LibriumArcana.Games

Alright, after seeing the movie I can summarize it very easily - A good movie, but not as good as the first. Go see it, it's got some hilarious moments, good action scenes, good acting and it carries on the Iron Man plot along with picking up more points for the upcoming Avengers, etc movies. So go see it, it's worth the viewing.

Now, that being said we'll go more in depth here and it'll come with spoiler tags.
[spoilers]
Iron Man 2 starts up with the brief introduction of the big baddy of the movie, Whiplash(Ivan Vanko) and the death of his father whom both blame Tony Stark for. The movie cuts in scenes of the ending bits of the last movie as a brief reminder(like any was needed) that Tony Stark is Iron Man.

We then get to watch Ivan build his own version of the Stark Arc Reactor for his own purposes to seek vengeance on Tony. This is followed by us skipping ahead 6 months to the cargo compartment of a C-130 and an armored up Iron Man. That scene in the trailers? You know the whole Pepper Pots paying some lip service to the mask before throwing it out the rear hatch? Cut out. At least in the version I saw it was. Instead we get the hatch opening and Tony jumping out before rocketing towards the ground to make his appearance at Stark Expo.

We're once more reminded here why RDJ was given this role as Tony goes into a great speech about how he's not saying he's responsible for the longest stretch of world peace in over 40 years and that he's not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back in a lawn chair sipping an ice tea because he hasn't found anyone man enough to go up against him.

And while we get this he steps aside for a video to play and pulls out a small device that takes a blood sample. The display reads Blood Toxicity: 24%. We later find out that the Arc Reactors are keeping him alive but also killing him by poisoning his body and nothing else will work to keep him alive. He's also starting to burn through the arc reactor cores at an exponential rate. The video is one of Tony's father doing a feel good promo for Stark Industries about world peace, advanced sciences and showing off a scale model of what he envisions as the city of the future.

Then we get the Senate Committee. Possibly one of the more humorous scenes in the movie, it gives us everything we were promised in the trailer as far as laughs go. The Iron Man suit is apparently not a weapon at all, we're told. It's merely a high tech prosthesis . Well, yes, I suppose one could call it that since we often say the same about guys who drive Porches and Ferrari. Throw in a few thinly veiled jokes about politicos and prostitution scandals, some quips and minor back and forth of how the Iron Man suit is a weapon that needs to be turned over to the military, how Tony isn't responsible enough or capable enough to use it and then we get the new Rhodes being called to testify against Stark. We get more of the same screen presence that makes him great as Tony where he goes into his "I've privatized world peace" bit. We're also introduced to the CEO of Stark Industries' biggest rival, Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries. He's played up from the get go as the asshole leader of the rival corp that we expect him to be. IMO, Sam Rockwell really was wasted on this particular role. He's a fair actor from what I've seen him in and this just didn't seem to do him much justice or credit.

Afterwards, back at the Starkcave he steps down as CEO of Stark Industries and hands it over to Pepper Potts. We then shortly get to meet Natalie Rushman(aka Nataha Romanoff aka Black Widow) as Pepper's new assistant. We later find out she was planted there by Fury to keep an eye on Tony.

We then jump to Monaco where Tony decides that since he owns one of the race cars in the race he's going to take over and drive the car for that race. This is where we first get to encounter Whiplash as the big bad of the movie. He walks out onto the track during the middle of the race and starts cutting up cars and causing trouble. How he exactly knew to disguise himself as a mechanic to get close enough to do so, or that Tony would be in a car racing beforehand was never explained as it's rather implied that Tony just got one of those wild hairs up his ass and decided to race instead of the real driver. Definately a moment of "Shut up and ignore the man behind the curtain." We also get to see the Suitcase Suit in action as Pepper and their driver race along to deliver the suit to Stark in time to defeat Whiplash. This suit takes a licking and barely keeps ticking, strongly implying that the suitcase suit due to its more portable nature is a good deal less tough than its less portable counterpart. Which makes sense, really.

Whiplash is arrested and is shortly thereafter broken out by Justin Hammer, CEO of Hammer Industries the main competitor to Stark Industries. Me personally? Never saw this coming. Complete and total shocker. Really. Wasn't horrible obvious from the get go at all. Anyway, he escapes and is 'recruited' into working for Hammer to complete the work on his own version of the Iron Man tech.

