This is a feature called "Beg Steal or Borrow," which is about when comic book characters are abruptly pulled from one book to another. I'm not talking about when comic book characters simply migrate from one title to another (I spotlight examples of that in my feature, "Looks Like I'm Moving"). I mean examples where a writer has a character taken out of the book against their wishes. It almost always happens in team books, but sometimes it occurs in solo titles, as well.

Today, we look at when Iron Man was written out of the Avengers because of his drinking problem in his own series.

It all began in the historic "Demon in a Bottle" storyline by Bob Layton, David Michelinie and John Romita Jr. introduced during their run on Iron Man. In a truly bold decision for a comic book series of the era, Layton and Michelinie decided to have Tony Stark develop a drinking problem, which would come to a head in Iron Man #128...

The problem, though, is that while they were allowed to try a rather bold storyline for the time, it was still a BIT ahead of its time, so they had to resolve the story almost as soon as they started it. So while it was a strong idea and generally very well handled, it still had to end with Tony Stark being all, "Okay, I guess I'm just not going to drink anymore" and that being the end and that seemingly being that...

Obviously, that is not how alcoholism actually works. It's not like Layton and Michelinie didn't know that, but they were just working under a very specific framework when they wrote their story.

In any event, after their long run came to a close a couple of years later, Denny O'Neil took over writing duties on the book and Mark Gruenwald took over as the editor on both Iron Man AND the Avengers (this plays a role later).

In the first page of his first issue, O'Neil goes right into it by noting that even though Tony Stark hadn't had a drink in a year, he still constantly THINKS about drinking and what it could do to him...

But O'Neil plays it really slow (Luke McDonnell and Steve Mitchell took over as the new artists on the book around this time), with Tony getting some dramatic moments where he seems to still be over drinking...

He continues to refuse to drink even as a new guy in town, Obidiah Stane, keeps trying to tear Tony down...

O'Neil's take is basically there is no point where you're just "over" drinking.

So Tony is in a really bad spot and then someone (Stan, presumably) leaves a bottle in his room...

In the beginning of the next issue, though, Tony throws the bottle away...

But by the end of that issue, Tony's girlfriend at the time dumps him (she was working with Stane) and that's a bridge too far and Tony drinks...

Within a couple of issues, Tony is a total wreck until finally he feels he is too drunk to continue as Iron Man and he has his best friend, James Rhodes, take over from him...

Obviously, this means that some changes have to happen in the Avengers...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Rhodey has to come up with something!']

As noted before, Gruenwald was the editor of both books, so that was easier to coordinate between the two series.

So first, in Avengers #229 (by Roger Stern, Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott), we see the Avengers unable to get into contact with the currently wasted Iron Man...

Two issues later, Rhodey calls the Avengers to resign Iron Man from the team. He doesn't know that a bunch of the Avengers know that Iron Man is really Tony Stark...

That becomes a problem when Captain America and the Wasp go to confront Tony and, well, it does not go well...

Amazingly enough, that pretty much does it for Iron Man as a regular member of the main Avengers for the rest of this volume of the Avengers. Since this volume goes on for more than a decade, that is saying a lot. Rhodey ends up joining the West Coast Avengers when they form and then Tony takes over in that role and remains with the West Coast Avengers for the rest of the 1980s and when they disband, Tony forms a new team (Force Works). When he became a teenager in the mid-1990s, he kind of sort of re-joined the Avengers but it wasn't until Kurt Busiek and George Perez relaunched the Avengers in Heroes Return that Tony rejoined the main Avengers team.

If anyone else has a suggestion for an example of a comic book character being ripped from a series, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!