InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Hey there, hustler."

dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-04 21:35:00

Entry tags:

char: iron man/tony stark, creator: jack kirby, creator: stan lee, era: silver age

Light up another one, Tony
These clips are from THE AVENGERS# 5, May 1964 and #7, August 1964. Script by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby. Tony Stark has to wear the Iron Man chestplate all the time, because it keeps a piece of shrapnel from moving into his heart. When he lets the armor's power run down, that piece of metal instantly starts digging deeper, causing pain, dizziness and weakness. (This didn't seem the way such an injury would actually work, but it was great drama.) We got a lot of panels of a tortured Iron Man crawling doggedly toward an outlet to recharge his chestplate; he was quite the suffering hero, having to use up his power in a fight and then pay for it. Despite having a damaged heart that could only be kept functioning with machinery, the idea of quitting cigarettes didn't seem to occur to Tony, though. Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne and Reed Richards smoked pipes, Nick Fury and Ben Grimm lit up stogies. But Tony was satisfied with a pack of Lucky Strikes. (I would have loved it if Kirby or an inker had added one panel of Iron Man with a cancer stick protruding from the grille of the Iron Man helmet. Just once.)

1964 might as well be another planet if you're in your twenties today. People smoked EVERYWHERE. Airplanes, restaurants, movie theatres, stadiums. Nobody thought anything of it. People smoked in supermarkets and ground out the butts on the floor. Doctors smoked in their offices. Teachers smoked (but students weren't allowed to). After the Surgeon General started hitting the public over the head with a 2X4 about the dangers of tobacco, habits gradually changed and laws were changed. Today, you see the furtive "cigarette outlaws" sullenly huddled outside buildings on their breaks. But it wasn't always today.

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	volksjager 2009-08-05 01:54 am UTC (link)
	I'm sure CAP must have done some "Lucky strike"ads during WW2 for the war effort. (Reply to this)

	randyripoff 2009-08-05 02:24 am UTC (link)
	I'm not sure exactly when they started printing warnings on cigarette labels, but I'm pretty sure it was well after this comic was published. I remember seeing commercials for cigarettes as a lad in the late sixties. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	randyripoff 2009-08-05 02:29 am UTC (link)
	Also, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Tony was initially patterned after Errol Flynn, so smoking for him would be part of the image. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-08-05 02:36 am UTC (link)
	Errol Flynn sounds right for Tony's inspiration and would explain the mustache. Here's an ad from the back of a 1947 magazine. As late as 1970, a cowboy riding to the theme from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was hawking cigarettes on TV, but I think that near the end of TV cigarette commercials. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	randyripoff 2009-08-05 02:44 am UTC (link)
	I think it was also part of the whole "Playboy" image. I'm pretty sure I've seen panels where Bruce Wayne smoked a pipe as well. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	btravage.livejournal.com 2009-08-05 03:01 am UTC (link)
	The pipe, especially in scenes with Robin, always seemed creepily paternal to me, the Golden Age more-so than any other. He's like Moral Oral's dad. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-08-05 03:10 am UTC (link)
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	fungo_squiggly 2009-08-05 02:51 am UTC (link)
	"Which cigarette do doctors prefer?" Man, by today's standards, that's just incredibly wacky. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-08-05 03:21 pm UTC (link)
	I have other old ads on my site, one from 1935 that has athletes and mountain climbers saying they light up when they need more energy. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dcanacek 2009-08-05 05:33 am UTC (link)
	Thought it was supposed to be Howard Hughes... with less of the late in life crazy. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fungo_squiggly 2009-08-05 02:33 am UTC (link)
	Well, I was a kid in the '80s, and I still remember candy cigarettes. I loved those things. Though it's kind of obvious why they aren't widely available anymore. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	randyripoff 2009-08-05 02:35 am UTC (link)
	Yes, because Candy Cigarettes are gateway candy. Next thing you know, they're mainlining Pop Rocks. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-08-05 02:38 am UTC (link)
	A novelty store nearby sells like plastic cigarettes. You blow through them and expel powder that looks like smoke. Take these to staff meetings, airports, movie theatres and watch the fun as everyone reacts as if you're beating a puppy. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	fungo_squiggly 2009-08-05 02:46 am UTC (link)
	The candy cigarettes that I remember didn't blow smoke. They were basically just sticks of white candy with a red dot on one end. Years later I remember craving them and wishing they would be re-branded and introduced to the market as harmless "candy chalk." After looking it up just now, though, I found I can apparently order candy cigarettes online.:D (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	kingrockwell 2009-08-05 02:13 pm UTC (link)
	They call 'em candy sticks now, and they no longer have the colored dot. A store I used to work in actually sold them in Marvel themed boxes. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fungo_squiggly 2009-08-05 02:44 am UTC (link)
	Well, I do remember a kid in my elementary school getting in trouble for snorting Kool-Aid at lunch time, straight from the bag. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	randyripoff 2009-08-05 02:45 am UTC (link)
	That would be...painful. Besides, there's no sugar in Kool-Aid, IIRC. (Reply to this) (Parent)

carolcarolcarol
2009-08-05 11:35 am UTC (link)

Just a couple years, actually -- the first warnings appeared in 1966.