Rhodes comes to visit Stark in the Starkcave where he finally begins to understand what's going on with Tony as he sees the state of decay of the used Arc cores and increasingly spread digital pattern creeping around under his skin as it crawls up to his neck. He tries to talk some sense into Tony about not going this alone. But it goes as expected and fails because hey, he's Tony Stark, billionaire playboy badass.

Whiplash comes to Hammer's business and we get to see how much of a brilliant ubergenius he is as he hacks Hammer's computer security in about 30 seconds and starts tearing apart one of the suits to figure it out. Yes, he's a fucking genius. We got that when he built his own arc reactor. I don't know, for some reason this type of scene feels so needless to me. It's overemphasizing the point of yes, he's the bad guy, yes he's a genius, yadda yadda yadda moving on.

Tony shows up next talking to Natalie about finalizing matters and delves into a brief moment of seriousness as he asks her if she knew she only had one birthday left, what would she do with it? Jump to the party where Stark, dressed in the Iron Man suit gets shit-faced and stands up on stage making bad toilet humor jokes. Pepper and Rhodes try to stop him and get him to stop the party before it gets out of hand. He consents, stops the party and immediately calls for the start of the after party and starts shooting random things to entertain his guests. Rhodes, getting pissed, grabs dun dun dun... the Warmachine. He comes back up, clears the room and starts in on the "You don't deserve this type of thing, Tony" deal that's really expected at this point. This devolves into the pair of them brawling, Iron Man kicking ass for a few moments but it ending in a stalemate. Rhodes more or less says fuck this, fuck you, I'm out and takes off in the War Machine armor and turns it over to the military, which in turns gets it turned over to Hammer Industries for weaponization.

We finally get some more screen time at this point with Nick Fury(Sammie L) who was absolutely totally wasted in this movie. The scene in the donut shop with Black Widow, Iron Man and Nick Fury just didn't seem to play out right. We get a hint or two here about Cap'n America. Widow injects Tony with a drug to help repress the spread of the blood toxicity and Fury drops the bomb that Tony's search for a replacement element for the Arc cores has a new element to try if only Tony can figure it out somehow. Like I said, it really didn't seem to go anywhere and Fury who should have been a more secretive and mysterious character IMO just seems too out in the open in the donut shop. I don't know, I just didn't care for it.

We cut back to Hammer Industries to see Hammer bitching to Ivan about his suits not being done and that he's not doing them right. Ivan keeps assuring him that wait and see, it'll all work out. Hammer then goes to weaponize War Machine for the military and gets his hands on the Stark tech.

Now, back at Tony's house(kind of wrecked after the War Machine/Iron Man rumble) Fury is once again in scene dropping hints and clues that Tony's father, Howard Stark never finished the Arc Reactor design and that the whole start of this movie gets explained as Ivan's father who died in the opening scene was a defected Russian scientist who was working for Stark Industries. Howard had originally planned for the Arc Reactor to be much more than what Tony's version was, something that would have sparked off an energy race that would have put the arm's race to shame and made nuclear reactors look like AAA batteries. Anton(Ivan's father) was apparently going to use this as a get rich quick scheme and sell off the tech to the Russians. Howard found out and shitcanned Anton back to Russia. Russia found out he couldn't deliver and threw him into Siberia. We now get more or less the whole story of why Ivan wants Tony's head mounted on his wall. Tony's dad fucked over Ivan's dad, in his opinion, and basically caused him to be raised in a frigid hellhole. Fury goes on to say that Tony is the only one who could finish Howard's unfinished work and dun dun dun, Howard was a founding member of SHIELD and Fury knew him. Tony gets a bit angsty about his father not loving him or caring about him, Fury tells him to finish the work if he wants to survive, drops off a box containing a film and a notebook and leaves with a horrible joke. "Oh, and Tony? Remember, I've got my eye on you.." Yeah, I facepalmed too..

