Uh oh, Pepper looks pissed. And Tony looks alone. What happened to all his friends?

Garry Shandling makes his big debut as Senator Stern, so Tony mocks him, naturally.

See Tony is alone. Empty chairs. Empty soul. It's lonely at the top.

But wait, it's Rhodey, he's back...and he looks pissed. And who's that to Rhodey's left? It's Sam Rockwell, as Justin Hammer. Did they walk in together? And where did Pepper go? Where's Happy?

Same sexual chemistry between Pepper and Tony, check. But then again I think RDJ is so charming he could have chemistry with a lamp post... lucky lamp post.

Iron Man is America, and a rock star. And look in the background — it's the Iron Man dancers, thus proving the slutty Halloween rule to be true: any outfit can be made whorish.

These gloves could very well be the best little party favors ever. Please hand these out at Comic Con!

Whiplash is obsessed. See? See? He has newspaper clippings. And newspaper clipping are to stalkers what glasses are to shy mousy girls with a hot girl dying to get out inside: stereotypical. But let's assume that since he's spent so much time cataloguing the family story, that this grudge may go way, way back. Since he's had time to make a scrap book.

Who hit Tony?

The garage is all cleaned up and stocked with new rich guy toys. Bruce Wayne who?

What is happening to Tony's neck?

Yikes it's spreading. Tony is literally turning into an Iron Man. Also, he could be turning into a human computer, which has happened in the Iron Man comics before.

More Justin Hammer, and in perfect timing with Whiplash's "shark" comment.

Nick Fury just wants to get motherfucking Tony onto the motherfucking team.

More Iron Man-ettes. I suspect this may be a banner year for the cosplay fans.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff in her Black Widow "business casual" attire.

War Machine prototype!

Is the Black Widow working for Rhodey? Is that her in the background?

Black Widow in her ass kicking attire, is she beating up Happy? I bet Jon Favreau just loved that.

Whiplash finally shows us what his lightsaber whips can do — which is break Tony's car.

Which he does.

I'm still not sold on the Whiplash outfit, but it does look pretty bad ass from behind.

Uh oh — will Tony be Whiplashed in half, or will the bad guy just show off some more? Answer: Show off.

Whiplash has nasty metal mouth.

What is this flying contraption? It looks like it's shooting at Iron Man? Multiple Mecha suits?

A first look at War Machine, and Tony's new suit, with a triangle chest plate. Is this due to the metal veins? Also the background is filled with power suits, almost like an Armor War...

War Machine and Tony fight other mechas and you get a faceful of War Machines shoulder gun, and Tony's fully reconstructed suit, Mark VI. Very nice. So who thinks they are filming the Armor Wars story?

Superhero Hype were sent what they're calling a "clue" from the upcoming full metal sequel, but even they admit that they don't know what it's a clue to. Scanning what we can see from the article, there doesn't seem to be any new information given out that we don't already know from the first movie, but we're wondering if there's some special significance to "Secret" being highlighted. What do you think?

An Iron Man 2 Clue! [Superhero Hype]

Comics have a grand problem of continuity. Long-lived characters have been starring in multiple monthly titles for years, amounting to thousands of issues, not counting guest stars, crossovers, and tie-ins. And every single one of those issues counts. With retroactive continuity, maybe our heroes fought a clone; or it was a dream; or the whole thing took place in a parallel reality; or someone didn't die, and instead someone took their unconscious body and healed them. Sometimes it's handled well, with good characterisation and a soft touch. But mostly, it isn't. Here are some of the worst, most ham-fisted and generally clumsy ways of dealing with problems in the history of your character.

One More Day/Brand New Day

During the events of Marvel's Civil War crossover, Spider-man revealed his secret identity to the public, making him and his family a massive target for all the would-be assassins, crime-lords and supervillains around. At the same time, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Queseda had been publicly expressing his distaste for Spider-Man's marraige to Mary Jane for years, on the grounds that it aged the character too much.

