Inventing Iron Man (18 page)

In the fourth decade of Iron Man R&D, we move into areas that exceed what is possible—at least currently, and maybe forever. There are some significant limitations that would arise even with an armor interface like the telepresence unit. To address these issues would require some kind of direct meshing between Tony's body (primarily his entire nervous system both sensory and motor) and the Iron Man armor, which could only be achieved through some as-yet unrealized nanotechnology. The closest description for this is the Extremis armor, and this technology does not yet exist. Not even a little bit … At all. The good news is that nanotech research, particularly biomedical applications, is a field that is rapidly expanding. An additional hiccup is how to deal with rejection by the immune system of any such interface and how the inflammatory response can be controlled so that the interface could be maintained over time. So, it is not possible to identify a timeline for this next stage. One last thing that Tony would need is the physical training required to become fully comfortable and competent with the Iron Man suit. This adds another five to seven years and gives a total projected timeline for inventing Iron Man and putting him into service of almost 40 years. Inventing, developing, and bringing Iron Man to reality would truly be a life's work. But what a life!

                    If we build it, what will come?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE HUMAN MACHINE BREAKS DOWN

You know how dangerous a drunk is behind the wheel of a car? Imagine one piloting the world's most sophisticated battle armor.

—Tony talking to Cap about responsibility while in the suit, “Civil War—Rubicon” (Iron Man / Captain America: Casualties of War #1, 2007)

Ever notice how your PC can act funny and only you'll notice? An app takes a half-second longer to launch. It cycles longer on startup … I've started to notice little … things … with the suit. Not big enough to be glitches, and not big enough to trigger any alarm bells. But something's up.

—Tony Stark reflecting on small problems with his suit, “The Five Nightmares, Part 1: Armageddon Days” (The Invincible Iron Man #1, 2008)

Being a superhero is hard work. It is even harder if you are a mere mortal and not an alien from the planet Krypton or the victim of an accident that leaves you with the ability to sling webs. Superman flies over the earth to decompress and Spidey climbs a tall building to get
a new perspective. What does Tony do to cope with the demands of his chosen career? As you will see in this chapter, his solutions—frequently alcohol abuse—usually backfire on him. We will explore what happens when Iron Man gets buffeted by bomb blasts and when he needs to call the geek squad to fix bugs in his system. And I also have a little surprise for you in this chapter—a plausible origin story for Tony Stark's heart problem.

A drunk running around in an Iron Man suit. It is difficult to imagine something more poised for disaster than putting someone in an exoskeleton that amplifies strength and then having them get drunk and impair their ability—and their impulse control. This scenario played out in the Iron Man comic books and was shown in the extreme in the movie
Iron Man 2
. In both comics and in the movies, Tony Stark is always seen as having a penchant for a few drinks and even struggling with alcoholism. In the 2010 movie, Tony's drinking problems come to a head at his birthday party, where he drinks to excess and is intoxicated in the Iron Man suit. He uses many of the repulsor weapons systems and then gets into a huge battle with Jim Rhodes (which ends with Rhodey flying off in the War Machine armor). Let's consider the many ways in which alcohol would impair the performance of Iron Man.

Alcohol (in the form of ethanol) has some odd effects on the body. Initially and in reasonable quantities, alcohol generally can be relaxing and even somewhat euphoric. A large intake acts on the nervous system and produces problems of coordination, vision, and balance. It does this by affecting the brain (which we will look at more later) and the communication among the neurons themselves. Alcohol interferes with the coupling between excitatory (glutamate) and inhibitory (GABA) neurotransmitters and their receptors (NMDA and GABA
_a
) on neurons. This interference changes the way in which neurons function and respond to different inputs and varies depending on the dose (e.g., how much a person has drunk).