The film is more of the same feel-good Stark promo film from earlier but with multiple takes that were edited out. It's the unedited version of the PR film and at the end Howard leaves Tony with a personal message saying that he believes that Tony will figure it out, that he's the hope for the future and that he's always believed that Tony was his greatest creation. Awww, his dad loved him after all. Happy moment... The notebook is full of notes about arc reactor technology from his father. Tony gets a flash of insight, goes racing off to talk to Pepper at the office. He goes into her office to talk to her. He tries to explain what's been going on with him, she pretty much blows him off saying she's too busy running his company that he gave her to deal with him right now. She basically tells him he needs to wake the fuck up because people need him to be Iron Man and he flakes on that too and now she's busy running his company and dealing with his problems and putting out the fires he's causing. She leaves to go attend a meeting, he finds the old scale model of his father's 'city of the future' design and realizes it's the key to everything. Taking it back to the Starkcave he breaks it down, has Jarvis analyze it and make a holographic copy of it. He twists it, turns it, looks at it for about 3 minutes and goes "AH HA!" and realizes that the answer was there the whole time. The secret key element that is previously unknown to everyone in the world was craftily hidden in the city's layout. And now Tony goes to figure out how to replicate it.
Jarvis: This should work as a viable alternative to the palladium cores you are currently using. However, it is impossible to synthesize.
Tony: Fuck that noise, I'm going to make it anyway.

Some reconstruction of the Starkcave , building of a particle accelerator (yes, he has become Mini-CERN) and some high powered lasers later, he figures out how to make the element and redesigns the existing reactor tech to accomodate this. It works, of course, he plugs it in and the upgrade is complete. Of course if this was real life, the software would crash right about now and force him to reboot... While he's doing this Agent Coulson(the SHIELD agent from the first movie, Stark's babysitter) comes in to tell him, oh hey I'm going away now. I've been reassigned to New Mexico for something else. Bye! Oh, here! And hands him an unfinished version of the Captain America shield. Tony glances at it and then says, 'Hey great, this is just what I needed!' and uses it to prop up one of the pieces of his particle accelerator. After plugging in the new reactor to his chest he gets a huge high off of the experience of so much power being juiced into him.

We get some more face time with Ivan and Hammer where basically Hammer plays the corporate douchebag trying to flex his power to Ivan who doesn't really seem to give two fucks. But he's willing to work with Ivan some more anyway, just as soon as he gets back from showing off the latest Hammer Drones based on the Stark Tech along with the weaponized War Machine armor.

Ivan calls Tony to brag to him about how Stark is done for and figures out that Hammer and Ivan are working together. Finding out about the show, Iron Man races off to confront Hammer.

At the Hammer Expo everything goes according to the laws of obvious plot elements here. Hammer comes out on stage strutting his stuff, showing off his new Hammer Drones that he's designed for the military and the new weaponized War Machine. He goes on to talk shit about Tony, Iron Man, Stark Industries, etc. Iron Man shows up, confronts Hammer about Ivan and Ivan plays them both for suckers by remotely taking control of the Drones and War Machine. Again, this is one of those "Gee, how could this possible go wrong. Oh look, the bad guy remotely hacked the high technology to use it for his own bidding. How completely unexpected..." moments.

Iron Man and the Drones/War Machine goes on to race around the city trying to kill each other. Or rather Iron Man running while War Machine and the Drones try to kill him. Tony manages to get a few of them to blow themselves up by some slick maneuvering and occasionally fighting back. He then gets Jarvis to hack into War Machine to reset it. He manages to get a decent amount of the drones down, War Machine resets and then all the rest of the drones show up. The two start unloading on the drones, a great action scene comes out of this and all is right in the world.

While this is going on Black Widow heads out to Hammer HQ to take out Ivan. Happy drives her and they end up brawling with some of Hammer's security goons before Widow makes insanely quick work out of all but one of them which Happy had been fighting for like 5 minutes while she took down everyone else. They get through only to find Ivan gone. Again... reaaaaall shocker there.

