What Is Techno Again?

Oh. My. GOD. This movie rocked my socks, I don’t even know how else to put it.

Iron Man came out in theaters last Friday, and due to some unforeseen circumstances I wasn’t able to go watch it until today. Even so, this movie was well worth the wait. Directed by Jon Favreau, there was virtually nothing about this film that wasn’t enjoyable and satiating. It was brilliant. Not brilliant in a philosophical or intellectual way like some movies such as 3:10 to Yuma or No Country for Old Men—but just brilliant in every other great way possible.

The pace of the film is good. It starts out nicely, backtracks to thirty-six hours before Tony is abducted for awhile, and then returns to the present storyline. But this flashback wasn’t overdone, and it didn’t hinder the movie. Instead, we got a decent glimpse into Tony Stark before he grows a conscience: an arrogant, selfish playboy who just happens to be a genius. After our hero returns from Afghanistan, you can really discern the powerful impact his experience in captivity had on him—which is, of course, for the better.

“Quick, take a picture! And fast, my battery’s low … No, seriously.”

Two hours seemed like the perfect length. Everything was satisfying without being drawn out or cut too short, and along with the kick ass music, the movie was a well-balanced combination of plot and special effects. Plus, there were a lot of fan tidbits scattered in the mesh, and you could even hear some of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” playing at the end, which was an appreciated bonus for me. Not to mention Stan Lee made his usual Marvel movie appearance, this time as Hugh Hefner (although in the credits he was simply mentioned as himself for some reason)—and it was hilarious to see women practically throwing themselves on him!

Robert Downey Jr. was awesome as the snarky and sarcastic billionaire Tony Stark. Terrance Howard played “Rhodey” and Jeff Bridges was Obadiah Stane (aka Iron Monger). Gwyneth Paltrow was cute as Stark’s assistant, Pepper Potts, and her obliviousness gave way to some fun comic relief, although the movie is hilarious enough by itself mainly thanks to Downey.

“Yes, behold my sexiness! You can’t buy this, baby.”

Favreau and the writers did a good job at making this film into a modern, realistic adaptation of the comic books. The only part that seemed to stick out was in the beginning, when Tony was building the first Iron Man suit. It’s kind of hard to swallow that his terrorist captors, who were watching his progress on their monitors, didn’t get that he wasn’t building them the Jericho weapon. Still, the writers excused their idiocy pretty well, I guess.

The scenes where Tony was flying around as Iron Man were freaking sweet. You actually felt like you were Tony, testing out the suit by trial-and-error and flying successfully for the first time. It was very exciting and it came out really well.

“Chill out, Rhodey, it’s just gambling. Next up’s alcohol.”

I remembered to stay until the credits were over—and just in time, too, as it hit me while the movie was wrapping up! Even though people have been talking about it since last weekend and you can find this just about anywhere on the net, I’m going to white out the details of the extra scene below. Highlight the text with your mouse to read it.

Holy crap! Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury (finally, Nick Fury)! The actor made a special appearance at the end of the movie as Fury—the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ha, did you catch that earlier?)—approaching Tony about the Avengers Initiative.

If the next Iron Man movie is anything like this one, it should be amazing if not more so. Plus, I’ve heard rumors about it dealing with Tony’s alcoholism, which should be interesting. But starting the first movie out on a more light-hearted note (okay, the weapons and murder thing was depressing, but anyway) was a good move.

“Iron? Please. Don’t make me laugh.”

All in all, Iron Man is just fun. Nothing about it is tiresome, and every scene was cool to watch. Is it good enough to see a second time? YES. And a third, and a fourth … oh, hell, you might as well buy the dvd when it comes out, too!

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That’s right, I said ridonkulous.

I just received another free book from LibraryThing.com’s Early Reviewer’s program, and this one’s courtesy of Random House.

The Age of Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future by Thomas Nevins (by the way, that’s not what my cover looks like, since it’s just an advanced copy and I guess that’s the way RH does it for their books—or it’s just too early yet) comes out August 19 of this year, so yay for me! That’s much earlier than The Crystal Skull, which by the time I received it had already been released in stores.

