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As Tony Stark faces increased threats from all sides, with the Marvel Universe hanging in the balance, he is back to confronting his oldest demons.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Death of Doctor Strange: Avengers #1, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
While it’s never particularly easy to be a superhero in the Marvel Universe, Iron Man has been feeling the pressure a bit more than usual lately. Alongside his fellow Avengers, Tony Stark is facing the magical fallout from the death of Doctor Strange as all sorts of monstrous threats from other dimensions are poised to overwhelm the Earth now that the Sorcerer Supreme can no longer provide the first line of defense. And in Iron Man’s solo comic book series, Tony has blasted off to the other side of the cosmos in a race against time to stop the supervillain Korvac from achieving godhood and subjugating all intelligent life to his fiendish will.
Accordingly, the stress and pain of being put through these two separate wringers have led Tony’s greatest enemy of all to prominently resurface in both stories: Tony’s longtime issues with substance abuse addiction.
For Tony, Stephen Strange’s death not only unleashed a wave of monsters on the Marvel Universe but a torrent of troubling emotions and memories as the Armored Avenger now had to contend with earth-shattering magical threats and his own grief over the loss of a friend. With regards to the cosmic fight against Korvac, Tony endured several grievous injuries while attempting to arrive at Galactus’ vacant ship before Korvac and his loyal cadre of supervillains. This resulted in Tony tapping into the Iron Man armor medical system’s supply of morphine to numb the pain only to consciously dose himself more than needed, as Hellcat noticed when they spoke. These pressures lead to a similar development in The Death of Doctor Strange: Avengers #1 by Alex Paknadel, Ryan Bodenheim, Rachelle Rosenberg and VC’s Cory Petit.
As Tony recollects his thoughts in the shower following Stephen’s death and the magical barrier he erected around the Earth to keep it safe from extra-dimensional invaders, the only thing that he can think of is the incessant urge to grab a drink. This is the work of one of the Three Mothers, a group of three immensely powerful mystical beings who emerged after Strange’s death. One of the three breached Iron Man’s armor, and her lingering presence appears to tempt him to drink. Taking so long that the other Avengers begin to notice and worry about him, Tony continues to wrestle with the temptation to indulge, even after he leaves the shower and stares contemplatively at his empty armor, bearing the full brunt of his mystically-enhanced unresolved issues in quiet solitude.
For Tony, this isn’t the first time he’s confronted with his substance abuse addiction in a mystically-tinged storyline. After David Michelinie, Bob Layton, John Romita, Jr. and Carmine Infantino’s seminal 1979 story “Demon in a Bottle” saw Tony’s battles with alcoholism roar to the forefront with disastrous consequences, Tony has struggled to keep these addiction issues in check. Tony briefly considered easing his troubles with a drink during the crossover event Civil War, by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, before deliberately sacrificing his sobriety in the crossover event Fear Itself, Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen, to gain an audience with Odin.
Since then, Tony’s sobriety has largely been maintained but the temptation to relapse has surfaced on occasion whenever the going gets especially tough for Iron Man. And after hitting the painkillers particularly hard in between bouts against Korvac, Tony’s sobriety hangs in tatters again as the Avengers face one magical setback after another, making the Armored Avenger something of a tragic liability among Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as they pick up the pieces from the death of Doctor Strange.
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