This action scene was good IMO and well done. I really liked it and it was one of the highlights of the movie which isn't hard to do considering there really haven't been too many of them. After the drones are down, Whiplash shows up in his new Whiplash Man armor, starts beating both War Machine and Iron Man. Tony decides the best way to win is for them to cross streams. They both activate their palm pulse cannon thingys and fire them creating a big explosion in the middle which destroys the Whiplash armor. Ivan goes into his death spiel and shuffles off the mortal coil but not before revealing his final fuck you. Yep, that's right. All those drones were rigged to go boom. So all the drone bodies around them begin to flash and beep as the countdown begins. Tony realizes that Pepper is in danger since some of the drones were taken down at the Expo. He races back to snatch her out of harms way just in the nick of time.

After he saves her in a rooftop scene they have a serious emotional conversation where Tony appologizes profusely for all the shit he's put her through and she resigns as CEO of Stark Industries saying she can't do it. They finally end this fairly serious scene by Tony pulling her close and kissing her. Yes, they finally hook up. W00t! Loved this. It's then ruined in a horrible Rom-com fashion by Rhodes stepping into scene and making jokes about the two of them kissing. He then says he's leaving and taking War Machine with him and flies off.

It then goes into Fury and Stark talking at Fury's office with Tony reading the full report on him where it states that the recruitment assessment of Iron Man is yes but Tony Stark is not recommended. Fury basically says he can't trust Stark enough to make him a full part of the Avenger's Initative but will use him as a technical consultant. Tony consents in exchange for a favor. He says that Rhodes and he are being awarded medals in Washington and he needs a senator. In the background of this if you pay attention you can see the battle report from the University where the huge battle in The Hulk took place. So Iron Man 2 took place during the Hulk movie, continuity wise.

We get to see that the Senator is of course the same senator who lead the campaign against him earlier in the movie, made to say how much of a hero and national treasure Tony is. He 'accident' stabs tony with the pin on the medal and makes a comment about it being funny how bad one little prick can be. They do a photo op and roll credits.[/spoilers]

Now, you definitely want to make sure you stay for the end credits scene, just like the first movie. In this one we're given this bit...
[spoilers]Coulson is transfered to New Mexico and is seen driving up to a crater in the desert. There he phones Fury saying "We've found it." Camera pans to show that in the middle of the crater is no less than Mjöllnir, Thor's Hammer. Yes, it is that awesome... [/spoilers]

So again, all in all, see the movie it's a good watch to be sure. Just don't go in expecting it to be as good as the first. But it's still good. Hopefully Marvel can keep up the trend.

You Pirate.

I hope the version in the US theaters has scenes you didn't get to see

That's okay, I plan on getting the US release as soon as it's available. So 3 days and change now?

Well... B4 basically spoiled the plot, even if he got a few of the scenes in the wrong places.

This was a damn good movie, better than most sequels, but still a 'bridge' movie between the first and the Avengers movie.

Things I liked:[spoilers]
* Everyone had damn good reasons for their actions. Tony was dying, so he was being nihilistic while trying to have a legacy. Ivan/Whiplash was wanting revenge for his family's Honor, which like many stories told by the injured parties wasn't all truth. Hammer wanted to be Stark, but wasn't half as clever.
* Ivan is SMART. As Tony states in a scene, Ivan's work could have made him the hero of Russia, or a mint on the Black Market. We see that Ivan was a scientist himself before 15yrs in Prison (something I knew as soon as I saw the tattoos). He had his links to the Underground, which is how he got the passport, and how he knew Stark would be *somewhere* at the Grand Prix. Stark just made it easier for him by driving.
* More Happy Hogan. Yes, he's Tony's driver and bodyguard. Yes, we see him in a lot of comic relief moments. HOWEVER, Happy is as much a Hero as Tony. What other type of man would take a RollsRoyce onto the Grande Prix, avoiding oncoming hi-speed traffic, and then ram the BadGuy against a wall, just to bring the Suitcase to his boss? What other man would believe he was going to save his boss by storming Hammer's facility with just the 'office assistant' Natalie? Happy Hogan is one of those quiet, unpowered heros that DC hides in plain sight. I'm glad the director decided to take the roll himself and play with it.
* Pepper Pott. So competent, so good at her job... until she has to do Tony's job as well as attempt in vain to keep him from doing stupid shit. She didn't get enough time to play up like she did in the last movie tho.
* The final fight is where? A Japanese tea garden with Cherry Blossoms. Nope, no TVTropes Here![/spoilers]