Anyway, it’s $11.20 on Amazon.com. Here’s the synopsis …

Now that they are in power, there are no more checks and balances. The Conglomerates, and their mysterious party chairman, have taken over everything and everyone. There is no one left to stop them.

Forty years in the future, in a world where Big Brother runs amok, a powerful political party known as the Conglomerates has emerged, vowing to enforce economic martial law at any cost. Dr. Christine Salter, director of genetic development at a New York medical center, is in charge of “genetic contouring,” the much-in-demand science of producing the ideal child. But Christine is increasingly troubled by odd events, including the strange disappearance of Gabriel Cruz, a co-worker for whom she has a developing affection, and the fact that her latest assignment–making the Conglomerate chairman more youthful through genetic engineering–is an especially dangerous task.

As mandated by the Family Relief Act, Christine’s grandparents are relocated to a government-designed community in the American Southwest, along with other Coots (the official term given to the elderly), who are considered an economic and social burden to family and society. But even in this cold, cruel age, the Conglomerates can only control so much.

In his enthralling debut, Thomas Nevins thrillingly chronicles a brave new world where one family struggles to survive by keeping alive feelings of mercy, loyalty, and love.

Jeez, I better start reading with all these books piling up.

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All right, I’ve never actually reviewed a comic book before. On Free Comic Book Day this year I picked up a newer comic, Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1, and it occurred to me, hey, why not give a review a shot? After all, I do movies and books … so why not add a comic book to the mix for fun? Well, here we go.

COVER BY: RON LIM
WRITER: DAVID MICHELINIE
PENCILS: RON LIM
INKS: BOB LAYTON
COLORED BY: WILLIAM BAUMANN
LETTERED BY: DAVE LANPHEAR

SUMMARY:
“‘A Knight in Hell’ Dr. Doom returns to menace Iron Man in the chilling and long-awaited conclusion of The Camelot Trilogy! Mephisto has apparently found a way to bring about The End Of Days and Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom must form an uneasy alliance to try and stop him. But all may not be as it seems. And it takes a journey to Hell itself before the shocking truth is revealed! Iron Man legends David Michelinie and Bob Layton are joined by penciler supreme Ron Lim to bring you the first part of an epic literally decades in the making!”

This issue hit stores on April 16 and is the first installment in a four-part series so far featuring Iron Man, Victor Von Doom, and Mephisto. Anyway, let’s start with the art (by penciler Ron Lim and inker Bob Layton)—which is gorgeous, as you can see from the awesome cover by Ron Lim. The coloring by William Baumann works very nicely, clashing Tony Stark’s red and yellow suit with Dr. Doom’s green and silver one; there are other color elements that mesh well in this comic, like the dazzling dark blue of outer space and the orange and yellow fires of hell.

The first page of the comic, which shows Tony melting down an old suit, gives a nice foreshadowing for the later panels in Mephisto’s underworld-ish dimension. There are a lot of flashbacks in this comic, which kind of slows down the plot a bit. It begins when Tony catches something on a data chip, a record for all of his activities in the Iron Man armor, that triggers something suppressed in his memory: a confrontation with Victor Von Doom he apparently had when he thought he was on vacation (meaning sans the superhero action). The initial flashback however, which leads into Tony’s memory with Doom that takes over the comic, did a nice job of setting up the old Camelot story, so even if you haven’t read it you can get enough of the bare essentials to understand the current storyline.

Simply, it was fun just seeing these two characters together, but there were some minor (and yes, they’re minor) issues I had with a few things. A hologram of Doom, “the most dangerous man on earth,” appears before Iron Man in space, where he’s repairing a faulty satellite for Stark International, and tells him to meet him at his castle in Latveria, as “millions of lives hang in the balance.” Of course Tony recognizes that this is probably a trap (which it is), and that he can’t take the risk, but you’d think he would be a little more careful about charging in. To Iron Man’s annoyance he finds out a “war” is going on, which is, as Doom explains, merely an attempt to try to prevent him from a “return to power.” The plot is set back while Iron Man gets them out of the way so that Doom doesn’t radiate their asses; he and Doom move on with business.

