Relying on giant piles of money to get the job done is a fine way to do business — unless those piles suddenly vanish due to supervillain machinations, bad luck, or even your own poor planning. As readers, we know the status quo will probably be reinstated sooner or later, and all that money will come flowing back in as fast as ever. But for our heroes, the problem is much starker (and Starks seem to be involved a suspicious percentage of the time). What’s a broke hero to do? Mortgage your secret hideout? Sell your used cowls on eBay? Steal your kid sidekick’s lunch money? All excellent ideas, but before you take any drastic action, let’s look back at some other cash-strapped heroes and see how they went about paying the bills when fortune frowned on them. The first time he lost it, when a robot convinced everyone he was the real Tony Stark, Tony went wandering around a rainy street and was taken in by the villain Midas for a while. The second time, he sank deeper into the alcoholism and depression that had cost him literally everything but his life. Tony always manages to pick himself up, obviously, but there’s a whole lot of moping first. He doesn’t. At least not immediately. But when Booster finds out, the problem is almost immediately solved by the reappearance of an old friend and a successful crowdsourcing campaign. If anyone can capitalize on his audience’s love, it’s Booster Gold! So what happened to all the money? Tony Stark, fortune destroyer extraordinaire, happened. Since Iron Man doesn’t normally ruin his friends’ lives on purpose, the winsome Wasp began to suspect that he might have turned traitor. She was right, but, as I’ve discussed before, we try not to remember that. This happened in Justice League of America #75, when GA was falsely accused of financial improprieties and lost everything as a result. He was stymied at first, but after a tussle with his evil twin and a talk with some poor people, he discovered his true purpose in life: to defend those without the means to defend themselves.