Quesada wanted to return Spidey to his roots, bring back down-on-his-luck Peter Parker, still living with his Aunt May, still struggling to pay for webfluid and get by day-to-day. And of course, he did it in the clumsiest way possible. He took over writing this series when outgoing writer, J. Michael Straczynski didn't want to pen the revisions Quesada proposed. In "One More Day," Aunt May gets accidentally shot by a sniper, and lays in hospital, on the verge of death. And Spider-man makes a deal with the devil, literally. Mephisto, Marvel's Satan stand-in, saves Aunt May, but in exchange he would take the happy marriage of Peter and MJ, and make it as though it had never happened. So, Peter gave up his beautiful, loving wife in order to extend the life of his already elderly and frequently ill Aunt. In the process, the entire planet forgot his identity, and Peter and Mary Jane's daughter would never come to be. Well, to be fair, MJ made the final decision, but the whole concept made no sense, and avoided any explanations by just saying "it's magic!"

Xornneto

When Grant Morrison took over X-Men, he introduced some radical changes, including the concept of secondary mutations, and the idea that at their current rate, Mutants would soon out-populate normal humans. He also introduced into Xavier's school the character of Xorn, a Chinese mutant with a star for a head, who had spent years imprisoned, and became a teacher for some of the more troubled students at the institute. Xorn eventually revealed he was Magneto in disguise, and died in a giant battle, along with Jean Grey.

However, almost immediately afterwards, it was decided that Magneto was too high-profile to kill for real — so a retcon established that Xorn was NOT Magneto (who was alive and kicking in Genosha). Instead, Xorn was a real person under the influence of another mutant. Then, just for kicks, they introduced another Xorn, a twin to the first, so they could keep the character around. So rather than sticking with a dramatic and powerful moment, as originally written by Morrison, the new writers tossed out the crux of his final arc to preserve the status quo.

Superboy Prime Punches Reality

DC's continuity has always been plagued by issues of multiple realities, which were used as the original way to differentiate Golden Age versions of characters from the Silver Age. During DCs Crisis on Infinite Earth, through the cataclysmic arrival of the Anti-Monitor, all of these timelines were merged into one, dealing away with all the confusion once and for all. Several characters from these dead universes were tucked away in a pocket universe, including Superboy Prime, who came for a reality where he was the only superpowered character. He and Kal-L, the Golden Age Superman, eventually become so angry at the dark and gritty nature of the current DC universe, that Superboy Prime punches a hole through reality. Yup, he punches reality so hard, that it shatters, creating the multiverse, and retconning various story problems, including bringing the 1980s Robin, Jason Todd, back to life. That is the power of the retcon punch.

As a side note, an absolutely excellent version of the Superboy Prime story was told a few years ago in Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, which is well worth tracking down.

Power Girl's Origin
Originally, Power Girl was the Earth-2 version of Supergirl, a cousin to Superman who arrived long after he did, but with the same sort of powers. However, after the aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths, there was no more Earth-2, nor had there ever been. However, Power Girl existed on the main Earth, so she needed a new origin. So instead of making her another Kryptonian survivor (or something similar),she was revealed to be a descendant of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion, who lay in suspended animation for a thousand years before being revived in the current day. Did this make any sense? Nope. Did it gel at all with her old background? Not in the slightest. This stupidity was thankfully forgotten, and during Infinite Crisis, they just decided she was Supergirl from another dimension, and left it at that.

Gwen Stacy Slept With Norman Osborn

Gwen Stacy's death at the hands of the Green Goblin is considered one of the pivotal moments in Spider-man's history, and remains an incredibly poignant scene. However, during JMS's run on Spider-man, he gave her two children. Originally, his plan was that they be Peter's, and that she had them in secret. However, the editorial team decided that giving Spider-man two grown children would — wait for it — age Peter Parker too much.

Instead, they decided that Norman Osborn would be the father. That's right, Gwen Stacy hooked up with creepy old billionaire Osborn, got pregnant with twins, and kept them from Osborn — which is why he killed her. Then, he trained the twins to become assassins, to hunt down Spider-man.

Wolverine

Wolverine's entire history is just one crappy retcon piled on top of another. How's this for a start? Wolverine was originally meant to be an actual wolverine, who had been turned into a human by the high evolutionary, and his claws were part of his gloves. Then the claws became implants created by Weapon X, and he was a mutant. Then he was meant to be Sabertooth's son. Then it turns out he'd had bone claws all along, and they were just covered up with metal. Recently, however, things have started getting even weirder for Logan.

