Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: iron man, marvel, opioid crisis

Demon in a Pill Bottle: Tony Stark Gets a New Addiction in August?

Published Thu, 20 May 2021 09:40:10 -0500

Every once in a while, Marvel has to update the origins of their superheroes to make them work in the world today. This is a result of Marvel time, where everything that has ever happened in Marvel Comics is condensed into roughly the last decade or so of real-time, with landmarks in time shifting ever-forward to keep everything up to date. You see this most often with veterans of wars changing which war they were a veteran of as it becomes impossible (except in the case of time-displaced or immortal characters) to reconcile their current youthful bodies with a history steeped in geo-political conflicts that happened half a century ago or more, such as the Vietnam War that served as the backdrop for Tony Stark creating the first Iron Man armor in the original 1960s comics.

But sometimes it's less subtle than changing an origin story from taking place during the Vietnam War to the Gulf War to the War in Afghanistan. Take, for example, Tony Stark's famous Demon in a Bottle storyline in which Stark developed an alcohol problem. Alcohol problems are old hat these days. Does anyone want to see Iron Man chugging hard seltzers? No, we need a drug addiction for modern times, which is why it looks like, in August's issue of Iron Man, Tony Stark may be taking up abusing prescription pain medication.

Check out the solicit below and Marvel's full solicits here.

IRON MAN #11
CHRISTOPHER CANTWELL (W) • ANGEL UNZUETA (A) • Cover by ALEX ROSS
MARVEL GAMES VARIANT COVER BY NETEASE
After bringing down an Ultimo robot nearly singlehandedly, Iron Man continues to investigate the strange and small colony on the remote planet where he's been marooned. Life here seems perfect…but is it? And who's possibly pulling the strings behind its delicate design? As Tony digs deeper for answers, an astral projection of Hellcat warns him that Korvac is still the biggest threat they all face…unless Tony gives into addiction, this time in the form of pain medication for his many injuries. FEATURING ANOTHER APPEARANCE BY EVERYONE'S FAVORITE ARMORED CANADIAN HERO, AVRO-X! Plus: STILT-MAN!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99