Superhero Movie News! - Iron Man

If you know anything about me, then you already know... I love me some Superheroes. I collected Marvel Comics as a little kid. (I also collected baseball cards and coins. But not stamps; Stamp collecting's only for nerds!) I collected them a bit more seriously as a teenager, and one question I always asked myself was, "Why don't they make a decent movie out of --insert comic here--? Well, I don't know why they didn't then, but they have been making up for lost time in the 21st century. Ever since Tobey Maguire had his Spider-Mask peeled halfway back to play upside-down tonsil-hockey with Kirsten Dunst, Superhero movies have been marketable to the masses, not just the masses of Nerddom.

I have already shared my excitement with you about the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, and now I finally get a peek at what the upcoming Iron Man movie directed by Jon Favreau, and starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. With Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges co-starring (along with alleged cameos by Samuel L. Jackson and Hilary Swank), it looks like they have got another one right.

The first Fantastic Four was an immature Super-sitcom, interspersed with meaningless stunt-scenes. (I am waiting for FF2 on DVD) Ghost Rider was an equally immature Eye-Candy Extravaganza. HULK had the most potential to be great, but unfortunately Ang Lee wrote a new, unnecessary, and overly complex take on the physical and psychological origins of the character, and made Bruce Banner's dad into the lamest villain ever, bringing the movie to a conclusion with the most artsy-fartsy fight scene ever put on film. I was never a fan of The Punisher or Elektra comics (I just barely knew who the character of Elektra was), and the Daredevil Movie was just atrocious.

Of course I saw them all, anyway. Comic Fans could appreciate these movies on some level, simply because they brought characters that we already loved to life for us in a new way, but until now Marvel had really only scored with the X-Men and Spider-Man trilogies. Well, they figured out what the audiences wanted. Superhero movies that did really well all had the word "Man" in them! (or its plural, although I suppose the mutants should be Xpeople, or X-Persons)
Well, Another "Man" movie is on the way!

Of course, outside of the titles, the successful movies have been the ones that centered on their superhuman characters' all-too-human problems. Tony Stark is going to be the next Peter Parker, I hope.

Anyway, the reason for all the Iron Man hoopla is the new Iron Man Movie Teaser that was just released yesterday. I have been hoping for a while that they would get this one right, and it looks like they just might have.

Warning: You will have a potentially annoying song stuck in your head after watching. You can't say I didn't warn you!