IRON MAN #126 Marvel Comics, 1979

Many fans, myself included, enjoy bitching about how Marvel has turned Iron Man into a total facist asshole ever since Civil War. How could they get the character so wrong, we ask? Most of us are just hoping he's a Skrull and everything will go back to normal and they'll let somebody like Adam Warren or Jeff Parker write Iron Man and everything will be fine and shhh it's OK to cry.

Since I feel passionate (in a smug, ironic way) about the proper characterization of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, I decided to go back to those comics I remember and cherish from my youth. You know, the Dave Micheline/Bob Layton era of Iron Man when Tony Stark was a real hero. I found Iron Man #126, a fantastic issue in the Justin Hammer saga. It's written by Micheline with art by John Romita Jr. and inks by Layton. This is the Iron Man of my childhood! Noble, intelligent, cunning, brave...

Hey. What the HELL?!! This Iron Man is a dick, too!

Apparently I forgot that the Tony Stark of 1979 was a major league pimp with a fondness for whiskey sours, fighting dirty, gold chains, and reefer.

In this penultimate issue of the storyline we call in retrospect "Hammer Time," Stark is captured by his new enemy Justin Hammer, a Peter Cushing looking dude that always wears a smoking jacket. You know the type.

Anyway, Stark is kept apart from his armor for the whole issue, so he must use all his cunning and total lack of scruples to survive. I think Micheline was going for a ruthless, debonaire Bondian approach in his portrayal of Tony Stark, but he seems like a violent kung fu synthesis of Larry Dallas, the scuzzy neighbor on Three's Company, Matthew McConaughy's character in Dazed & Confused, and Eric Roberts in Star 80.

Here's Tony Stark sucker punching a guard just for the hell of it. It's been six hours since his last whiskey sour and he's gonna take it out on somebody, damn it.

Tony embodies that late 70's Marlboro Man swinger vibe that might seem cheesy and vaguely creepy to us now that we have a couple of decades of pop culture between us and Iron Man #126, but I assure you that look was very cool in the 70's. Tony Stark would have been a hairy-chested Golden God back in The Day, lord of the discotheque - now he looks like a sex offender who hangs out at truck stops.

One thing that is hilariously consistent - Tony Stark drinks like a fish. Here's a little flashback of Stark unwinding with his pal Mr. Jim Beam after a stressful day:

It's almost as if they're making fun of him, isn't it? Drinking is his second favorite indoor sport. I wonder what the first is? Probably air hockey.

Oh, wait - I think they mean f&%*ing.

Even when Stark is locked up on Hammer's floating estate, his first thought is booze, not escape. Hey, he thinks better after he's had a few, OK? Lay off, man - let's see you design a repulsor ray after swigging a 40 ouncer and a bottle of Nyquil. Here he is trying to talk a vogueing guard into bringing him some frickin' booze, fer Chrissake:

The guard denies his entirely reasonable request, which pisses Stark off to no end. That's when he starts to get all classist and demeaning and plans on showing this mere hourly employee who exactly he is dealing with:

Enraged that this lackey is refusing his request for booze, he lures the uneducated peasant into his room with the old fake hernia gag. "Guard, I have a painful hernia! Come look at it!" That shit works every time.

The guard enters, concerned about his prisoner's abdomenal well-being, and falls into trap #2, the old electrical appliance + pool of water gag. Stark's unique twist on this time-honored gag? That's not water, it's human urine!

That's right. Bring Papa Tony his drinky and nobody gets hurt, a'ight?

Stark does eventually escape from captivity even without his drink and searches for his Iron Man armor so he can turn the tables on Hammer and his small army of B-list villains. If he happens to find a wetbar or wine cellar before he finds his armor, that's OK, too. While hiding from Hammer's goons Stark does stumble across the aging crime lord's personal marijuana crop (left). It's strictly medicinal of course - help's with Hammer's arthritis.

After stuffing a couple of Hefty bags full of weed, Stark continues his search for his armor and maybe some rolling papers...

After a quick detour into a tool shed where he crafts an electric hookah out of a Chevy engine block, a propane tank, and a hair dryer, Stark finds his armor. Wow, he is so high right now. The suit, it looks so shiny... Man, he could go for a pint of Haagen Daaz ... His fingers feel tingly...

Finally at the every end of the comic, Tony Stark suits up and is ready to kick ass once again. Just in time, too, because Hammer's army of second-rate villains has been sent to hunt him down and crush him. Too late. My man Tony Stark has a serious buzz on, he's queued up some Blues Traveller on the suit's MP3 player and he is ready to trip out while he kick everyone's ass. Then it's ice cream time! (OK, no he doesn't really get stoned. That would be wrong. He just drinks.)

The last page is ten kinds of awesome, as Tony strikes a pose and delivers a rambling tough guy speech to the assembled squad of costumed losers:

It sounds best if you sing the last line: "Then I'm coming after you! LOOK OUT!"

OK, so my trip into yesteryear didn't yield any proof of classic Tony Stark's non-dickishness. But it did unearth an example of a smooth, casually cruel character with an unshakable sense of his own place in the world and precisely how awesome he is. I give 1979's Tony Stark zero points for heroic purity and 250 Caruso Points for sheer manly force of personality.