Reaction: Iron Man (spoilers!)

Finally saw Iron Man to kick off the summer movie season and I absolutely loved it. I tried desperately to avoid spoilers but it was impossible to avoid the hype. Thankfully, nowhere during the course of the film did I find myself let down. The film hit all the right notes.

But rather than a long-winded review of the obvious, I thought it'd be fun to give you a rundown on source context instead. In no particular order...

1. The film sticks very close to the origins. An industrialist captured by foreign military and to escape, secretly builds a suit around a chest-plate that's barely keeping him alive. Surely a sign of times, the baddies are updated from Vietnamese rebels to a terrorist cel in Afghanistan.
   
   
2. Speaking of the terrorists, they're called "The Ten Rings", a nod to the magic rings worn by The Mandarin, one of Iron Man's comic book adversaries. For more on that, I highly recommend the animated movie released direct-to-DVD - it's a completely different, yet similarly entertaining interpretation of Iron Man.
   
   
3. I loved the updated version of Tony's chest plate. Every adaptation of Iron Man has featured this plot device in one way or another. Either it's an iron lung, an artificial heart, or some kind of device keeping shrapnel out of his organs.
   
   
4. Other technical reference: The suit being assembled around him like a shell by automated robot arms? That's from Ultimate Iron Man ("Ultimate" is a newer version of Marvel; a publishing stunt attempting to drawn in new fans by discarding 50 years of history and starting from scratch). The look of the final suit is based on the current suit, while the look of the prototype is based on the suit from the pages of Tales of Suspense back in the 60's.
   
   
5. "Jarvis" the AI ... also happens to be the name of the butler working at Avengers Mansion (more on Avengers later).
   
   
6. Reference to the War Machine: from the classic comics, Jim Rhodes temporarily wears a heavily armed unpainted version of the Iron Man suit... "maybe next time," he mutters in the film. More on good-old Rhodey later...
   
   
7. Happy Hogan, loyal employee for Stark is briefly mentioned (he's the limo driver in this film). That was cute. And of course, comics legend Stan Lee plays... Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner?! I had a chuckle at that cameo.
   
   
8. Obediah Stane is a rival to Stark in the comics. I thought it was a little odd that he was Starks mentor but of course, everything fell into place when Pepper discovers the plot to kill Stark. His "Iron Monger" suit was an excellent take on the "unrefined but I'm better than you" design.
   
   
9. The body-guard cover story offered at the end? It actually worked in the comics, albeit slightly differently. This is where Rhodes comes in: he's not only a personal friend of Tony's in the comics... he's also stepped in as Iron Man before and not just War Machine.
   
   
10. I notice they've updated the acronym of SHIELD to be more America-centric (the comics call them "Strategic Hazards Intervention and Espionage Logistics Division")... they snuck in "Homeland" in there. SHIELD is the Marvel Comics version of Men in Black, sort of. They know everything and that's all you really need to know.
    
    
11. Speaking of SHIELD, "Marvel Ultimate" depicted Col. Nick Fury, director of SHIELD as an angry black man... his look was modeled after Samuel L Jackson. Casting this cameo with Samuel L Jackson was a cute touch. Art imitating life or life imitating art?
    
    
12. We all knew the cameo was intended to launch a future Avengers franchise. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League. Double-trivia: I find it interesting the choice of words they used for dialogue. "Avenger Initiative," says Fury. "The Initiative" is the title of this past year's running plot line throughout most of Marvel's comics in the wake of a "Civil War." Stark reluctantly finds himself the new director of SHIELD and he begins what he calls "The 50-State Initiative" whereby SHIELD will be responsible for training and deputizing super-powered-heroes to act as law-enforcement teams - a team for each State... bringing the Marvel version of the USA dangerously close to being what is effectively a police-state.

Needless to say the film leaves the franchise ripe with opportunity. And after such a huge opening weekend, Marvel saw fit to announce its plans for the next several years the following Monday. Who could blame them?