Hyperbole... hyperbole.
Hey You Fancy People!
I learned to pronounce hyper-boil.
Mother...
Welcome to That Sci-Fi Show, I'm Jay.
Don't let the name fool you, we do cover science fiction movies and TV shows but mostly, we
do comic books.
I'd like to start out by saying welcome to all the new subscribers from both Comicstorian
and ComicsExplained!
I had a lot of fun doing those videos and it was an honor to work with Benny and Rob.
It's awesome to have you guys here.
If you haven't seen those videos, check them out in the description below.
And for god's sake, Steve.
Put on some pants.
So let's talk about Iron Man.
More specifically, let's talk about Demon in a Bottle, right after the bump.
This video is brought to you by our patrons on Patreon.
Check us out at patreon.com/fancyteeth.
Quick note, my son brought the flu home from school and that's why this video has taken
way longer than it should have to make and why it's voice over instead of live action.
Please accept my sincerest apologies.
Now, I'm sure most of you guys know who Mopee is (and if you don't his Twitter is linked
below) but he suggested several great video ideas, and I'm gonna use them, but while researching
a list video that he suggested, I got really sidetracked on Iron Man's Demon in a Bottle
story arc.
So, I just want to talk about it.
I know that's a different approach than I normally take but I promise I'm planning more
philosophy and ethics videos for the near future.
So Demon in a Bottle started with issue #120 of The Invincible Iron Man and ran for 8 issues
ending in Nov 1979.
What we see in this story, is something that we see in Iron Man even to this day and that's
the attempt to accurately depict a man with realistic problems.
Tony Stark is very much a Marvel hero in that he's not shown to be an example of a righteous,
godly hero, but instead, he's a normal man who becomes a hero.
Well, normal aside from being a billionaire playboy, I suppose.
What I'm about to say here isn't original or groundbreaking, but I believe it's more
or less true.
Generally speaking, Marvel is about men trying to be gods while DC is about gods trying to
be men.
That's not a hard and fast rule by any means, but, look at Thor, even when Marvel has a
god on the team they downplay that aspect - in the movies they go so far as to basically
chalk it up to superior technology.
Meanwhile DC just cannot work enough Christ metahpors into Superman no matter how hard
they try and in the recent Wonder Woman movie (spoliers in 3, 2, 1) they literially made
her an actual god as apposed to simply being brough to life by a god.
Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I really enjoy both styles and there are lots
of examples of both Marvel and DC getting away from that dynamic and doing something
different, but, understanding that basic dynamic helps in understanding Iron Man.
It helps to put him in context.
He's a normal man with normal problems.
If we fast forward for just a moment to the movie Iron Man 3 in 2013 we see Tony Stark
wrestling with insomnia and anxiety steming from his part in saving New York in The Avengers.
At the time of this writting, Iron Man 3 has a 79% critic score and a 78% audience score
on rotten tomatoes.
It seems like most people agree that this movie is okay but not great.
The odd thing about it (and I'm not saying it's the greatest movie ever) but while the
general audience found Tony's panic attacks to be off-putting or even pathetic (and I'm
quoting actual audience reviews here) experts in PTSD and anxiety were actually impressed
with how realistic the movie was in it's depiction of those issues.
Dr. Andrea Letamendi (who's name i'm probably slaughtering) is a Clinical Psychologist, wrote an article called Iron Man: A Terrible
Privilege back in 2013.
I'm going to quote her directly here:
"Tony's struggle with anxiety is poignant because it allows us to realize that he is,
in fact, still human.
To this end, it doesn't matter to me if his panic attacks are indicative of clinical
PTSD, complex PTSD, subclinical anxiety disorder or another psychiatric category we can use
as a label.
The point is this: A brilliant, powerful, and tough guy can be vulnerable, scared, and
confused.
Tony Stark is a superhero with the psychological makeup of a human." Couldn't have said it better myself, that's why I let her say it.
Now, I'm not connecting PTSD or anxiety to acholism here, that's not my intention, I'll
leave drawing connections and conclusions to the experts, but anxiety and acholism are
great examples of Tony Stark being presented as a more human kind of hero.
I bring this up because I suffer from panic attacks myself and there's a scene in the
movie where Tony uses the suit to check his heart rate.
I related to that because taking my own pulse (often with the censor on my phone) is an
actual coping mechanism that I use in real life during panic attacks.
It literally never works and yet I do it anyway, but, such is the nature of intrusive thoughts
and the way they spiral inside the mind.
