Captain America's Shield in Iron Man

Haven't been able to find too much information on this but apparently Captain America's shield makes a cameo in Iron Man. It's way early, but my guess is when Cap got frozen, he either didn't have his shield or it was recovered before his body. Billionaire Tony Stark would have been purchased the shield and kept it, which will lead to their friendship when Cap is found and defrosted. Awesomeness. I can't wait for Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and the rest of these films to come out and keep interconnecting.

Iron Man Review #2.

I saw Iron Man yesterday. I thought it was very good. My girlfriend had been dreading the thought of seeing it for about a month, and she even admitted after it was over that she was it was so good. I guess "shocked" would be a good word to use. So that should pretty much tell you what the average non-comic fan thought about the film. She even thought the part after the credits was worth waiting for.

I thought it a very good movie, nicely-paced (but it did lag a little in a couple of spots) and it was very faithful to the comics. Stark's Mansion in Malibu was exactly like his West Coast mansion in the comics; I thought that was really well done. Robert Downey was very convincing as Tony Stark and Terrance Howard was great as Rhodey. There were a lot of subtle nods to the comics and a couple of hints at what will happen in the sequel. I do have a couple of complaints though. They are:

1. Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane. I am a huge Jeff Bridges fan, but a couple of times during the movie, he sounded like he was reprising his role as The Dude from The Big Lebowski, only he had a goatee with a shaved head; and he was in a block-buster comic book action movie. I thought he did a great job in the last half of the movie, but he played it a little too Dude-like in the beginning of the movie.

2. Jon Favreau inserting himself into the movie. Did we really need this? Couldn't they have casted someone else in this meaningless role? And he got a lot of face time very early on in the movie. I just found it highly annoying. I hate it when Tarantino does it, and I hate it when other directors do it too.

3. The Stan Lee cameo. Can we please stop this as well? It's getting real old, real fast. I know he was great and all, but I'm just really over his cameos in every single movie Marvel is involved with.

4. Gwyneth Paltrow/Pepper Potts. She was serviceable, but the character she played (Pepper Potts), was very badly written. I thought there were times where she came off as a ditz, and then a few minutes later she would be doing something very outrageous; like hacking into a Stark Industries server. Yeah, ok then. Her character was just very uneven. And obviously they needed her to be the love interest, but that part of the movie seemed a little forced.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good movie, I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD. So go out and see it if you haven't already.

Iron Man Review

In a single word, Iron Man is: awesome. Robert Downey Jr. is absolutely perfect as Tony Stark. Everything about the story was perfect, even the little things that had to / chose to change to update it. Make sure you stay past the credits for a great tease at what's coming up. I usually enjoy the first comic books but get a little bit frustrated because first movies are primarily origin stories. I understand they have to do this and Iron Man's was well-paced and didn't feel tedious at all. The technology in the movie is superimpressive. Overall, a great great movie and probably one of my favorite comic book movies ever.

Hot on the heels of Iron Man's $100M+ success, Marvel announced Iron Man 2 to be coming out in 2010 as well as Thor, Captain America and the Avengers movies all coming out in 2010-11. I absolutely love that Marvel took over producing its own movies so now we can start to see some crossovers. Downey has a cameo in The Hulk movie which I'm still not excited about, but at least it's all weaving together for The Avengers. Obviously, The Avengers movie will feature Iron Man, Cap and Thor and probably the Hulk, and they can introduce secondary characters like Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye or whoever else without necessarily giving them their own movies first. 2010-11 will be movie greatness.

New Venom/Iron Man's Armory.

So Marvel recently released an article about Spider-Man's newest enemy, only it's kind of an old enemy. It's Venom and he gets a new look. I guess it's not the real Venom, but maybe another symbiote, and I think they're calling it Anit-Venom. Here's the story.

Another cool article: Take 10: Iron Man's Armory. Personally, I'd have the Stealth Armor higher on the list, but there's no doubt that the War Machine Armor is tops. That armor is badass.

Iron Man & Wolverine Animated Series.

Exciting news! Marvel announced that the both the Iron Man & Wolverine Animated Series will be on Nicktoons in 2009. Each will get 26 episodes. Sounds awesome, the only problem is; I don't think I get Nicktoons. I need to figure that out before 2009.

In other X-Men news, Marvel also released a Q&A: X-Men: Divided We Stand Part 1 article.

Update 3/10/08

Ok, so Marvel released a ton of stuff since the last time I updated. First off, they have an article on the Secret Invasion and who the writers think are Skrulls. They also have all of the posters floating in between answers.

I guess this week is officially "X-Factor Week", even though when Marvel lists the events, it's only three days long. Oh, wait, they say that's just some of the stuff they have planned. You know what pisses me off? This cover. It's 2008, Marvel, no one wants Arcade back. Please stop.