The Not So Good.[spoilers]
* Samuel L Jackson was not as good this time around. Sometimes, you have too much of a good thing. In this, he's not much more than a FairyGodfather dropping off presents.
* Hammer didn't get killed off in some horribly ironic fashion. If anyone deserved it....
* Whiplash suit goes down like bitch. Ok, so he was holding his own against IM and WarMachine... but yeah, cross the streams and it's Nukey-time.
* Really. Pissing in the Suit?!?! Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww[/spoilers]

The Great Touches:[spoilers]
* The little masks and glowing gloves seen on Expo-goers. The little boy with the mask was a nice feel-good touch. The Rockettes dancing around Stark... pure EyeCandy.
* The Obama-Change/IronMan poster.
* Ivan's tattoos, as mentioned above. The Russian Criminal gangs literally ink their resumes and rank on their bodies. I would have loved to see exactly what designs Ivan had on him, as it would have detailed his life in prison, his skills, his rank, and how many years he'd been in.
* Rhodey's 'tough love' fight with Tony. This was a literal 'beat sense back into your buddy' fight, and yes, Queen's Another One Bites the Dust was the right music to "kick my buddy's ass" by.
* Tony's little robotic buddies. Didn't get enough screen time, but they were still adorable comic relief.
* "Hey, what's this doing here?" Someone had been dismantling Cap's Shield... but it was still just the right size to make the mini-Hadron sit level.
* V for Vibranium!!!
* Army! Navy! Airforce! MARINES!! (and the only ones to have the camo? The Jarheads.) Still, the difference in the armament was very wicked
* "It's amazing how annoying a little prick can be" Fuck yah, that's a good final insult.
* The End Credits... first, AC/DC, then a Disney "Life in the Future will be better" song, and finally the teaser -- Mjolnir, in what looks like a crater blown in the New Mexican desert. Thunder roll, darkness falls.[/spoilers]

Spoilerised your post - Stofsk

Spoiler tags Tev! Come on!

I am so looking forward to the Avengers movie. Are all the principals signed on for it? The Avengers line up so far includes Iron Man/Robert Downey Jr, Hulk/Edward Norton, Thor/Dude who plays Thor, Captain America/Chris Evans? And Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow and Sam Jackson as Nick Fury.

I really Like the movie... I'm not gonna post a plot review. No point. I have to say I wish they had kept the old Rhody. And I CAN'T STAND Scarlett Johansson! She's a no talent hack that only got the job because Emily Blunt and another Actress (I think) didn't want it and she took the job for waaay less money. Notice how she had all of 5 lines in the whole movie...

Anyway Good Movie, Can't wait for more!!

Rukia wrote:And I CAN'T STAND Scarlett Johansson! She's a no talent hack that only got the job because Emily Blunt and another Actress (I think) didn't want it and she took the job for waaay less money. Notice how she had all of 5 lines in the whole movie...

Wait wait wait wait now... Hold everything, stop the presses as it were...

Now *looks around*... She had lines? I remember the first fight scene and the guy's head between her legs... and I remember the second fight scene of her moving about rather nicely.... and I remember vaguely her wearing some sort of business attire with Pepper...

I remember she was in the movie and looked goods, but what are these lines you speak of?

Just saw it last night. Fantastic movie all around. Tony was great, Ivan was great, Hammer was great. One minor complaint that I can think of though.

[spoilers]The Deus Ex Machina. Deus Ex Machina can be done well. If you know about them, and you know their capabilities, they are believable. This movie did a serious WTF. The Ex-Wife, the known Deus Ex Machina failed. That was kind of hilarious though, I have to admit. But Tony's super lasers kind of annoyed me. They could have thrown in just a minute somewhere towards the beginning where they see him working on it but he doesn't have enough energy in the suit to fire them off or something to that effect. Instead its just random super lasers. Which was awesome, don't get me wrong. But a minute in the beginning to mention them would have been nice.[/spoilers]

I just returned from seeing the movie and I've had a little bit of time to digest it. I don't really have any spoiler points but while the movie was enjoyable, there are some general things that just sort of bug me about it. First, what I liked.