It turns out Wolverine now isn't a mutant, but rather a Lupine, a human looking species that evolved in parallel to humans — but from wolves, not apes. And there are two tribes: one with blond hair, the other with dark hair, and they hate each other — which is why Sabertooth hates Wolverine so much. They're not the only two, either — other Lupine's include Wolfsbane, Feral, Wild Child and Thornn. So pretty much ever feral mutant isn't actually a mutant, but a wolf person. They're all being manipulated by an almost immortal elder Lupine called Romulus.

Wolverine's healing factor has also suffered from major power creep over the years, expanding from "he can heal faster than most", to "was left as a skeleton after a major explosion, and healed completely within seconds." So to de-power him slightly, a retcon established that every time he dies, Wolverine has to fight the spirit of death to return to the living. Since WWI, he has been in constant combat with a being known as Lazaer (the worst anagram since Alucard), and his soul cannot return to his body unless he defeats Lazaer in limbo, each time. After some jiggerypokery with the resurrected version Shingen, Lazaer and Wolverine ended their constant battle — so if Wolverine dies again, it's for real.

Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force

This one is the great Grandaddy of weird retcons. Phoenix/Jean Grey took her own life after losing control of the awesome magnitude of the Phoenix Force, and accidentally devouring an inhabited planet. Cyclops was unsurprisingly bummed, hooked up with a clone of Jean, had a baby, which was then sent to the future to become Cable. However, a few years later, the writers wanted to bring Jean Grey back. So they decided that she was never Phoenix, instead the Phoenix Force created a simulacrum of her, and the real one was kept in stasis, deep beneath the ocean. Problem solved.

The Third Summers Brother?

Two of the X-Men, Cyclops and Havok, are brothers. At one point, the villainous Mr. Sinister dropped hints that there was in fact a third Summers brother, which would throw another powerful energy user into the X-Men universe. The originally planned extra brother was to be Adam X the X-Treme, also known as "the 90s personified". He had the power to combust blood, but only if someone was already cut, so he covered himself with blades (and wore a totally rad backwards cap). He was meant to be half human, half an alien Shi'ar, a product of the rape of his mother by the Shi'ar Emperor.

This origin story was used, instead, for the actual third Summers brother, Vulcan. He was retroactively introduced in 2006, when it was revealed that Charles Xavier sent him and a team to go rescue his missing X-Men decades ago. Unfortunately, the whole team was lost, and Xavier mind-wiped everyone to forget about it. The end product? Xavier was a dick, and Vulcan flew into space to become the Emperor of the Shi'ar.

Nightcrawler Is A Demon

Chuck Austen's run on X-Men is regarded by many readers as the low point for Marvel's mutant titles. In addition to adding a Mary Sue version of his wife, as well as making Havoc his own avatar; and having Angel have sex with the then underage Husk in front of her family, he also tweaked a couple of characters in a rather odd way. The most notable of these was to explain Nightcrawler's demonly looks as a result of him actually being part-demon. Turns out that Nightcrawler's mother, Mystique, hooked up with the demon Azazel, who sired a number of teleporting mutant babies, in the hopes of them breaking him out of Hell. So, Kurt Wagner, the almost priest and one of the most religious of the X-Men, was actually half demon

Rape Makes You Deep

Black Cat, Catwoman, Sue Dibny. What links these characters? They had rape retconned into their background as a way of making them edgier. It's lazy writing, offensive, and a cheap ploy to pad out the background of the characters. Sue Dibny's was particularly bad, because it was used as part of the Identity Crisis crossover, which helped turn DC into a far more dark 'n' gritty place, with almost no place for frivolity or fun.

Hal Jordan and The Space Bug

When Hal Jordan turned into the maniacal Parallax, it was originally a story of a superhero who cracked under the weight of his responsibilities. The entire population of his hometown, Coast City, was killed by the villainous Mongol, and Hal Jordan was driven mad with grief. Convinced that with more power he could bring them back to life, Jordan slaughters his way through the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, and absorbs a huge amount of power, becoming the villain Parallax.

