I See Posts Before My Eyes

jorgeaalves asked: Tom, about the serum/drug question, didn't Mark Gruenwald's run deal directly with this?

brevoortformspring:

Yes, but that was simply a story that Mark came up with, not the reaction to any sort of outside pressure or difficulty. Which is what the initial question asked about—whether we’d had any trouble over the fact that Cap got his powers from a serum. No, we have not.

But that’s not quite true.  There was some waffling for a while, which is why it’s a combination of the serum and the “Vita-Rays”

It’s been made clear that the serum is more than a simple steroid, so as far as I know there’s never been any controversy from it.  There’s been more than a few comics character who did take a pill to get their powers, Hourman being the best example, and they did plenty of stories that dealt with the idea of addiction to Miraclo.  There was a recent story (I think already retconned by one Crisis or another) that suggested that Miraclo was the first iteration of Venom.