Technical: The special effects were really quite neat, the cinematography was decent, and the music was good (although there were some times when it would rise to odd crescendos during expository sequences). There was nothing visual that subtracted from the supension of disbelief, and it felt like the special effects were being utilized to drive a plot, rather than a plot serving as a rudimentary vehicle to showcase groundbreaking special effects *cough.* And gadgets!

Acting: Robert Downey Jr. continues to -be- both Tony Stark and Iron Man; I doubt they could have found a better actor for the role. His performance is as genuine as the first film, and since Iron Man is principly a biographical/character piece, his strong presence keeps the movie from losing its way. Gwenyth Paltrow was also notable reprising her role as Pepper Potts. Samuel L. Jackson served as a nice relief during the somewhat meandering middle section of the movie. As for Ms. Johannson, it's a shame she didn't have more dialogue, but she had a great physical presence (and I mean that with no double entendres). Don Cheadle did very well as Rhodes, surpassing the actor from the first film in my opinion.

Oh, and Mickey Rourke was incredible as Vanko; He got as close as possible to Ivan Drago territory while still remaining believable - an incredible line to toe in a genre that lends itself to parody all too easily. You really felt like this was an individual dead-set on revenge, but who was willing to have a good time doing it.

Plot: The idea of a challenger to Tony Stark was a very intriguing one, and Rourke made an excellent shadow - I could almost picture them as being switched had their life circumstances been different. At points you actually weren't sure if Iron Man could defeat such a enemy while fighting his own demons at the same time. The film had a certain sense of danger that made it interesting to watch - Superman Returns provides a cautionary tale of a movie that has no credible threat to the antagonist.

The film also had a good sense of humor, which I believe is almost necessary as utterly serious superhero movies tend to be preachy and overbearing - Spiderman 3 immediately coming to mind.

But there were weaknesses, a few of which I'll touch on.

Pacing: The film felt a little bit like an athlete out of season - powerful, but possessing a slightly flabby midsection that threatened to detract from the overall experience. At certain points the story just seemed a little lost, there were too many events happening at once, and very little action to speak of. Now, movies obviously don't require big-budget action sequences to be good (though imagine if Rhett Butler decided to saddle up his plasma cannon and see if he could win the Civil War on his lonesome), but this is a superhero movie in the year 2010.

"Who is Tony Stark?" The beginning of the film where Stark speaks to congress has strong anti-democratic overtones that actually made me feel guilty rooting for Iron Man. Here is an individual who resists all attempts at accountability, and rubs it in the faces of elected representatives. Yes, Iron Man works for America now, but what if a situation arose where the interests of the US diverged from those of himself or Stark Industries? What if Stark, an admittedly narcissitic and impulsive man, decided to take world-altering action without thought or consulting with anyone regarding potential impacts? Finally, what happens when Stark leaves the picture? What happens if his successor isn't as noble and there still isn't any accountability? I was hoping that Stark would have to grapple with these issues, but this did not come to pass.

The Marvel Web: This is the section which will probably make me the least popular person on LA until the end of time: The number of scenes designed to set up spin-off films and sequels drove me insane. Perhaps it's because I'm not as much of a comic reader, but I think that if one is making a movie about Iron Man, the film needs to be about Iron Man unequivocally - no wasted time on allusions to other Marvel properties that can't be justified as relevant to the plot at hand. Will I see Captain America/Thor/Avengers? Probably. Do I need to be reminded every 15 minutes that these movies are being made and will be in theaters soon? No. As much as I like Samuel L. Jackson, at certain points I wondered if even his presence in the film could ultimately be justified as relevant without serving as an advertisement for coming attractions. Also, the Audi product placement, blech. Someone as wealthy as Tony Stark can do better than the bland middle territory of luxury cars.

Anyway, the film was enjoyable, albeit with several weaknesses (although I may be alone on some of them). I'd definitely recommend it though, as ultimately one realizes that Tony Stark suiting up as Iron Man makes all other considerations secondary.

B4UTRUST wrote: Now *looks around*... She had lines? I remember the first fight scene and the guy's head between her legs... and I remember the second fight scene of her moving about rather nicely.... and I remember vaguely her wearing some sort of business attire with Pepper...

I remember she was in the movie and looked goods, but what are these lines you speak of?