They also released a picture from the new Hulk movie featuring William Hurt as General "Thunderbolt" Ross. I'm not that excited about the new Hulk movie. I'm going to reserve judgment until the release date gets closer.

They also released an article about the new Iron Man poster. It looks pretty awesome.

Update 3/6/08

Marvel released anther post in the Who Do You Trust? campaign. This one is pretty cool. I wonder how many more of these they're going to release.

They also have a farewell article about Mark Bagley. If you scroll down the have a cover gallery and he drew one of my all-time favorite covers: New Warriors #1. And he had a pretty good run on Thunderbolts.

Another cool article is the 10 Classically Cool Iron Man Toys. I don't really collect toys too much, but I am curious to see what they come out with for this Iron Man movie. Some of the stuff I've seen looks pretty cool. Especially the first silver armor toys. I might have to pick up some of those.

Required Reading: Iron Man

Continuing Marvel's Iron Man assault, which will probably last at least until two months after the movie is released, they released an article online about the 10 Best Iron Man Collections. So you can read about that. Personally, I didn't really think the Armor Wars was all that great when I finally got around to reading it. But then again, I'm not the biggest Iron Man fan. So you may not want to take my word for it and check some of these out.

JUST A REMINDER: That new Iron Man movie trailer is on tonight's episode of LOST. I swear it's on tonight this time.

Another poster in the Who Do You Trust series can be found here. Some people have been commenting on Marvel's site that these are dumb and don't serve a purpose, but I think they're pretty cool. Keep 'em coming.

Another pretty decent article on Marvel.com: Top 11 Teen Characters. My only gripe is that A. Jubilee is on the list and B. She's ahead of X-23. Travesty of justice right there.

Update 2/27/08

Marvel released a pretty cool Iron Man poster. You can see it here. Pretty dopesauce if you ask me. Can't wait for this movie to come out already. Good thing this year is already flying by. May 2nd seems like it's just around the corner.Visit the Iron Man section of the Marvel Movie Hub for more information.


You can read about Captain America: One Year Later (the new story arc starting in Cap #36) here. I guess I'll post the preview picks here as well, it looks pretty action-packed:

Iron Man: May/2008 Preview.

So I guess May 2008 is nationally "Iron Man Month". Marvel is following suite by releasing a whole bunch of Iron Man comics. Apparently, in addition to the new Invincible Iron Man series that is launching in May, they're also releasing an "Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas" limited series. Interesting. You can view the whole list here. The one that REALLY interests me is the All-New Iron Manual. I love that kind of stuff. It will have profiles on characters, a complete armor gallery and schematics on key armors and the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Chris, if you want me to pick you up a copy, just let me know.

Update 2/11/08.

Interesting article about the New X-Men and the transition to Young X-Men. I still don't really understand why they're essentially rebooting and re-titling it, but there are a couple of series that they're doing that with as a result of the end of The Messiah Complex (Cable, X-Force), so I guess they're just on one of those reboot kicks that Marvel goes on from time to time to increase sales by publishing issues with #1 on the cover.

I just discovered the X-Men comic hub over at Marvel. It's kind of nice to have one place to keep you informed about all of the cross-over tie-ins because the way the last couple have gone, it can be daunting to keep track of all that.

Iron Man is getting ANOTHER title. I think we need another Iron Man comic like we need another comic starring Wolverine. Oh, wait a minute, Wolvie IS getting another book (it's a limited series). This is just like the early '90s all over again...

Finally, my Deadpool questions have been answered. He'll be in Wolverine Origins #22 this month and he's set to get his own series again later this year. Anyways, here's a preview of Wolverine Origins #22. Enjoy.

Update 12/26/07.

Apparently, Marvel moved their new releases to Friday this week. I was all excited because today was new-release Wednesday, but then I checked my list and new stuff comes out on Friday. Oh well.

Anyways, I haven't been reading that Captain America series, but I do know that they're about to reveal who will be the guy to take Steve Rogers place. Here's a rundown of the six finalists. Personally, I hope it's Hawkeye.

Marvel also wrote a pretty neat article on Frank Miller's Daredevil run.

They also released a new pic of Iron Man from the movie. Can't wait until May 2nd.

Comics I plan to buy on Friday: House of M: Avengers #3, and X-Men #206. I'm thinking of getting Hulk Vs. Fin Fang Foom #1 (we'll see if it passes the flip test) and New Warriors #7. I'll try and post what I've bought in the last couple of weeks tomorrow.

Iron Man, The Movie: Poster Update.

Mavel released the first one sheet for the Iron Man movie. It's a teaser of Shellhead's helmet. Click on the picture off to the left to enlarge it. Again, I cannot wait for this movie to come out.

They also apparently have something big planned for Thursday. It's very cryptic. I just we only have to wait a day or two to find out, but it's still annoying that they just don't announce whatever they have to announce right now.