Hal eventually redeems himself, re-igniting the Sun and thus sacrificing his life, during a storyline called Final Night. The retcon was that Hal Jordan didn't break under the grief of the deaths of 7 million people that he'd sworn to protect, but rather he was under the influence of a yellow space bug called Parallax, which was the personification of fear. Thus, Hal Jordan came back as an unblemished character, who never did anything wrong.

Cassandra Cain Goes Evil, Gains Mastery of English Language

Cassandra Cain was the modern Batgirl. Trained as an assassin from a young age, she rebelled against her past to join the Bat family. She kicked ass and took names, but couldn't speak, read or write. Eventually, she managed to learn basic English, and became a core figure in the Bat books, and a tireless crime fighter. Then, during the One Year Later timeshift, she suddenly had a perfect grasp of English, and was the leader of the League of Assassins, the same organization that had brutally trained and abused her since her childhood, and from which she had escaped. This was eventually explained through mind control drugs, but was still completely out of character.

Hawkman, Reincarnated Egyptian or Space Cop?

Originally, Hawkman was an archaeologist who turned out to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince. He flew around with wings made of the mysterious Nth metal, and hit things with a mace. Accompanying him was his reincarnated girlfriend, Hawkgirl. Then, in the Silver Age, DC made Hawkman and Hawkgirl space cops from the planet Thanagar.

Following this, there were multiple interpretations of the characters, sometimes simultaneously — the Hawks were reincarnated Egyptian lovers, alien police officers, or some combination of both. New background and retcon piled on top of one another, until no one knew what the actual background of everyone's favorite flying violence users. Just when you thought they couldn't get any more confusing, a 1990s comic explained that Hawkman was actually a Native American shaman who talked to spirit guide animals.

Presently, it's been established that all incarnations, regardless of origin, are the reincarnated souls of those Egyptian lovers, who were then exposed to Thanagarian technology. Their love is so powerful that it's become the source of all energy for all the Star Sapphires, superpowered women, in the current run of Green Lantern.

Teenage Tony Stark

At some point in the terrifying decade of comics known as the 90s, we learned that Iron Man (Tony Stark) had been under the control of Kang the Conqueror for years. Tony turned evil and killed someone. (Later, it was retconned that this wasn't actually Kang the Conqueror, but another villain, Immortus, in disguise.)

So, naturally, the Avengers went into an alternate timeline, and brought a teenaged Tony Stark forward in time to the present to fight the older Tony. Don't ask. So for a while, Tony was a teenager, until teenage Tony was killed fighting Onslaught, and adult Tony was brought back to life in another parallel universe, during the Heroes Reborn event. Eventually, this was folded in to normal Marvel continuity, and everyone forgot it ever happened. Bad writing, covered with bad retcons, and best forgotten.

Spider-man, Avatar of The Spider God

Spider-man was originally a science hero. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gained the proportional strength of an arachnid, the ability to cling to walls, and the uncanny ability to sense danger. Fashioning mechanical web-shooters, he fought crime as the Spectacular/Amazing/Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man.

After the massive success of the first Spider-man film, though, he was given biological web shooters, to make him more in line with the movie version. Under the stewardship of writer J. Michael Straczynski, it was revealed that the bite that brought Peter his powers wasn't a coincidence, but rather Peter was linked to a totemic Spider God who influenced him. Shortly after, Peter was mortally wounded, built a cocoon, and came out with additional powers, including wrist stingers, a poisonous bite, the ability to talk to arthropods, and night vision. Another side effect of Brand New Day was everyone, including Spider-man, forgetting about his new powers.