So how does this tie into Demon in a Bottle?
Well, Demon in a Bottle came out in 1979 just after the Silver Age of comics.
It was a dark real world problem explored at a time when most comics before had been
generally lighthearted, fun and silly.
The exact end of the Silver Age is a fuzzy boundary but people often use the The Night
Gwen Stacy Died in 1973 as one possible boundary, placing Demon in a Bottle five years after
the end of the Silver age.
Arguably, a more popular date for the end of the silver age was 1970 when Julius Schwartz
left Green Lantern (putting Demon 9 years after) but when the silver age really ended
could be it's own video so let's leave it at that.
You may be thinking "Hey, there were other dark stories at that time" and you'd be right.
The Silver age was well over and comics were in sort of like a rebellion against the optimism
and happy-go-lucky spirit that permeated the previous age.
I'll link a couple videos in the description about the Comics Code Authority, it's impact
on comics and what the different ages of comic books were but it's outside the scope of this
video.
Demon in a Bottle was more than just dark.
It was realistic in it's depiction of alcoholism and that trend follows Iron Man even now and
even into the MCU - a franchise famous for fun one liners and family friendly entertainment.
I don't normally quote Wikipedia directly but...
I'm going to...
Demon in a Bottle has been recognized by critics as the quintessential Iron Man story, one
of the best super-hero sagas of the 1970s, and one which continues to influence writers
of the character today.
The Demon story arc is surprisingly subtle.
Over the course of 8 issues they show Tony's drinking, but, at first, it seems insignificant
to the plot and grows more and more alarming as you get closer and closer to #128, the
issue named for the story arc.
Now to be clear, I'm not saying that Tony Stark is a realistic depiction of a person
or that the concept of Iron Man is realistic.
It was Tony's insecurities, anxieties and the way he dealt with problems - that's what
hit so close to home for so many people.
Over the course of the arc we see Tony slowly alienate people, blame anything and everything
other than himself for his troubles and eventually he begins to drive away the people that love
him.
In issue #122, we find Tony on his way home in his armor, he had just nearly drowned and
as he flies home he becomes fixated on the cave in Vietnam where he was held captive
and created the original Iron Man suit.
Tony had suffered trauma and he was being reminded of that trauma (Namor had to rescue
him when his suit filled with water from an apparent malfunction).
This makes perfect sense, he was reliving a tramatic experiance, as he probably often
relived it and clearly still does.
It's also great writing.
From the moment issue #120 opens we see Tony surounded by little liquor bottles, we know
(without being told) how he copes with things, and as he travels home, we learn both his
origin story and the main source of his truama.
As the story goes on we learn that SHEILD is trying to take control of Stark Industries
and that Justin Hammer is sabatoging the Iron Man armour.
Tony lives in constant danger and never knows which day could be his last... and it's taking
a toll.
This all comes to a head when Hammer takes control of Tony's suit, and makes him kill
an innocent dimploment.
Tony's drinking, a frequent background element up until now, acclerates and we finally see
what kind of toll this constant drinking is having on him
We also see how he treats a hangover... by drinking more - a red flag if ever there was
one.
A small detail that really jumped out at me was how they showed Tony lying to himself
in order to justify his actions.
In an earlier issue, someone asked him if it's too early to be drinking and he replied
with a joke and laughed it off.
Now just a few issues later, he's telling himself that he would normally never think
about drinking so early.
He's knows this isn't true and he's talking to himself.
He's alone.
He's literially lying to himself.
He's blaming his guilt and the real killer and his hangover and the circumstances, anyone
but himself.
The most relaistic part may be the way it ends.
Tony starts to drive people away and eventually he makes a choice.
He quits drinking and goes into withdrawl and it's painful.
While detoxing, he's hateful and illogical and after he gets through it, the temptaion
is still there.
Not only that, but Tony discovers that the problems he was drinking to get rid of are
still there when he's sober and they're actually worse.
Yet, somehow he seems a little closer to fixing them.
That's how the story ends, all his problems aren't solved, at least not yet, but he's
on his way.
If you haven't read Demon on a bottle, I reccomend you check it out.
I've never really done a video quite like this before so I'm not sure how to end it.
After such a serious topic, it seems weird to say but click the like buttom and share
the video.
It really does help keep the channel around.
Next time, we'll return to philosophy with a look at idenity and what it means to be
a person.
I've also got some lighter content planned as well so click the bell so you get notification.
Until next time guys, I'm Jay Parks.
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