Iron Man #313
Resolutions
New Years Eve
It’s New Years Eve and while most people are celebrating the holiday by drinking, Tony Stark is at a Alcoholics Anonymous meeting telling his story.
Introducing himself to the other patrons, he talks about his history of alcohol abuse. He now recalls that it all started for him one New Years Eve years ago when he was still a child. His father, Howard Stark, insisted that the boy drink a glass of brandy to prove that he was a man. His mother, Maria, protested this but Howard insisted that it was important. Tony did as he was told and had to hold it together to not throw up after drinking the entire glass. As his mother looked on in shame, Howard celebrated his son’s first drink by throwing the glass into a nearby fireplace.[1]
From then on, Tony began to abuse alcohol throughout his adult life until it almost cost him everything. The moment that woke him up to the problem was an incident where he caused an accident that nearly cost people their lives. This happened while he was wearing his Iron Man armor, but he kept the specifics of the incident to himself in order to maintain his secret identity.[2] Realizing that he had a problem, Tony sought help from those closest to him and got sober.
That didn’t last for very long and soon Tony found himself drinking again and his life began to unravel. It got so bad, that Tony ended up losing his company, Stark International, in a hostile take over. Tony fell deep into the drink and ended up losing it all for a time and very nearly lost his life.[3] He crawled his way back up from the bottom and got his life back in order, started a new company, and remained sober for a very long time.[4] Tony reveals that up until a week ago, he managed to remain sober until there was a slip, although he says that the reasons are unimportant the fact is that he drank again.[5]
He then thinks back what happened in the aftermath of that unforgivable incident…
A Week Ago
Tony was meeting with his old friend Jim Rhodes, to apologize for how he was acting the other day. Jim knows that Tony was drunk, and Tony explains that his body had been taken over by an AI called VORTEX. However, even explaining it out loud makes Tony feel like he is making excuses. Jim believes his story, reminding Tony that they have seen some weird shit as superheroes.[6] Tony assures Jim that he’s not going to spiral back into drinking. When Jim is about to leave, Tony hands him a disc that contains the specifications for the War Machine armor so that Rhodey can make repairs whenever he wants in the future.[7]
After Jim leaves, he then calls in his administrative assistant Bambi Arbogast. Her thanks her for picking up the slack the other day when he was drunk since it was above and beyond her duties. This gets her upset and she tells Tony that those closest to him will bend over backwards for him and tells him that his problem is that he doesn’t lean on his friends when he needs their help the most. She then warns him that the next time he doesn’t ask for help with a personal problem she will personally kick his teeth in.
New Years Eve
Finishing the last part of the story, Tony explains that it was Bambi’s words that convinced him to start going to Alcoholics Anonymous. He concludes his story by saying he has to learn to reach out to people when he needs help and that he has a lot to learn. He has also learned that even though it is his job to look to the future he needs to remember that for his personal life he needs to handle it like everybody else, one day at a time. As Tony gets off the stage he is met with a round of applause from the audience.
After the meeting is over, Tony heads outside where Happy Hogan is waiting for him by the car to drive him home. Hogan tells Tony that he himself is a product of generational abuse, just like Tony. He recounts how his father was an abusive man and that when he grew up, Happy found a knack for violence himself. Instead of beating up on innocent people he took up boxing, so he can relate with Tony as he has had similar struggles in the past.[8] Tony asks Happy to drive him back to his beach house and along the way, Hogan asks if he is spending the night with Veronica Benning. This stings since she just recently broke up with him, and Tony tells Happy that he’ll explain it to him some other time.[9]
When Tony gets home, he goes to his private theater where he watches an old Arkon movie and mourns the passing of his friend Wonder Man.[10] As midnight rolls near, Tony is visited by Bethany Cabe who had come by with some alcohol free champaign, figuring Tony could use some company. The two sit down for a glass together and for a moment it almost seems like old passions are about to return. However, both Beth and Tony decide against it, thinking it would be too obvious.[11] Popping the cork on the bottle, Tony proposes a toast to old flames and new adventures.
Recurring Characters
Iron Man, Bethany Cabe, (in flashback) Howard Stark, Maria Stark
Continuity Notes
Howard and Maria Stark are identified here as Tony’s biological parents. However, years later, is revealed that Tony was actually adopted. See Iron Man (vol. 5) #17 and International Iron Man #6-7 for more details on that.
The incident in question was when Iron Man nearly caused a tanker car full of volatile chlorine gas to explode. This happened in Iron Man #128.
Tony was pushed into drinking again due to a concentrated effort by Obadiah Stane to ruin Tony’s life. He had one of his female operatives seduce him and then break his heart, pushing Tony to start drinking again in Iron Man #167. His spiral into alcoholism led to the hostile take-over becoming successful in Iron Man #173. Tony’s bender sent him living on the street where he almost froze to death in the middle of winter sleeping in a doorway in Iron Man #182. The experience convinced him to get sober once again. It should be noted here that Tony would eventually end up buying back Stark International (subsequently renamed Stane International) many years later in Iron Man #283.
Specifically, Tony ended up shutting down Obadiah Stane in Iron Man #200, then started his new company, Stark Enterprises in issue #215. Tony remained sober from that point on until…
This wasn’t really Tony’s fault though, his body had been taken over by an artificial intelligence called VORTEX which drank, leaving Tony to deal with the fall out once he took his body back. See Iron Man #307-309.
Jim specifically mentions how he once fought a villain called Termite. This was in Iron Man #189-190.
This all stems from the fact that Jim had recently damaged his War Machine armor in War Machine #7 and had no means of making repairs without the schematics.
Happy mentions how he recently got out of the hospital after getting hired back to work with Tony and fighting Ultimo. This is in reference to Iron Man #297-300.
When Tony’s body was possessed by VORTEX, it tried to rape Veronica. Thinking it was Tony and that he had fallen off the wagon, Veronica walked out on him. See Iron Man #309.
At the time of this story, Wonder Man had been killed in Force Works #1. He will be resurrected again in Avengers (vol. 3) #11. Here, Tony also mentions the first time Wonder Man “died”, this was in Avengers #9. In reality, Simon was in a death-like coma until he was brought back to life in Avengers #151. Tony is watching the movie Arkon IV, which Simon Williams starred in, as seen in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #6.
Beth and Tony used to date almost from the moment they first met back in Iron Man #117. Beth ended their relationship when she discovered her late husband, Alex Van Tilburg was still alive in Iron Man #152-153. Although Alex later died in issue #211 and Beth and Tony still held feelings for one another, the pair never got back together.
Topical References
Real world brands: Coors Light, Coca-Cola, Kiss, Time Magazine
The specs on the War Machine armor are depicted as being recorded on a CD-Rom. This should be considered a topical reference as this sort of media storage is now considered obsolete.