At lower blood concentrations, ethanol is known to affect certain types of GABA
_a
receptors strongly. This effect causes much of the relaxation and suppression of behavioral inhibitions that alcohol initially produces. With higher alcohol intake, there is an interference
with neurotransmitter binding to the NMDA receptor. Activity in this pathway is closely related to a cellular process called LTP (long-term potentiation) that affects memory formation and learning. This effect of alcohol is likely what gives rise to blackouts. When NMDA receptors are interfered with repeatedly as in chronic alcoholism, it may help stimulate a cellular response in neurons known as “apoptosis,” which is a type of cell death. This helps account for some of the longer and more pervasive changes that happen due to the death, and thus the functional loss, of neurons.

It also seems that alcohol can affect the activity of sodium channels in axons. Since movement of sodium through this channel is vital to the excitability of a neuron and its ability to send signals down its axon, this is a very important effect. So, the story so far, too much alcohol is bad. Especially if it is chronic in the form of alcoholism. And, especially if you intend to hop into a robotic iron suit that connects to—and amplifies the ability of—your nervous system.

Beyond damage to the neurons, many other long-term physical changes to the nervous system can happen with chronic alcohol abuse. A common one is so-called nerve damage, which leads to “neuropathy.” This basically means that axons in nerves are damaged and don't work as well anymore. Some of the more obvious effects of neuropathy are the slowing of information flow along sensory and motor nerves, which can result in sensations that are often felt (or not felt, actually) in the hands and feet. Also, even reflexes can be affected and this can make the control of movement much slower and of lower quality than ordinary. Chronic alcoholism can contribute to other significant changes in the central nervous system, including damage to parts of the brain essential for movement control.

While extensive damage can occur to many parts of the nervous system, I want to just focus on the cerebellum here. The cerebellum is vitally important in helping with regulating and altering movements that are ongoing and in helping with balance control. It is also necessary for correctly initiating and coordinating movement, particularly for the arms and legs. That means anything that interferes with or damages the cerebellum will impair the ability to produce movement. At this point, it is worth pointing out that more than one-half of the neurons in the brain are found in the cerebellum, this despite taking up only about 10% of the volume of the brain—those neurons are really packed in there! This means that the cerebellum is particularly sensitive to the effects of alcohol impairment.

In fact, the large suppressive effect that alcohol consumption has on the function of the nervous system is the underlying basis for the driving “spot check” tests that the police use if they suspect someone is driving while intoxicated. For example, a task like closing your eyes and reaching up to touch your nose requires the careful regulation given by the cerebellum. So does speech. As a result, if there is a problem with performing these smoothly, there is suspicion of alcohol impairment. Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that sometimes people who have had cerebellar disease or damage of the cerebellum are thought to be intoxicated when they are not.

Figure 7.1. A cross-sectional image of the brain. The area of the cerebellum is shown traced for a normal brain (black line) and for a chronic alcoholic (gray line). Note how the cerebellum, which is involved with movement and balance, is much smaller in chronic alcoholics. Courtesy Patrick J. Lynch.

Figure 7.1
shows a cross-section of the brain. The area of the cerebellum is shown traced for a normal brain (black line) and in one from a chronic alcoholic (gray line). This image is similar to one that would be obtained through magnetic resonance imaging. The cerebellum is the bit of the brain at the back and base of the skull and contained in the traces drawn on the images. Notice how much
smaller the cerebellum is in the alcoholic. This clearly shows the anatomical changes that produce the behavioral deficits occurring in alcoholism. Alcohol impairment carries with it other effects on the nervous system, including cognitive problems that aren't present as part of cerebellar disorders, though. Some of the behavioral and cognitive effects that occur in alcoholics are thought to arise from other degenerative changes in the brain. This is particularly the case with links between the frontal lobes and other parts of the brain. The sum total of this is the impulsive behavior and cognitive problems seen in chronic alcoholism.

