Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding Comics Ch. 1-2 & Comic Book Nation Ch.1

To begin with, I really do like the idea of reading a comic about comics. I think it's a great idea and it's very well executed. As I was reading the first two chapters, I was surprised at how many examples there were of art in recent (and ancient, in some cases) history that are variations of "sequential visual art" and thus the foundations of modern comics. I'd never even thought about it before and it was hard to believe how many different kinds there were. I also love all the discussion about how our human brains automatically interpret certain images in a specific way, how we see others constantly but we identify ourselves when we look at cartoons, and how inanimate objects automatically becomes extensions of our bodies. The pyramid of styles was very interesting too as a way to conceptualize and almost graph or "place" a specific art style in comics. In Comic Book Nation , I enjoyed reading about the evolution of early comics from "funnies...
3 comments
Read more

MegaCon 2011 Mobile Blog Entry

Next up, the Crime Noir Panel hosted by The Rack Pack Comic Podcast . Jimmy Palmiotti, Frank Tieri, Darwyn Cook and Dave Johnson are the speakers. MegaCon has matured as the comic industry has grown in importance in popular culture. Orlando's native convention should be attracting this kind of top talents and now it seem to be doing it.
2 comments
Read more

Truth, Justice, and the American Way!

Look- in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... SUPERMAN!!! Look- in that room! It's a cat! It's a giant lump! It's me... BORED! I have never quite been able to assess why I dislike Superman so much. He's supposedly the purest, truest American superhero we have. America's very own mythology. And I like America well enough, some might even say I love it. So why do I dislike Superman so much. Maybe it's because he doesn't feel truly American to me. I mean, don't get me wrong- he's all about truth and justice and all. He's an immigrant of sorts, and he definitely falls into the whole perfect body image paradigm. But he's not flawed, and less face it, all Americans are flawed... most time really REALLY flawed. Iron Man's an alcoholic, Spider-Man's a brooding, angsty "I caused the death of my first, possibly true, love" young adult, and the X-men are all mutant 'freaks' (note these are all Marvel comics)....
1 comment
Read more