Promoted to the front page from the user blogs. I want to thank long time contributor Screedler for taking up my slack while I’m out of the country. You can find his previous postings here at screedler’s blog.
Last year’s Iron Man was obviously a hit for Hollywood and a flick that TDA and I enjoyed fully. So I was pleasantly surprised by a recent article on my favorite Scifi blog io9 in regards to the sequel iron-man-2-its-the-alcoholic-iron-man-story. They are reporting that there have been hints that the storyline for Iron Man 2 will revolve around Tony Stark’s battle with alcoholism.
Click “Read more” to continue…
With Downey’s first hand experience with addiction, I have hope that the story will be handled intelligently. Obviously with his acting chops and history Downey can probably phone in an Oscar worthy alcoholic performance (does anyone remember Less than Zero 
. I just hope they treat the subject realistically (which the comic did as well as a 1970’s comic book can). I hope the writers do their homework on the history of his disease in the series. Tony becomes and alcoholic and then swiftly defeats the disease in a three issue story arc. However, several years later in the series he relapses and it gets so bad he becomes a derelict of society… pretty realistic. Iron Man of course gets back on his feet….he is after all, a Superhero. I hope they communicate to the viewers that the struggle is unending if this is the storyline they use.
Bringing the issue into the movie helps just as it did when the comic book ran the story – it illustrates the fact that anyone could become an alcoholic … a plumber, a teacher, a priest and yes – even a Superhero.
In closing I think that I “personally” prefer to have a Superhero as the poster child of my condition….isn’t he cooler than say Betty Ford or Otis?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I think there was a great subtle underlay of addiction in the first movie. I look forward to seeing the second!
Fantastic post. Bookmarked this site and emailed it to a few friends, your post was that great, keep it up.