Off My Mind: Superheroes and Alcohol

great article 

Oh man, that Wolverine panel is priceless! XD

Actually Carol Danvers did some pretty stupid thing while drunk, among the others she tried to blast a Kree base into pieces, which almost caused a nuclear meltdown, marginally avoided by the rest of the Avengers

@Eyz said:

" Oh man, that Wolverine panel is priceless! XD "

" great article "

Thought Wolverine couldn't get drunk.

It generally flies under the radar, but one of the finest examples of alcohol negatively impacting a hero is an old Avengers story arc, wherein the Masters of Evil lay siege to Avengers Mansion. To take out Hercules, Baron Zemo sends the Wrecker ( I think), in his civilian guise, out to buddy up to Hercules at a local watering hole, & get him dead stinking drunk. Returning to the mansion, Hercules is intercepted by Captain America & The Wasp, & they explain that an ambush is waiting for any Avenger that walks through the door. Hercules refuses to back off, & charges the mansion, forcing Captain America & the Wasp to do the same. Despite his alcohol impairment, Hercules still puts up one hell of a fight, but is eventually overwhelmed & beaten near to death. Captain America also falls into the villains hands, on account of Hercules' rash actions. Only the Wasp escapes.  Hercules spends the rest of the adventure in the hospital, & at one point, it's even believed that he died. A subsequent story arc finds the Gods of Olympus retrieving Hercules' comatose body from the hospital & then exacting vengeance upon the Avengers for allowing the demigod to come to such a state. It's only when Hercules regains consciousness & reveals that he, alone, is responsible for the ills that befell him, that Zeus backs off & the Avengers are exonerated in the eyes of the Olympian deities.
Of course, Hercules is still a heavy drinker, so no real lesson was imparted upon him. 

That picture with Supes and the bottle of bourbon sure does take me back.  Yes, he may have been under the influence of synthetic kryptonite when he drank but it still shows how bad things can get if superheroes go into wanton drinking binges.

Don't forget about Ghost Rider

If a superhero gets super-drunk; he might get his super-ass kicked like Hercules did by the Masters of Evil in Avengers #274.

look, heroes need to be as responsible as we are when we drink.....or something terrible could happen *cough cough Machine man vs Iron man cough cough*

Wow-if a "normal" person behind the wheel of a car can be dangerous when "over the legal limit", then the idea of a "soused" superhero is beyond terrifying! Fortunately, apart from Tony Stark or  Ms.Marvel, most Marvel heroes/heroines are pretty much tee-total(pace Captain America whose alter-ego' Steve Rogers's father had a "drinking problem" causing him to have an aversion to "demon rum" ever since) or at least confine their drinking to "off duty" hours(pace Thor and his odd flagon of mead).

Terry

With all they go through in there lives a drink may be nice once in a while. Still most Heroes shouldn't even be able to get drunk due to there metabolisms. The ones that can should indeed be cautious. 

" Thought Wolverine couldn't get drunk. "

Drinking, no matter in what way or from is irresponsible. I don't support drinking whatsoever, but for a character like Iron Man I find his alcoholism one of the most interesting parts of his character, not because he drank, but because of how he has overcome that addiction and is now a better man because of it; seeing him take responsibility for his actions and seeing him struggle with the demon in the bottle and coming out on top, I mean looking back during Civil War, probably one of the most interesting scenes to me was when Tony was about to take a drink and Sue Storm slaps the drink out of his hand, or when he was talking to Steve and he goes back to all the times he's been drunk and has almost killed someone, I mean for all the villains and super-powered maniacs he's faced, to me the deepest and most emotional stories aren't the ones where the hero is fighting against some big time super-villain, but instead are in a battle with their own personal demons. It's those kind of stories that I think impact us, the readers, the most.

Wait, doesn't Tony operate the suit at least partially buzzed of full on wasted?

I'm surprised you didn't feature Hancock. Heh.

I'm all for a superhero getting drunk because, hey, at the end of the day most are still human beings that need to unwind.  Most of the time, comics do a good job showing the consequences of drinking too much or drinking at inappropriate times.

