Superheroes are usually characters mythologized and placed both on pedestals and role models. The bombing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and some successful installments of other universes such as Man of Steel and The Batman in the case of DC and The Boys on Prime Video have greatly increased the fan base of these characters.
The fact that something spreads its number of fans brings an inevitable “problem”: a great majority has huge gaps of the characters they idolize. And it’s not a bad thing! Not everyone has the patience and interest to sit in front of a screen for hours to learn about all the details of a character. Although classifying it as a “problem” is unfair, at least it is up for debate.
No one can deny that most superhero movies and series have made an effort to show the best face of the characters. We’ve certainly seen some drama, but nothing that the average audience can’t take, relate to, and see as a motivational push for development. The story of Doctor Strange en What if…? is a perfect example.
Some movies and series, mostly not as popular as other positive ones, have dared to show very dark facets of superheroes. The Boys is the flagship of these productions (and Deadpool, but his humor softens it a lot), The Punisher, Daredevil, Watchmen, Jupiter’s Legacy, Dredd, The Batman, etc. At this point, I think you understand where I’m going.
The past of Robert Downey Jr and Iron Man: problems with the bottle
Robert Downey Jr. it’s iron man. It is so much so that Disney and Marvel have not even bothered to find a replacement for him in the UCM as they have done with Captain America…at least not so directly. It goes without saying that the character is not perfect, much less the actor. His imperfect story is another of those details that convinces us that there is no other better actor for the role.
Who was Robert Downey Jr. before he was Iron Man? That is a good question. In 1999, the actor publicly confessed his addiction to drugs and alcohol with the following statement: “It’s like having a loaded gun in your mouth and your finger on the trigger, you know it’s going to go off at any moment, but you like the taste of the gun’s metal“. So, I had a sentence of three years probation and a nice collection of rehab vacations.
To avoid turning the publication into a biography, I will use the summary: Robert Downey Jr. began his addiction to drugs at a very young age and worked for many years as an actor without the trust of his fellow professionals. It was not be for lowerly. The actor’s problems with the law because of drugs and alcohol were not exactly a secret.
In 2006, Marvel set out to release its first film as an independent film studio. The big bet was Iron Man with an invasion of 140 million dollars. And the expectations were not low: they wanted a figure that represented this new stage. And who did they eye for the part?
Marvel’s board of directors labeled Marvel as crazy David Maisel, former president of Marvel Studios, for choosing Robert Downey Jr. instead of Timothy Olyphant for the role of Iron Man. The president had the support of Jon Favreau, director of the movie Iron Man. Result? It grossed $98 million during its first weekend alone in the United States and was the official start of the UCM.
My board thought I was crazy for putting the future of the company in the hands of an addict. I helped them understand how good he was for the part. We all trusted that he was clean and would stay clean.
Robert Downey Jr. went from having pockets full of drugs and alcohol to having them full of money. And from then on he never returned to his bad habits. But why did capricious fate, through Maisel and Favreau, want Dawney to be Tony Stark? The reason is found in the comics.
the comic series Demon in a bottle o The Demon in the Bottle It was made up of nine numbers that showed one of the darkest faces of Tony Stark: sor addiction to alcohol. Iron Man was kicked off the pedestal overnight and shown as a ordinary human, addicted and completely vulnerable. He became the first major superhero to destroy himself in such a brutal way.
Whiskey became the worst enemy of Tony Stark and Iron Man. Things got so ugly for the millionaire that he was about to not survive to his addiction… but he eventually ended up overcoming his addiction. The movie Iron Man 2 shows us Tony Stark in his worst moments and Iron Man 3 the aftermath of all the excesses over the years. Downey’s performance was great. While he doesn’t make it as dramatic as in the comics, it was enough to get a lot of people interested.
We all think that there is no better actor than Robert Downey Jr. to play Iron Man… but many people believe it without being aware of it. to what extent is this so. The parallelism between the character and the actor is brutal, and it was the work of two men who trusted a third party who finally knew how to react. There would be no MCU as we know it without Dawney.
And I would like to tell you that Iron Man is the only superhero with drug and alcohol problems, but I would lie to you. Batman he had a very serious addiction problem with a drug called Venom (the same one that Bane takes) and did not seek help from Alfred until the most desperate point. Captain America he had an addiction to methamphetamines and nearly beat Daredevil to death. Finally, Roy Harper (a disciple of Arrow and Arsenal) took years to overcome his heroin addiction.
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