News > FEATURED: 8 Reasons You Should Be Excited About Iron Man

Written by Dean Brooks 

Now that the Spider-Man franchise appears to have run its course, it’s high time for a new superhero to grace the screen and teach us about sacrifice, honor and how to outwit captors by building a pulse-laser emitting body suit, which kicks ass.  

It’s time for Iron Man.  Iron Man!  Set to debut May 2, 2008, there's a ton of reasons why this movie’s release date should be marked with a big red and gold “X” on your calendar.  Here are the top eight:

1.  Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man!

With the possible exception of Christopher Reeve as Superman, this may well be the most brilliant casting decision for a comic book hero ever made. My hat goes off to director Jon Favreau for convincing Downey to star after tugging him out of whatever corner in which he was hiding whilst recuperating from yet another legendary hang-over.  I’m quite sure that in at least one alternate universe, there is a real man named Tony Stark who looks exactly like Robert Downey, Jr. and who heads a billion dollar company while, in his spare time, he buzzes around saving lives in nanotech-powered armor.

2. Tony Stark is a womanizing alcoholic with no natural superpowers!

Tony Stark is the Marvel equivalent of Bruce Wayne.  Rich, powerful, handsome – he's a tortured soul without any advantage over his enemies save his inventive mind. Forget about Peter Parker’s bullshit teen angst.  Forget about the Fantastic Four and their petty familial squabbles. Tony Stark is a manly man with manly issues.  

A real life Stark would probably succumb to a Howard Hughes-esque breakdown and start peeing in milk bottles while holed up in some dank, filthy living room.  But not this Tony Stark:   internally conflicted by his company’s lucrative practice of supplying the military with weapons of mass destruction and deadly technology, Stark balances the scales of justice by moonlighting as Iron Man.  How many rich industrialists do you know of with that kind of internal moral gyroscope?  

Simply put, Stark is cool.  He’s got a ton of futuristic gadgets that he uses for good.  He’s disgustingly wealthy, but he’d rather risk life and limb than grow his ass eating gourmet donuts poolside with bikini-clad babes.  He’s the combination of a cool older brother, the “bad” uncle your parents always warn you about, the nerdy kid who always wins the Annual Science Fair and the rich frat boy famous for his feat of consuming an entire case of Heineken while standing on his head, all rolled into one metallic conqueror.  He’ll drink you under the table and save your ass when Mandarin tries to vaporize your puny mortal form with his power rings.  That’s a true hero.

3.  Mandarin is the villain!

As Jon Favreau announced at the 2006 Comic-Con, Mandarin will be Iron Man’s foe in the upcoming feature.  But even if Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger (Jeff Bridges) precedes Mandarin – with the ringed foe to appear in a sequel – we’ll see him at some point.  What does this mean?  Iron Man vs. Mandarin will be a smack down of mythic proportions.  The last time we saw such a powerful protagonist was General Zod in Superman II, and old General “Kneel before me Son of Jor-el!” Zod was a tad fruity if you ask me.  

In X-Men 3 the U.S. Government was the prime enemy of mutants with its “X” gene cure.  Boring.  In Spider-man 3, Peter Parker faced a black suit that made him… umm… dance.  Yeah, dance.  The Fantastic Four are facing some weirdo on a surf board this summer (cowabunga dude!).  And in 2006, Superman’s main foe was a giant rock made of Kryptonite.  Yes, a giant rock.  

Mandarin, meanwhile, is a descendent of Genghis Khan (or so he claims), a master of science and mathematics who possess ten magical rings that give him powers even Supes would envy. Mandarin can emit a shot capable of destroying the bond between atoms and molecules with his “Disintegration Beam.”  And that’s just with the ring on his right ring finger. You can check out all of his amazing abilities here at Wiki.  Mandarin may well become one of the best villains to pulverize his way onto celluloid since Darth Vader.

4.  Gwyneth Paltrow is Pepper Potts!

Just kidding. Who gives a shit about Gwyneth Paltrow?

5.   Iron Man will dogfight with F-22 fighter jets!

According to an MTV interview, director Jon Favreau, when asked what particular scene might define his movie the way the ship's sinking defined Titanic, replied, “From what I've seen, one of the most spectacular sequences has Iron Man flying and dog-fighting with F-22 jet fighters.”  

Can Spider-man battle the U.S. Air Force with those web balls of his?  No.  Can Wolverine, for all of his screw-the-worldness, take on heat-seeking missiles with mere adamantium claws?  Don’t think so.  There’s only one man, one iron-clad man to be exact, who can trade blows with fighter jets and still have the energy afterwards to stroll down to the corner pub and order a double shot of Jamison Irish whiskey.  Iron Man.

 

6. We’ll finally learn whether Iron Man wears underpants or not!

Well, maybe not.  But I would like to see some kind of reference to Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s argument about whether Iron Man sports undies or, as George maintains, if he’s “naked under there.”  I’m thinking a scene where Jim Rhodes (Terence Howard) inquires to Stark while the billionaire inventor is making the armor, “You are wearing something underneath all that metal, right?”  To which Stark replies, after looking down at himself, “Well…"

7.  Iron Man will temporarily distract the nation from a boring-as-hell presidential race!

By May of next year, we should pretty much know who the candidates will be for the 2008 election.  Since it’s a given that both candidates will assuredly obliterate this country if given their chance in office, Iron Man will provide a desperately needed outlet for the entire country.  The U.S. Congress might as well move back the election to before May 2, because after Iron Man premiers, no one’s going to give a hoot about inconsequential things like who is best qualified to run the preeminent democracy on the planet.

8.  Terence Howard will eventually become War Machine!

Like Mandarin, War Machine may not appear until a sequel to the upcoming Iron Man film, but he is worth mentioning here if only because Terence Howard will play Tony Stark’s friend and ally James Rhodes.  Imagine having a side-kick with a suit of armor equipped with a gatling gun that fires depleted uranium bullets.  Now imagine he's Academy Award-nominated for playing a pimp trying to becoming a successful rapper.  Again, Favreau scores massive points by picking Howard to accompany Downey Jr.