I dont know  about you guys , but after a hard day of fighting villains and saving the world I would want to sit relax and have a cold one

 I take it as this: Hercules and Thor were born during a time that drinking was the norm. Matt Murdock and Hal Jordan are adults and Peter Parker has talked about how drinking backfires on him. Sounds like your average guys to me.

I'm drinking Jack Daniels while reading this piece.

"Let's drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."

                          - Peter Griffin

There is a comic book After the Cape (Image) devoted to the deagradation of the superhero because of the alcohol problems. I think it covered all the bases (superhero career, job and his duties of the husband and father).

Wolverine at least has a fast healing ability(I remember an X-men story where Kitty Pryde tries to smoke his cigar and gets all sick- he reminds her that she doesn't have a fast healing ability as he does)so he's unlikely to get drunk but the others have no such excuse. To quote the then First Lady Nancy Reagan, most heroes just "SAY NO!" to booze,smoking n- never mind mind altering drugs!

Terry

Meh, let'em drink. Hell, with all the stuff that they deal with they've earned it.

Just a side note, I'm sooo sick of Marvel using alcoholism to add "depth" to their characters. It worked ONE TIME with Tony and since then they've gone crazy with it. It's almost as lame as using sexual abuse or rape to give a female character "development".  

" Meh, let'em drink. Hell, with all the stuff that they deal with they've earned it. "

" Meh, let'em drink. Hell, with all the stuff that they deal with they've earned it. Just a side note, I'm sooo sick of Marvel using alcoholism to add "depth" to their characters. It worked ONE TIME with Tony and since then they've gone crazy with it. It's almost as lame as using sexual abuse or rape to give a female character "development".   "

When Frank Miller wrote Matt in Born Again he said he dosen't drink@Zaber said:

" Matt is drunk? Wow. "

" @Soldier zero: his (rather unfortunate) way of coping with the loss perhaps "

I would hate to see someone with super speed getting drunk. There would be human-shaped craters all over the place

I keep thinking of the panel that has Banshee drinking water from a wine bottle, hoping Jesus will change it for her.

Someone on Facebook listed some characters they wanted to see drinking. One was Ms. Marvel. I wanted to use this image but it didn't "fit" in the article.

In a  bar  at  30th  floor of  a  building  a  very drunk  man  says  " I 'm going for a ride "  then  throws himself out  the window .  3 minutes  later  he returned  through the same  window .  Another  customer  asks  " Damn how  you  do that ? "  drunk  man  replied  "It's  a  magical  beer  you drink and  then you  can  fly  ... "  the  two  men  drink  their magic beer,  and the 2nd  man  throws himself  out the window  and  crashed  on  the  floor below  ground  30 .  Then  the  bartender  says  " Damn , Superman,  you're  really dumb   when  you're  drunk "    

All I can say is...NO DRINKING AND FLYING! :)

This topic came up once in an issue of Spider-Man (I don't recall what issue). Peter had gone to a party and had some punch, not knowing it'd been spiked. Later he had to change and fight some super villian and his drunkeness completely threw off his sense of balance and agility. I remember him saying that between having to fight the villian and web-swinging around Manhattan he barely made in through the night alive and so he VOWED to never drink again.

this pretty much all of the marvel heroes alley every beer guzzled down  on them

" @JonesDeini said:

" Meh, let'em drink. Hell, with all the stuff that they deal with they've earned it. Just a side note, I'm sooo sick of Marvel using alcoholism to add "depth" to their characters. It worked ONE TIME with Tony and since then they've gone crazy with it. It's almost as lame as using sexual abuse or rape to give a female character "development".   "

I totally agree. Maybe there was original value at the start, but they branched into realism with these sort of story developments and it just halted there. There's not many other things that happen to heroes, other than losing family members. This is definitely one of the blind spots in most super hero writing. "

well it depends on what superhero, I mean if superman gets drunk we would have an intoxicated flyer and thats no good, but when a guy like deadpool or hercules get drunk, only awesomeness can happen

Heh, remember when Spider-Man got black-out drunk and slept with his room-mate after Aunt May married JJJ's dad? Good stuff.

Wolverine can't get drunk