With St. Patrick’s Day come and gone, having inevitably dissolved into a green blur of alcohol, jokes revolving around potato famines, and “KISS ME I’M A REPLICANT” tee shirts, most forget about the statistically most painful day of the year: the day after St. Patrick’s Day. With your liver corroding, brain cells battling for survival Thunderdome-style, and the toilet bowl now housing a liquid reenactment of the curb-biting scene from American History X, you are likely to curse your respective deities for your hangover-susceptible, mono-liver, squishy mortal form.
In times of woe and bil,e it is natural to escape to delusions of grandeur. Surely having a liver that can stretch to different sizes or the ability to astral project out of a hangover would be a good thing, right? Wrong. With great power comes great responsibility, and with superhuman drinking comes superhuman hangovers. Here are four reasons why alcohol and superheroes don’t mix.
4. Captain America
Our first example of capes and booze not mixing is a literal one, as the super soldier serum which pumps through Captain America’s veins makes him immune to alcohol. As Cap explains, while his hyper fast metabolism and barrier bound cells make it impossible for him to get poisoned, it also prevents him from being drunk.
A United Nations of schnapps, tequila, vodka, whiskey, rum, absinthe, kumiss, hejie jiu, ouzo, arak, sake, cachaa, scotch and Zima denied to America’s avatar. Sure you get a super soldier physique, lose the necessity to sleep, instantly gain three feet of height, and the attention of every woman from Alpine, AZ to Zephyrhills, FL, but you can’t even get a buzz.
However, this also means that Captain America cannot get a hangover. Taking it one step further, ninety-pound weakling Steve Rogers was eighteen when he volunteered to be a part of Project Rebirth. He didn’t even get to share that tumbler of schnapps with Professor Ersine thanks to surgical protocol and Nazi spies. Technically, and this is assuming that the worst Rogers ever did was lie on his enlistment documents, Captain America has never been drunk in his life, ever. You may be able to enlist at 18 but you still can’t drink until you’re 21.
Essentially, Captain America’s inability to imbibe is the classic hero’s dilemma– live a life amongst the normal folk where you can drink and be merry and drunk dial your ex at 4:00 am, or live as a demigod who can travel to far away worlds, punch Hitler right in the face, but never get so much as tipsy…
Truth be told, both options sound equally appealing to me, so let’s just move along to my next alcoholic example:
3. The Intoxicator
High school valedictorian Elwood Johns was having his first expedition out of the realm of education and into the magical world of beer when he and his dorm-mates were caught in an explosion of science in Seth Green and Hugh Sterbakov’s Freshmen. The science in question, the experimental Ax-Cell-Erator, granted Elwood and his coed compatriots powers that hinged on whatever was on their minds at that point in time. So the homely lonely girl gained the ability to make others fall in love with her, the short-stacked guy grew a “third leg,” and Elwood, wanting to get wasted for the first time, gained the ability to share his buzz.
As The Intoxicator, Elwood can inebriate others with superhuman burps, varying from Wine Cooler chill to “Jack Daniels is my life partner” blackout, with hangovers thrown in for good measure. The only catch however is that the potency of these burps is dependent on Elwood’s current BAC. This is the double-edged sword of obscure powers, as the only way for Elwood to incapacitate others is to first be incapacitated. Want to make the mad titan Thanos piss his pants and drunk-dial Death? You’re going to have to be a trendsetter and down enough Trader Joe’s Merlot to soil yourself first. Need that marauding band of mercenaries to be tempted to turn their own guns on themselves to escape a hangover so abominable that it makes them question their faith? Well you’re going to have to pry yourself away from the porcelain idol and avoid Aleve because your very life depends on you being as hungover as you can. Instead of living up to his personal hero Einstein and following his dreams of working for NASA, Elwood is forced to instead follow Bluto, ditching textbooks for forties in order to become a walking blackout.
