Batmobile at top speed. 

A now-sober Tony goes to Avengers Mansion to apologize to Jarvis and offer him his job back.  Jarvis accepts, but during his brief unemployment, he sold off the stock he had in Stark International.  Which wouldn’t be a problem, except that SHIELD is trying to take over S.I. by buying up stock.  But hey, what are the odds that they’ll track down Jarvis’s stocks and buy them up before Tony can oh screw it here’s the panel.

 
Devastated, Tony returns to the mansion and makes a beeline for the booze.  It is once again up to Bethany to stop him.

 

Um, what friends?  The only person who seems to care about Tony’s drinking habits is you, Beth.  The Avengers are nowhere to be seen.  Rhodey suspected something was up but said nothing.  Jarvis went all “screw this I’m outta here” when Tony’s drunken behavior upset him.  If I knew nothing about Tony Stark aside from what I’ve read in this issue, I’d assume he had no friends.

Anyway, Tony is still tempted to take the drink, but he ultimately puts the bottle aside in favor of coffee with Beth and Jarvis.  The comic ends with Tony and Beth literally driving off into the sunset, with Tony optimistically declaring that he has defeated “life’s best shot” and that he will find a way to get his company back.  Spoiler alert: he does. 

So that’s Demon in a Bottle.  Did it live up to my expectations?  Naturally.  In fact, it surpassed them.  But my expectations weren’t all that high in the first place.

That may sound surprising, since this is one of the more famous Iron Man story lines, but this was published in the late seventies, when the idea of comic books dealing with serious real-world issues was still a relatively new idea—an idea they really didn’t know how to handle without sounding preachy and/or naïve and/or cheesy.  Roy Harper, then known as Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy, taught me that lesson quite well.

I’d heard a lot of good things about Green Lantern #85-#86 (a.k.a. “My ward, Speedy, is a JUNKIE!”) before finally reading it and was quite disappointed to find an overly simplistic story that focused more on Green Arrow’s changing attitude towards addicts than on the addict himself.

 

Demon in a Bottle is nowhere near as bad as all that.  Most of it is quite excellent and (for all I know) realistic and I love it dearly.  But Tony Stark’s acceptance of his alcoholism should not have been the end of an eleven-issue storyline; it should have been the beginning.  And that, really, is the crux of the issue.  Or all the issues.  We get a grand total of four pages where Tony is visibly struggling to overcome his addiction, and then he’s hunky-dory and never seriously tempted to backslide.

For example, in Iron Man #134, we see Tony still keeps alcohol in his office—you know, the place where the recovering alcoholic spends long stressful hours alone and unsupervised? 

 

DON’T GIVE ME THAT SMIRK JUST GET RID OF THE BOTTLE.

Either everyone involved is mind-bogglingly naïve, or Tony purposefully left the bar in place, thereby indicating he still has major problems.

Whether this was done intentionally or just the result of a writer in search of a fake-out gag, I don’t know.  What I do know is that a little over two years after Demon in a Bottle, Tony’s problems came roaring back to the forefront.  Big time.

 

Starting in Iron Man #160  and serendipitously written by Dennis O’Neil, who helped bring us the truncated tale of Roy Harper’s substance abuse over a decade earlier, another series of unfortunate events pushed Tony right off the wagon and into a poison ivy-covered minefield full of quicksand and rabid honey badgers.

 

It got worse before it got better, kids.

I’ve only read the relapse storyline once—I call it the Captain Ahab era, in honor of Tony’s bitchin’ hobo beard—and I read it all in a haze of oh my stars and garters they actually went there, so I haven’t yet reached a place where I can objectively critique it.  But that’s okay, because we’re not reviewing that arc, we’re reviewing this one, and I can’t tell you how annoying the rushed ending is after so many issues of build-up to this big climactic moment… and yes, despite suspecting that the story would end this way, I was still disappointed.  Can I help having a Blue Lantern ring?

So what’s my final verdict on this most historic of Iron Man stories?  That depends on your perspective.

If you read Demon in a Bottle as an isolated story arc unto itself, then yeah, you’re in for some disappointment.  The ending is simply too neat and too quick to be satisfying after you’ve spent a year (or at least a year’s worth of comics) waiting for the payoff.  It’s gorgeous to look at and well written up to a point, but the final issue is a letdown of quinjet-size proportions.

If, however, you look at it as just one small part of an ongoing adventure without a true beginning or end, then you’ll know there’s a lot more to Demon in a Bottle than meets the eye.  The fact that Tony seems to recover so quickly while still willingly exposing himself to temptation on a daily basis becomes a clear signal that he is not as healed as he’d like to think and will have to face the consequences of his incomplete recovery sooner or later. 

The fact that he didn’t have a supportive environment in which to get and stay sober makes this even more inevitable.  Like I said, Tony’s so-called friends did precisely nothing to help him the first time around, and most of them continue to do nothing the second time around.  Though frankly, from what I’ve seen during the Captain Ahab era, I don’t think Tony would have fared much better during Demon in a Bottle even if his friends weren’t MIA.

Captain America of all people is probably among the worst.  He guest stars in Iron Man #172 and, at first, seems like he might be of some actual help.

 

Okay, fine, so he lost his temper in Avengers #232, but he’s realized his mistake and seems willing to rectify it.  Then he actually finds Tony.  You know those panels I posted above where Tony tearfully tries to justify his drinking?  That was a direct result of Captain Sensitive yelling in his face—AGAIN—and slapping the bottle out of his hand.  Yes, you read that right: Captain America made Iron Man cry.  And would you like to see Cap’s reaction to that?

 
“And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat.  On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand!  Except Tony’s alcoholism, because screw Tony.  Avengers assemble!”

Look, I’m sure there are some cases where an addict really can’t be helped and their loved ones have no choice but to walk away, but before you leave, YOU TRY TO HELP THEM YOU DON’T YELL AT THEM FOR TWO PAGES WHAT ARE YOU DOING.  Combine meatheads like this with Tony’s daily exposure to alcohol at his own office, others’ offices, and high society social events, and you’ve got a volcano waiting to erupt.

Alright, tangent over.  The point is, the fact that Demon in a Bottle has a name may mislead you into thinking of it as an isolated storyline (sure fooled me).  But the name is just so Marvel can package and sell it.  In truth, it is the beginning of its own era, inexorably linked to the rest of the series.  This provides us with a ticking clock as we read it.  Even as Tony heroically turns away from the bottle at the end of Iron Man #128, we know it is just a matter of time before the cycle repeats itself.

Next Time: The Amazons invade Washington DC.  No, don’t go, it’s not what you think!

Images from Iron Man #126, Iron Man #127, Iron Man #128, Iron Man #134, Iron Man #172, Green Lantern #85, and Iron Man #176