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I am Iron Man (guitars rocking out in the background)!

So, I saw Iron Man last night and I have to say, I was really impressed. In the past few years, comic books movies have really exploded (no pun intended) onto the scene and while some of them are really well-executed, others... not so much. When I saw that IM had a 95% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I seriously did a double take. For any film (let alone a comic book movie) to be that well-reviewed, it has to be pretty amazing and I was pleased not only because of the movie itself, but because of what it meant for the way that people view comic book movies overall in our culture.

I wasn't very familiar with the character of Iron Man before we read Civil War but after having read that graphic novel and seeing the movie, I'm was very intrigued. Tony Stark seems to be one of the more complex characters I've seen and I think that Robert Downey Jr. was perfectly cast because he can pull off the intital outward arrogance and inner emptiness as well as the transformation of Tony Stark into someone who actually cares for others but still sort of maintains his cockiness. I know that I wouldn't have been able to appreciate the movie as much if we hadn't read Civil War and I also think that I can appreciate the reading more now that I've seen the movie.

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