Though drinking day after day to produce these abilities sounds like heaven, or college, ask yourself if you have ever said the following words: “I am never drinking again.” Elwood says that to himself every night, every morning, every post mission report. Only difference is, if he actually gives himself time to recuperate and stop drinking, his community and friends suffer. The further off the wagon Elwood gets, the harder his enemies will fall. So like any true hero, thinking selflessly of others, Elwood sacrifices his liver and GPA for the sake of humanity. Additionally, Elwood gets so blackout that even if he encounters someone immune to his intoxication, like Bacchus or hyper-powered frat boys, Elwood is so smashed already that he couldn’t feel a thing, other than nausea of course. In the case of The Intoxicator, superheroes and alcohol not only mix, but they are wholly dependent on one another. Technically, if it weren’t even for that initial bottle of beer, Elwood would have no (inebriation-based) powers at all! With alcohol being both the cause of and solution of The Intoxicator’s superhuman problems, one has to ask who is the real hero? Elwood? Or alcohol?
2. Wolverine
So if Captain America’s hyper fast metabolism and superhuman cells prevent him from getting drunk, then Wolverine, the Canadian mutant with a healing factor, must also be unable to get drunk right? Well technically yes, but mainly no.
Though Wolverine’s mutant healing factor makes him immune to poisons and toxins, and his absurdly fast metabolism should make alcohol pointless, beer is still as synonymous with Wolverine as muttonchops. In fact, every movie appearance of Logan features alcohol in one-way or another– even his cameo in X-Men: First Class took place in a bar. This means Wolverine’s affection for alcohol has appeared in more movies than his trademark claws.
The question remains however– can Wolverine get drunk? While his mutant healing factor must break down alcohol quickly, Logan’s not the type of cretin to waste his time drinking what is essentially non-alcoholic beer. Instead, I propose that while Wolverine’s healing factor does prevent him from getting poisoned, this healing factor has its own limits. Wolverine is frequently depicted drinking not because he is an alcoholic; rather it just takes multiple drinks for him to actually start feeling anything. Why does Logan need to get drunk in the first place? Because the dude has been involved in like, every war since the 1890s and has been maimed and hit in the junk in an inconceivable number of ways. You may say that getting drunk with a healing factor is impossible, however as Logan proves, nothing is impossible when alcohol is involved.
Additionally– and this is just going to shatter everything you thought you knew about the Wolverine and drinking– alcohol, specifically beer, appears to also have a healing effect on Logan. In Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, Logan’s mind comes under psychic attack courtesy of a new incarnation of the Hellfire Club. Changing up the atypical psychic attack of “let’s turn the Canucklehead into a berserk PTSD-animal with a dash of bath salts feral survivalist,” the Hellfire club goes in the exact opposite direction by reverting Logan’s mind into that of one 1890’s fancy-lad/sissy-boy, James Howlett. So instead of Logan going extreme all over the X-mansion, we get James making paper people chains that are, as he puts it “so very pretty!” and hiding in trees in fear of everything around him. James is scared of everything, except alcohol of course. When Logan is thrown into the rubble of what was once a tastefully quaint X-kitchen, he is able to snap out of his psychically induced hallucination, if only for an instant, and recognize his totem calling out to him through all the psychic haze as it strikes him on the head and rolls into his palm– a can of beer. Suddenly Logan comes to his senses, and it is not thanks to the backhand of a metallic Russian bodybuilder, nor Hank McCoy eating a part of his leg, but beer. Logan has devoted so much time to alcohol that his habitual drinking habit was the only possible trigger that would make him rip his proverbial frilly sleeping shirt and don the embossed boots of badassery once again.
Do alcohol and superheroes mix? Well, for Wolverine, it was beer that ultimately saved the day.
1. Iron Man
Now it’s understandable that alcohol may affect actual superhuman individuals differently than us normal folks, however how does alcohol affect superheroes that are still basically human? If Biology midterms and Thursdays prompt me to drink, I can’t even begin to imagine what prompts billionaire-playboy-who-moonlights-as-his-own-bodyguard Tony Stark to chase the bottom of every bottle.
