Why Avengers 4 Is Really About Tony Stark's Killer Addictions
Iron Man can't give up...
Avengers 4 is the culmination of everything that we've seen in the MCU to date. It is the closing of a circle, not just of the Infinity Saga but also of Tony Stark's story where the MCU all began. It offers the film-makers and Robert Downey Jr to add a full-stop to every issue that Stark has gone through over the past decade.
We'll see more of a lot into his PTSD, into his heroic anxiety, into the guilt he's held over the sins of his father and himself, into his fears about legacy and happiness, into his apparent need for self-sacrifice and his obsession with the Greater Good... But more intriguingly than anything, it will be the culmination of an idea that hasn't really been analysed as much as fans of Iron Man's comics might have expected ten years ago.
It will deal with Tony's addictions.
In the comics - in Demon In A Bottle specifically, the quintessential Iron Man arc, which was the basis for Iron Man 2 partly - Stark battled a drinking problem that almost destroys him. It's such an essential part of the character's genesis that Robert Downey Jr's past substance abuse was actively cited as a reason he was so well cast.
Ultimately, Marvel Studios chose not to explore Stark's alcoholism in such explicit terms. They did look into it slightly in Iron Man 2 as he was struggling with the arc reactor poisoning him, but alcoholism isn't a definitive character trait for him. That doesn't mean the psychological markers behind it aren't there, though. Far from it in fact.
And the key to understanding that is Red Skull...
3. Red Skull's Warning
As Red Skull confirmed in his return during Infinity War, the Infinity Saga is as much about the cost of addiction as it is about the actual quest to rebalance the universe. He is a walking, talking morality tale for the dangers of that sort of obsessive yearning for something - in his case, ownership of an Infinity Stone and the dominion of the world.
The entire Soul Stone caveat - that the potential wielder has to give up the one thing they truly love - might as well be an allegory for addiction. Seeking that "thrill" comes at a grave cost and alienates the addict from those they love. And Red Skull's entire existence as a spectral version of his former self fits in with the same image.
Even though Thanos successfully negotiated with the Soul Stone by sacrificing Gamora, Red Skull's involvement in the story is still designed as a monument to the ominous future Thanos might still face. If he doesn't change his road, he could still end up just as cursed as Red Skull. And so could Tony Stark for his own addictions (but more of that later).
2. Thanos' Addiction
While he initially presents himself as the universe's saviour, Thanos is not the selfless hero he would like everyone to believe. The Russos revealed after the film's release that his drive to "rebalance" the universe came from an egotistical messianic complex. He was told that his genocidal plan to save Titan wouldn't work and he was consumed by a need to prove himself correct. That was his addiction, rather than the need to actually save the universe from itself.
In pursuing that goal, he lost "everything" in his own words. He's lost his companions and minions, his "family" and himself. He admits to Tony Stark he is "cursed by knowledge" (another way of saying he is consumed by his agenda) and the directors have confirmed he is fundamentally and permanently damaged by the snap. He's a monster driven by a singular desire that will ultimately destroy him.
And crucially, Thanos isn't the first person to have owned the Soul Stone, which suggests that he's headed for a similar trajectory to Red Skull. If you look closely at Gamora's death scene, there are clearly other blood stains where other victims have landed...
That suggests that others came to Vormir and found Red Skull, negotiating his "riddle" too. And though some have suggested that they failed, who is to say that that is true? What if the others on the quest for the Soul Stone DID gain access to it and ended up being destroyed like Red Skull?
Those blood stains stand as testament to how dangerous pursuit of something so obsessively can be, even when you seem to have "won."
And in Thanos and Red Skull we see the dark mirrors of what Tony Stark could become. Only his addiction isn't to taking over the world: it's to saving it, at the cost of himself.
1. Tony Stark's Addiction
Tony Stark and Thanos are mirror images of each other. As Thanos tells Stark, both are "cursed by knowledge" - both haunted by the image of the universe's grim end. And both are addicted to what they see as the means to avoiding that fate, regardless of the cost.
In the past, Stark has spoken about the greater good and making sacrifices to accomplish an end goal (in Civil War, it's the reasoning he uses to justify the Sokovia Accords and imprisoning Scarlet Witch). He has positioned himself in the same place as Thanos, who says he's the only person willing to do what it takes to save the universe.
In both cases, they're driven by what they believe to be honourable causes, but both of them are also driven by something broken within them. A nefarious addiction that turns their good intent into something far more destructive.
In place of his alcoholism, the MCU gave Tony Stark an addiction to being Iron Man. Even when he's tried to give it up for the good of his relationship with Pepper Potts, he's been drawn back in admitting that he's not sure whether he actually wants to give up.
In Iron Man 3, he spends his sleepless nights (haunted by PTSD) soothing himself with his addiction and building countless different armours. Even when he seems to retire from active Iron Man duty, he's drawn immediately back, like an addict pulled in by his fix.
The whole point of the parallel to Thanos is that Tony could end up in the same place as him and both could be destroyed by their inability to leave their obsessions behind. Tony's arc at the minute ends with his death, which will cost him everything he loves (Pepper, the idea of a child, his relationship with Peter Parker) in the name of saving the universe. And while that might seem admirable, it's also one of the greatest tragedies of the MCU.
He's been headed towards this outcome since his earliest films and unless he manages to shake off his addiction, there's no escaping it. Hopefully, he'll learn Thanos' morality tale before the end of Avengers 4, but the hope is a dim one.