Okay, so Tony does take some precautions after Doom tells him they must travel to Mephisto’s realm, but he doesn’t even ask any questions like, “Hey, what exactly is going on with those millions of lives, again?” In fact, that’s not even addressed when the two meet up besides Doom mentioning something about “the End of Days.” Could that be any more obscure? If I were Iron Man, I would have asked for a little more information than that, but instead, he just takes it on faith. After all, can’t roll the dice on those millions of lives.

Anyway, Iron Man and Victor Von Doom transport themselves to Mephisto’s realm, which resembles “Dante’s Inferno envisioned by M.C. Escher, an industrialized madness of heat and liquid steel.” In the end, Doom bails and Iron Man is, well, doomed to spend eternity in hell under Mephisto’s wrath.

The storyline is promising, not to mention Iron Man being stuck in hell and needing to find a way out is one shitty predicament that might be interesting to explore. All in all, it’s a decent comic, and those minor plot holes and issues … you can let them slide. They’re more minor annoyances than anything blatantly significant, and the story is still enjoyable. It’s nothing jaw-dropping or magnificent, but then again this is only part one of four. Things could really heat up (pun intended). It’ll be neat to see where this goes, and if you’re an old fan who’s craving that Iron Man/Dr. Doom nostalgia, I recommend picking up a copy if you haven’t already.

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The official Dark Knight movie page has been updated, and it’s revamped and awesome! You can once again watch all the trailers. I noticed this earlier today, actually, but for some reason it didn’t click in my head that it was new. So I didn’t realize it until Batman-On-Film posted it on their site.

(By the way, this image kind of makes a cool background. Click here to see my current fandom, the image I used, and where I found it if you want to see more pics like it from the new trailer. It’s perfect for some widescreen monitors, apparently, but not mine, which is why I centered it on my settings and luckily it still looks nice. Plus, what that image from the Dark Knight site looks like as a wallpaper; click the image above for the centered wallpaper version I used.)

Eh, don’t ask me what I was thinking. I was probably half asleep or something.

Speaking of which, I had a really cruddy morning. And I mean immediately after I woke up. For some reason I got a charlie horse in my calf, which still feels tight even now and sort of hurts, and those are always delightful. And then, I don’t know whether it was because it’s always super warm in my room during the summer (it’s not hot enough to turn the air conditioner on yet)—not to mention my room is the coldest room in the house in winter, lucky me—and I was under the covers while I was sleeping and I might have been dehydrated, or because I was hungry and maybe my blood sugar got too low, or a combination of those things, or what—but I was very light-headed, I couldn’t really see, I was extremely hot, and my ears were ringing. Like, have you ever had your blood taken and your blood sugar wasn’t high enough to begin with, so you get all dizzy? It was like that, just double the fun. Ugh.

Anyway, I’m okay now, but it wasn’t a very pleasant five-minute experience. I think I’m going to bed with the fan on tonight.

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Seven posts in seven days! Now that it’s summer, I have more time on my hands to make three plus posts a week. Here’s what I think is my best post so far on GEN and the first of the week. I finally did a cosplay post in which, to spice things up, I interviewed a guy named Damian Beurer who’s in a Superman competition in Illinois as a favor to Heather (aka BlkCat) at GEN. It was a lot of fun!

Hey, Saturday (May 3) was Free Comic Book Day, whooo!

Holy crud, six TDK posters! Man, John, Christmas is pounding us in the face.

There’s another RandomGuy video up, and it’s hilarious and crazy relevant to all the Dark Knight stuff I’ve been posting.

Damn, can somebody give me sixty bucks to fork over for a year of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited? … Anybody? I guess I’ll stick to the free comics for now.

I can’t wait to see Iron Man! There’s supposed to be a bonus scene after the credits roll, so don’t forget to stay afterwards. God, I hope I remember.

Of course I had to post this on GEN, also. How could I not?

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