In probably the most well known Iron Man story arc, The Demon in the Bottle, Tony Stark’s rival Justin Hammer hacks into the Iron Man suit in an attempt to kill the red-and-gold Avenger as well as frame him for murder with one perfectly timed premature repulsor blast, forcing Tony to seek asylum in scotch bottles. Stark displays his intellect in finding more excuses to drink—he drinks for two, Iron Man and himself.
The best moment of alcoholism occurs when Tony Stark electrocutes a Hammer Industries guard who suggests Stark start drinking water over brandy. The guard lives somehow, but he is the first person to actually tell Stark to sober up. Not his best friend Rhodey, not romantic interest Bethany Cabe, just unnamed Hammer Industries security guard. The sauce also hinders Stark’s capacity to be Iron Man, slowing down his reflexes and preventing him from coming up with clever excuses to sneak away to armor up, with “I have to do something!” being my personal favorite.
The alcoholism reaches it’s head when a drunk Tony misses a date with the redheaded Cabe, berates personal butler Jarvis, and hires a call-girl by the name of Amber Sunrise. Take away the arc reactor and Tony Stark is basically Sterling Archer. It is only when Tony flies around drunk in his armor and unleashes a tanker of chlorine gas onto a group of policemen that he starts to realize that he may have a problem. He can upgrade his armor to withstand bombardment from a Black Market cocktail of ordinance, but first he must upgrade himself.
While everyone knows the classic Devil in the Bottle storyline and even seen a version of it in Iron Man 2, what you may not know about is the last time that Stark fell off the wagon. In Fear Itself, the Red Skull’s daughter has unleashed a series of evil Asgard hammers across the globe, turning half the Marvel universe into mini-Thor’s and forcing Tony Stark, a man of science, to seek an audience with the all-seeing Odin. One does not simply walk their arc reactor powered armor into Asgard however, as Thor’s daddy demands a sacrifice to be made. With no fat calfs on hand to roast or virgins to shove into nearby volcanoes, Stark sacrifices the only thing he has left to his name- his sobriety. Downing a demonic bottle of wine — and this isn’t like an old school cask or gourd escorted by scale-mail Valkyries but an actual bottle of wine that Stark brings with a label that reads Demon Dans Une Bouteille — Tony Stark leaves not a drop untouched as he is granted passageway into the Great Halls of Asgard.
First of all, I have been unknowingly paying tribute to Odin for years and didn’t even notice. I mean how awesome would that be, you finish that last drop of Guinness when boom — suddenly you’re riding the bifrost, chilling with Frost Giants and making out with Valkyries underneath the Yggdrasil while Odin asks you which hat looks dope on him.
Getting back to comic book reality, I know that for alcoholics, especially for those who had been sober since the last attack on reality by some sort of super villain, breaking one’s teetotalism is a hard thing to do, and chugging that bottle of wine must have been somewhat inconvenient for Tony. Surely, while other superheroes are getting their jawbones mashed into glue and New York is liquefied by the Incredible Hulk wielding his own Thor hammer, no one can possibly know of the wine-bottle shaped cross that Tony Stark had to bear. I mean it totally worked, but wow, I expected a bit more humiliation out of Stark to actually gain an audience with Odin. I thought that it would take at least the downing of a rotgut or Thunderbird quality hobo-wine to get Odin to raise an eyebrow out of interest. Alcoholism may have potentially ruined Tony Stark’s life and has been an ever present thorn in his side, the true rust of the Iron Man armor, but his ability to chug wine had a direct hand in saving the world.
If alcohol can save the world, how bad can it really be? Now if you’ll excuse me I was in the middle of finishing the ritual of trading the soul of my first born child for a demon-liver with the phantasm that lives in my bathroom.
But enough about me; let’s talk about you– what do you think? Should Batman add a bat-flask to his utility belt? If it takes one barrel of beer to get Andre the Giant drunk, how many leagues of beer would it take to get Galactus blotto? Does Logan prefer ales or lagers? Let us know in the comments!