Let's take a minute to recap what we have been saying about the effects of alcohol on the nervous system and brain. When Tony drinks, the following tragic scenario is created: a man whose brain controls his powerful and weaponized armor is in danger of losing control. And of suffering brain damage. A man whose nerves must be “made of steel” to handle whatever life throws at him has nerve damage. A man who needs spilt-second timing as a pilot (of his own body!) and a crimefighter has impaired judgment.

Throughout his whole comic book life as head of a multinational conglomerate, Tony Stark has often been portrayed as a devil-may-care, playboy socialite. In that way his character is very much like that of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne. Except in the case of Bruce Wayne it is for show and for Tony Stark it is for real and true. While we always see Tony partaking in alcohol, for the most part he remains a “social drinker.” Despite that, even when not totally in the grips of alcoholism, Tony still has many times used (flown) the Iron Man armor while drinking, which can't be good! In addition, there have been numerous notable periods where full-blown alcoholism threatened to destroy him.

The most (in)famous of these episodes was captured in a series of stories from 1979 written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton and with art by John Romita Jr. and Carmine Infantino. This story line was eventually taken to its bitter conclusion in the gifted hands of Dennis O'Neil (famous also for his work on DC Comics' Green Lantern / Green Arrow and Batman and Marvel's Amazing Spider-man and Daredevil among a host of other distinguished contributions)
in the mid-1980s. The original story arc spanned Invincible Iron Man issues #121–128 and became known by the name of the last story “Demon in a Bottle” from November 1979. Facing problems with his company—Stark Industries, later Stark International—issues with the other members of the Avengers, his remote-control armor getting hacked, and girlfriend (Bethany Gabe) problems, Tony Stark spiraled into an increasingly alcohol-fueled lifestyle of a true alcoholic. As mentioned by Andy Mangels in his book
Iron Man: Beneath the Armor
, this story line was the first time a comic book superhero was portrayed having a chemical addiction. As an aside, this was a watershed moment for societal impact of comic book characters, and the Alcohol Information and Media Study Foundation praised the creative team for providing a story for youth about the proper use (and improper abuse) of alcohol. This is very much in keeping with the human element behind Iron Man in the form of the flawed—and authentically human—Tony Stark. Just as with Batman, another superhero with no supernatural ability, Michelinie is quoted as describing him as “simply a guy.”

An interesting part of the theme of superhuman superheroes is well captured again by David Michelinie in the introduction to the 2008 hardcover graphic novel collection of the Demon in a Bottle story line. Michelinie writes that Tony Stark as a hero “will eventually do what he believes is right, no matter what the personal cost. And when he landed at the bottom of that bottle, and found the unbeatable demon that was his own weakness, he faced it, he fought it, and he drove it back into the darkest corner of his soul. And if there's a better definition of ‘hero,' I don't know it.”

It is, of course, this kind of connection with humanity that makes superhero stories so compelling both as entertainment and occasionally as parables. O'Neil's story “Deliverance” (Iron Man #182, 1984) portrayed Tony as having hit rock bottom and having been hospitalized. The cover for that issue dramatically phrased the seriousness of the problem with the text “in the morning Tony Stark will be sober or dead.” It was a gritty and excellent story arc showing the harsh reality of alcohol addiction. Alcohol also figures in the
Ultimate Iron Man
graphic novel from 2006 written by novelist Orson Scott Card and drawn by Andy Kubert and Marc Bagley. Tony Stark is shown as having a bizarre abnormality where his nervous system—and not just his nerves—is found distributed across his whole body and heavily localized on the surface of his skin. The normal situation, of course,
is that our skin is typically over the nerves. Here the nervous system was basically also on top of the skin. This facilitates control of the Iron Man suit (and is a perhaps inadvertent reference to the common embryological origin of neurons and skin cells) but creates even more neural tissue to be affected by alcohol. On the way to a gala, Tony is warned that “there's going to be a lot of alcohol there. Don't touch it…. Alcohol is a poison that attacks the brain. Your whole body has brain tissue. Everywhere.”