Blackout!

While heavily intoxicated, Iron Man flies to Times Square where he trashes every billboard that is advertising alcohol. This attracts the attention of everyone on the street, including a TV news crew that captures the whole incident. This is also seen by Daredevil, who finds Iron Man’s actions bizarre, but decides not to intervene since nobody is getting hurt, figuring that there must be a good reason for the Avenger to be doing what he is doing.

When Iron Man heads back to Tony Stark’s Manhattan apartment, he has trouble remembering which one is his. When he does find it he just flies in through the window instead of finding a secluded place to change back into Tony Stark. Still depressed over Obadiah Stane’s attempts to ruin him, Tony pours himself another drink and slumps in front of the television.[1]

Meanwhile, somewhere in the North Atlantic, the supervillain known as Magma has completed construction of a new battle platform. He has decided to use it to attack Stark International to get revenge against Iron Man and Spider-Man for ruining his last criminal scheme.[2] The pair had knocked Magma into an active volcano but the villain managed to survive thanks to his weapons being able to absorb the incredibly heat of the lava.

Back on the mainland, Tony Stark wakes up to news reports about Iron Man’s attack on the billboards in Times Square. Having done so while black out drunk, Tony doesn’t remember it and believes that he is being slandered in the media. This throws Stark into a drunken rage and he rants about getting his lawyers and suing everyone. He quickly gets dressed and heads into Stark International to do something about it.

At that moment, Jim Rhodes has finally returned home to the United States after a harrowing escape from Scotland.[3] When he arrives he is greeted by Vic Martinelli, the head of security, who warns Rhodes that Tony Stark has fallen off the wagon and the company is going to shit as a result. Jim figured something like this would happen after all the pressure his boss has been under.

Not far away, Tony meets with his lawyers to pursue legal action against the TV station reporting about Iron Man’s rampage. However, his lawyers are more concerned about Stark International’s recent financial troubles, particularly since they defaulted on a lucrative contract. That’s when one of his accountants speaks up and tells Tony that Obadiah Stane has been eagerly buying up all of the company’s debts, something that could sink Stark International once and for all.

While at his hideout, Stane meets with Indria Moomji who asks if he has entered the endgame with Tony Stark. Obadiah tells her that he’s already won the game and all that’s left to do is pick up the pieces.

Meanwhile, as Magma makes his way to Stark International in his battle platform, Jim Rhodes finds Tony just as he is ordering his legal team to find some way to stop Stane. Tony is happy to see Rhodney and suggests they have a drink to celebrate. Jim is disturbed to see how far gone Tony has become and wonders what he should do. That’s when Vic arrives and tells Tony that a super-villain is attacking the facility and they need Iron Man. Tony rushes off to change into his alter-ego and tries to battle Magma. However, he is far too intoxicated to be effective, leaving Magma to believe that he is not fighting the real Iron Man but some inferior replacement. Wondering why he can’t hold his own against a third rate villain like Magma, Iron Man figures he needs more power.

Staggered from his initially clash with the villain, Iron Man asks Jim to help him get to the fusion reactor. There, Iron Man attempts to super-charge his power pods, forgetting that he is wearing an older model of his armor.[4] Rather than getting the needed power boost, Iron Man ends up causing a short circuit that blacks out the entire facility.

This latest blow to his self-esteem is too much for Iron Man to handle and he invites Jim down to Tony Stark’s private lab. There, Iron Man removes his helmet to reveal to Rhodes that he is actually Tony Stark. This hardly comes as a surprise given Iron Man’s drunken behavior, but Jim also feels as though he always kind of knew in some way since he and Tony were such close friends. However, despite the fact that Magma is still running amok above them, Tony has totally given up and drinks himself into a stupor. When Jim tries to wake Tony up, he realizes that his boss has passed out and is of no use to anybody. With no other choice, Jim decides that the only way to stop Magma will be to put on Iron Man’s armor and do it himself. However, Jim stops himself because he realizes that once he puts on this armor he will become Iron Man, leaving him to wonder what will come next.

Recurring Characters

Iron Man, Magma, Jim Rhodes, Morley Erwin, Vic Martinelli, Indries Moomji, Spider-Man, Daredevil

Continuity Notes

1. There is a lot going on here all at once. The facts:

   • After developing a drinking problem, Tony has been clean and sober since Iron Man #128. Tony won’t sober up until after a brush with death in Iron Man #182.

   • Obadiah Stane has been trying to ruin Tony Stark’s life in an attempt to take over his company since Iron Man #162. He will succeed in this endeavor by issue #173.

   • Through these machinations, Stane had sent his operative Indria Moomji to romance Tony in order to destroy him emotionally. Her eventual rejection of Tony in Iron Man #167 was the final straw and Tony fell off the wagon and has been on a bender ever since.

2. Iron Man and Spider-Man previously battled Magma back in Marvel Team-Up #110.

3. Jim was poisoned by one of Obadiah Stane’s men in Iron Man #165 and was left in Scotland to recover from his injuries. Stane later sent assassins to kill him in issue #167 but he managed to escape the country last issue.

4. Iron Man’s current armor was seriously damaged by acid in Iron Man #165. With his current financial troubles, Tony hasn’t had the funds needed to make repairs and has been forced to wear an older model of Iron Man armor since then.

Topical References

• This story opens with a scene where Iron Man is trashing a number of alcohol billboards in Times Square. This might be a topical reference as in 2019, the city of New York banned any alcohol advertisements on city owned property. Not sure how much this would impact the massive advertising in Times Square. If booze advertising in Times Square has been banned, one could assume that Stark is just trashing any old billboard, which makes what he’s doing even more frightening. Either that, or perhaps the Marvel version of New York City hadn’t put such a law in place so this story will still work.

• That said there are a number of topical references on display in this scene:

  • Advertising for real world products including: Sony, Canadian Club, and Coke.

  • Among the billboards left intact is one advertising cigarettes. This would be topical as these kinds of public advertisements have been banned since the 1970s. So this sort of thing was already dated at the time this story was published in 1983.

  • A city bus has an advertisement for the Broadway musical A Chorus Line. This musical ran from 1975 to 1990 and a brief revival in 2006-2008.

  • A theater is advertising The Dark Crystal on its marquee. This film had come out in 1982.

• Tony’s Manhattan apartment has a television entertainment system that is very much in line with the year this comic was published: A CRT television complete with a sound system that operates on analogue controls. This should be considered topical because this shit is obsolete.