We're working on some content, I know we've fallen off of the wagon again, but the good thing is that since no one really reads this thing, then there's really no complaints. We'll be back soon.

The Invincible Iron Man DVD Review

I watched this movie over the weekend for free thanks to my local library. Good thing, too, 'cause I would've been bummed if I actually bought it. I got the two Ultimate Avengers animated movies and those are decent but I didn't really care for this one. The animation is good, but I think they messed with Iron Man's origin a little too much.

Tony Stark's father is still alive in this version, and Tony gets kicked off the board of directors at Stark Industries. There's some mystical stuff going down in China where Jim Rhodes was heading up an assignment to raise a sunken, ancient temple. According to some prophecy, if the temple gets raised, then the Mandarin will return and kill a bunch of people or something. Oh, and also according the prophecy, the "Iron Knight" will come to fight the Mandarin, and one...will...die.

Tony ends up in China with a metal shard in his chest, but his life is saved by Rhodes and some Chinese monk. He is forced to build a suit of armor in order to get the temple back to its original sunken condition. Too late, 'cause the Four Elementals of Mandarin have been let loose and are looking for the remaining rings necessary to bring the Mandarin back. Tony dons a suit of aqua armor in order to retrieve one of the rings, but it doesn't really work and the Mandarin is summoned and takes over the body of the girl who has been helping Tony all along. She's the last remaining descendant. Tony puts on the old school armor he built early on in the movie and defeats the Mandarin, along with the help of the girl's resistance.

All in all, it was somewhat entertaining, but I didn't like all of the mystical stuff they added to Stark's origins. The movie ends with Tony buying back controlling interest in Stark Industries, promoting Jim Rhodes and turning the company over to his father. A little too Batman Begins, if you ask me.

Iron Man, The Movie #2.

So this morning I was reading Marvel's newsletter The Pulse (does DC have a newsletter? I wonder what it's called. I think my College's newsletter was also called "The Pulse", but it was super lame.) and they had an article article about the Iron Man panel at the SD Comic Con. So I hopped on Flickr and stole some guy's picture of the suit that they shipped to the Comic Con.

Chris and I had plans to go, but there were a whole bunch of logistical problems, and I know we haven't posted a whole lot lately, but I think that's because we're all busy. Chris was on vacation and started a new job, and I really don't know what Rich has got going on, but he's probably got a whole bunch of projects going on all at the same time. For me, work has been kicking my ass. That was the main reason I couldn't go. I was planning on going on Thursday and/or Friday, but then a whole bunch of stuff happened at work and I had to meet a deadline on Friday. I also will be out of the country next Tuesday-Thursday (I'll be in Utah for a tradeshow for work. And yes, I consider Utah to be a different country). So some other people around here are going to have to pick it up. But it's not like anyone's paying attention to this thing anyway, I think that lately the #1 reason people are coming to the site is from google image searches for the cover to The Amazing Spider-Man #282.

ANYWAYS, I am still super jacked for this Iron Man movie to come out. And Chris told me the other day that they've got a Moon Knight TV series in development right now. I cannot tell you how awesome that is. At some point we WILL do a Moon Knight week. For some reason he's one of my favorite characters that I didn't collect enough comics of. I think a lot of that was because he didn't have a constant regular title going. He always had something that was started, then changed writers or artists and then scrapped entirely, only to be restarted a few years later. And I think he's been retconned or had a character change a few times. He's basically Marvel's Hawkman, only he looks like Batman, but in white clothes. Anyways, Moon Knight week is coming. Maybe not today, maybe not next month, but sometime. In the future. I promise.

Iron Man, The Movie.

I guess someone should post something here. Even though I'm not the biggest Iron Man fan (I'm still going to write that 1500 word essay on why he sucks), I am totally excited to see this movie, and it's barely started filming. I think that if any comic book movie is going to benefit from the advances made in CGI, it's going to be a movie about a guy in a suit of armor. From what I've seen so far (just posters and stills) they're doing everything right. I'm not so sure about the choice of the super-villian (the Mandarin), but then again, Shellhead really never had a top notch, big name nemisis. Apparently Iron Monger is going to be in the mix, which I think will be good because Iron Man mainly fought villians in suits of armor, so it'll be good to have that represented in the movie. I just hope they learned from Spidey 3's mistakes and don't try to pack it too full of characters/story. Leave some for the sequel, you know there's gonna be one, especially from what I've seen so far (They could do the alcoholism storyline and maybe throw in Warmachine in the sequel). Special effects are great, but there's no substitute for a good story Favreau, so start there first and worry about the CGI later. Anyways, I haven't seen every comic film made in the last couple of years, but this one (along with any of the X-Men films) I would pay full price and probably go see the first day it's released.