The U. S. Marines are looking for "a few good men," and they need look no further than Marvel Comic's superhero Iron Man, amusingly and brilliantly played by Robert Downey Jr. in the new Iron Man movie.
Self-absorbed billionaire Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) has taken over his late father's high-tech arms company. Stark Industry, one of the U.S. government’s top weapons contractors, has designed a new high-tech weapon, currently being used to obliterate insurgents in Afghanistan. Tony is the toast of every soirée and can put even an inquiring magazine reporter – who asks about his company's responsibility in killing people – in her rightful spot, his bed!
Tony and his best friend and military liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) go to Afghanistan to see Stark's handiwork firsthand. A ride in a Humvee ends up in a deadly explosion, leaving solders dead and an injured Tony captured by Raza (Faran Tahir), the sinister leader of the insurgents. Only in a comic book movie could a prisoner build a super flying suit while in captivity. Tony escapes, and after a duel with a few U.S. Air Force jets, ends up back home, where he must refine the electromagnet that keeps his injured heart working.
Back in his million-dollar house and lab, Tony's assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) brief him on company news. When Pepper actually helps Tony re-attach his electromagnet, there are moments between them which hint that their relationship is taking on a different dynamic. Obadiah, on the other hand, spouts off technical jargon about the company, but there's nothing friendly or collaborative in his attitude.
Maybe it's his electromagnet-supported heart or inspiration from his deceased father, but when Tony discovers that Obadiah is sabotaging the company and is in cahoots with Raza, he gets serious about designing an Iron Man suit that will truly battle evil.
Marvel Comics' Iron Man, created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby, made his first appearance in the Tales of Suspense in April 1963. Tony Stark, Iron Man’s alter ego, was inspired partly by the personality of the late, renowned Howard Hughes.
"Howard Hughes was one of the most colorful men of our time,” said the film's executive producer Stan Lee. “He was an inventor, an adventurer, a multimillionaire, a ladies’ man and, finally, a nutcase."
It's vital when casting comic superheroes such as Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men and The Fantastic Four, that the actors bring something unique to the role which enables it to work in more than one film.
Article comments
1 - Sabrina Sadique
Amid fabulous aerial adroitness (read: technological blasphemies, supersonic spaceward shoots, Matrixy tumbles and dives) and fidelity to the superhero genre with all its Manichean quarrels/resolutions, Iron Man seemed no less believable than Juno's Paulie Bleeker. Nay, I kid you not. Robert Downey, Jr. far eclipsed the canonical comic hero properties by conveying a tender Tony Stark who knows that superheroism is nothing short of a simple execution of commonsensical, gut humanity.