Which means, of course, the cigarette lobby had been doing its job for decades and suppressing public policy research. People in 1964, as today, knew smoking was dangerous. There were health professionals who, in the 1940s, opposed WWII cigarette rations, arguing they were not only dangerous to GI health but a cynical economic ploy to create hundreds of thousands of consumers. Gasp! Say it isn't so! Cap would probably give a righteous beat-down to those pencil-necked commie geeks.

Those lobbyists are in the pharm industry now . . . Take your meds, Tony!

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dr_hermes
2009-08-05 03:18 pm UTC (link)

The resistance to awareness of cigarettes being harmful is amazing. It wasn't just lobbyists, but the public who fought the knowledge. It was the equivalent of covering your ears and saying, "I can't hear you..." Even today, a friend of mine buys American Spirit tobacco and her position is that it's safe.. it's not tobacco that's harmful, but the pesticides they spray on it.

The packs of cigarettes given out with rations during WW II was a response to demand. You've got hundreds of thousands of men all over Europe and the Pacific who are heavy smokers, they wanted those cigarettes and they wouldn't take no for an answer. The men who didn't smoke could trade their packs for chocolate or whatever. Sort of like prison, where cigarettes are a form of currency. (I'm sure the tobacco companies were happy at the thought of getting new smokers and guaranteed sales, of course, but it's not like they weren't making money by the truckload anyway.)

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	carolcarolcarol 2009-08-06 03:38 am UTC (link)
	Absolutely, and well-said. True fact: I just watched an old Marlon Brando movie. He smoked. It looked awesome. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	esc0 2009-08-05 03:42 am UTC (link)
	I hate the smell of cigarettes with a passion and I'm beyond happy that its not allowed in public places but its become so ridiculous how politically incorrect it now is. Sometimes it sounds like cigarettes will strike you dead with cancer if you take just a puff like that evil marijuana lol (Reply to this)

alschroeder
2009-08-05 12:21 pm UTC (link)

I'm one of the older posters here (let's put it this way--I remember when this comic first came out, and buying it) and I remember my mother, smoking like a chimney, in the car we were in and as a kid watching the wreaths of smoke swirl in and out (and we had no air conditioning in the car) and thinking they were "very pretty".

And my mother, by the standards of the time, was a good mother. If she thought seriously she was endangering her children by secondhand smoke, she would have been horrified.

No, she didn't die of lung cancer, BTW. She did manage to give up smoking in her late fifties or so.

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	ashtoreth 2009-08-05 04:18 pm UTC (link)
	I've had similar experiences. My parents still smoke like chimneys, and I love watching the smoke (as long as its blowing away). Btw OP, Fred Hembeck's Fantastic Four Roast had a couple panels of Iron Man smoking with his facemask down through the mouthhole. X) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	thanekos 2009-08-05 06:21 pm UTC (link)
	" Hey, waitasecond- Magneto doesn't control minds! " (Reply to this) (Parent)

	proteus_lives 2009-08-06 03:30 am UTC (link)
	As a smoker I almost wish for these simpler times. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	carolcarolcarol 2009-08-06 03:41 am UTC (link)
	Almost? You people are soon going to be pushed into the stocks. That would be kind of badass, actually, to be in stocks and lighting up. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	proteus_lives 2009-08-06 04:35 am UTC (link)
	Hah, too true. I would light up in the stocks. Fuck it, I'm there anyway. Reminds me of this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey "More Weight." Bad-ass! (Reply to this) (Parent)

psychop_rex
2009-08-06 05:04 am UTC (link)

Personally, I think the whole anti-smoking thing that's being pushed these days is crap. I mean, yes, it's bad for you, and yes, as a nonsmoker myself I generally prefer to do things without being surrounded by smoke - but for crying out loud, what was wrong with smoking and nonsmoking sections? They always seemed to work fairly well to me; I mean, most of them are in separate rooms, so what's the big deal?
For that matter, what the hell is up with the 'no smoking in bars' thing? Who worries about their health when they're in a bar? There are no 'healthy bars' - if you go into a bar for a drink, you are indulging in an unhealthy activity. It may be less addictive than tobacco, but you compare a heavy drinker with a heavy smoker and then tell me which one has the better-functioning mind. Personally, I think it ought to be up to the owner of the place - if most of your clientele are smokers, what's the point of making them go outside?
It's nannyism, is what it is. Next thing you know, they'll make it illegal to eat fatty foods, or drink, or wear cotton fibers. (Some people are allergic, you know.) You're never going to stomp out smoking entirely - it's been with us since the damn of humankind - and everybody already knows the risks, so what the hell's the point? It's just making people feel uncomfortable so others can feel self-righteous, is what it is.

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