My point precisely... to quote Lewis Black: Ass ass titties titties Ass ass ass titties titties titties titties ass ass titties titties ASS!

And a fair amount of DSL

None of which do a good actress make....

Rukia wrote:My point precisely... to quote Lewis Black: Ass ass titties titties Ass ass ass titties titties titties titties ass ass titties titties ASS!

And a fair amount of DSL

None of which do a good actress make....

They do if she's in porn...

I would pay to see porn with Scarlet in it

of course, that means I wouldn't be able to locate said porn online first......

Derek Thunder wrote: "Who is Tony Stark?" The beginning of the film where Stark speaks to congress has strong anti-democratic overtones that actually made me feel guilty rooting for Iron Man. Here is an individual who resists all attempts at accountability, and rubs it in the faces of elected representatives. Yes, Iron Man works for America now, but what if a situation arose where the interests of the US diverged from those of himself or Stark Industries? What if Stark, an admittedly narcissitic and impulsive man, decided to take world-altering action without thought or consulting with anyone regarding potential impacts? Finally, what happens when Stark leaves the picture? What happens if his successor isn't as noble and there still isn't any accountability? I was hoping that Stark would have to grapple with these issues, but this did not come to pass.

Your remarks remind me of something I read once. In the second Volume of Andy Lane's The Babylon File - a review of the Babylon-5 series (including TV movies, comics, and novels, up to Call to Arms) he got to the fifth Season 5 episode, the one with the late Trevor Goddard about the Ranger trainees coming to B5 and getting caught up in dealing with Goddard's criminal boss character, and made an observation regarding the episode's storyline.

Hmm - the Rangers as a fascist organisation who can ignore the entire judicial process in order to take their own personal revenge on those who hurt them. I hope to God this is the prelude to Straczynski's subversion of the Rangers, rather than his idea of how the perfect police force should operate. There is something terribly American about a force of do-gooders with executive authority to do anything they wish.

Lane - a Brit - makes an interesting observation here, and it bears out if you look at, well, the entire comic book genre.

While a number of the superheroes - Superman and Spider-Man come to mind - are generally reactive, behaving more as cases of "citizen's arrest on steroids", the entire genre inherently tends to embody the principle that vigilantes - the superheroes - are perfectly fine for doing what they do and operating beyond or even above the law. A few writers have, indeed, tackled the tricky issues relating to superheroes (ironically one such storyline was the infamous Marvel "Civil War" in which Tony Stark comes down on the side of making superheroes register with the government and become recognized agents of the law, thus being held accountable), but for the most part we, the reader (or viewer), are to take for granted that these heroes are the Good Guys and it is perfectly fine to let them do as they please without the "red tape" of the judicial process.

In fact, I honestly believe most Americans would love to see someone they consider "good" humiliate a Senate Committee like that. Most people wouldn't think of it as you were; they don't think of it as "this guy is defying the representatives of the American People", they think of it as "this awesome hero is humiliating a bunch of self-serving politicians".

Americans love a rebel, after all, and though our government is a democratically-elected one, who really thinks of Senator so-and-so as "my representative in government" and not "that politician guy who gets elected by lying to me and my neighbors more convincingly than the other candidate did". For Americans, defying Congress isn't being "anti-democratic" - it may even be seen as practicing "democracy" (As people see it) by telling a politician with political power where to stick it.

And for a final devil's advocate note linking in to popular contempt for actual holders of elected officials... the whole thing was pretty clearly a setup by Hammer. He pulled strings, made calls, to get that Committee active, to get its aid in passing a law or otherwise acting to force Stark to give his Iron Man armor to the military, that way he could get his hands on it and make billions mass-producing it for the military. This wasn't a case of a Senate Committee trying to force Stark to be held accountable to the American People instead of being a lone maverick acting as he pleased; it was a case, or so it seemed to be intended by Favreau and the writers, of a corrupt Senate Committee leadership attempting to abuse its power and authority to seize Stark's armor so it could be given to Justin Hammer, a rival, and mass-produced to Hammer's immense personal profit.

When it comes down to it, Americans like people who ignore "the rules" and as free spirits do their own thing.... so long as they don't cause us direct grief and instead just cause problems for "the bad guys".