Attendees to San Diego Comic-Con may have found themselves accosted by very friendly corporate scouts at the Marvel booth last week, being told that they were perfect recruitment material for Stark Industries, and being given business cards directing them to this website, which - as well as Tony Stark's note to the world about what Stark Industries is (not) doing nowadays, also lets you apply for a job with an online interview asking such questions as "A plane flying past a non-moving observer has kinetic energy in the reference frame of this observer, the same plane has how much kinetic energy in the reference frame which moves with the plane?" and "What is your greatest hope for human kind?" (It also mentions something called "intelecrop technology" - a hint for the new movie, perhaps...?). Applicants receive the message "THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN STARK INDUSTRIES. WE WILL CONTACT YOU IF YOUR SKILLS MEET OUR REQUIREMENTS," meaning that we'll be checking our inboxes for new material momentarily.
In the meantime, Marvel's website can keep you occupied with three behind-the-scenes reports about the movie, dropping hints about what to expect next summer, including War Machine, the (re)discovery of a new element - which may or may not be related to the work of Tony Stark's father during the Manhattan Project - and Jon Favreau talking about what happens after Stark's public announcement that he is Iron Man at the end of the first movie:

What would really happen if you do that? How do your enemies and friends react? How much attention do you draw to yourself? Fame in general has a good side and bad side…You get tremendous adulation and you become bigger than life in some sort of ways; and in other ways, you become John Lennon. He's definitely living under pressure but he's not introverted.

And all of this almost a year before the movie comes out. Can you imagine what it'll be just before May 7th, 2010?

First Showing's eagle eye picked up the first ever images of ScarJo in Iron Man 2, which flashed past on Entertainment Tonight. The images will appear in higher resolution in Friday's Entertainment Weekly, but even in this format, ScarJo is already doing a better job of representing the film than Mickey Rourke's weird bondage harness. The roughed-up pictures of Tony Stark are also sort of intriguing.

Here are the new high res pics thanks to EW.

Secret identities are sort of a messy idea. The definition is apparently a "persona developed in order to keep the true identity secret," which, okay, is a workable definition until you start asking questions like, "If Clark Kent developed Superman to protect his loved ones, is Supes the secret identity?" And, "After Ralph Dibny told the world he was Elongated Man, does that make his secret identity just an identity? And does that mean it's okay for his foes to call him Ralph when he's in costume?" Because as bad as it is being taken down by a guy who goes by "Elongated Man," it's probably even worse being brought to justice by some guy named Ralph.

So I was going to talk about why certain heroes use certain identities, but the more I thought about it, the more I feel that the real question how a superhero finds a way to make his hero identity and his everyman identity (because sometimes it's hard to tell which is really the secret one) work in tandem with each other.

(I'd like to apologize in advance if this list takes a decidedly DC-centric bent; I'm afraid I'm not as much of a Marvel person as I'd like to be yet.)

Exhibit A: Where the Two Identities are Essentially the Same Person
Let's start with the obvious, and look at Clark Kent and Superman. Whereas the opposite may have once held true, since the '80's or so, it's been generally accepted that Superman is the mask and Clark the real person, to simplify it a bit. At the same time, they're both fundamentally the same person, body language and projected self-confidence aside. And as to why Clark Kent chose to be a reporter, some people explain it away as being the natural choice, because it's easy to write stories about yourself. (This also being the general explanation for Peter Parker's chosen profession as well.) I think that's selling Clark (and Peter) a bit short, though. I much prefer the explanation that states that in his quest for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Clark/Superman feels the need to do more than just punch things. Off an on, Superman will mention the fact that he wants to be more than just a blunt instrument, and perhaps working in a more investigative field as Clark Kent helps him feel he's reached this balance between brawn and brains.

Other superheroes who fit the category of essentially being the same person both in and out of their tights include people like both Green Arrows (especially Oliver Queen, who might just be the worst out there at keeping his secret identity plausibly secret). Actually, a very high proportion of the costumed crime-fighting community can probably be lumped into this category, probably because it's easier to consistently write characters that are a little more consistent with themselves. But if we choose to ignore the man behind the curtain, so to speak, we could probably say it's because they all want to protect their friends and loved ones by putting on a mask, thereby preserving their own identity, which, nine times out of ten, they had long before they took up superheroics.

Exhibit B: Where the Secret Identity Isn't All That Secret, After All
As previously mentioned, Ralph Dibny could be said to be the poster boy for the Public Secret Identity, being the first Silver Age superhero to go public with his civilian identity. To take a step like this puts him firmly into the category of guys whose two identities are the same person, but now that that's literally true, it's near impossible to draw any sort of line between Elongated Man and Ralph, since everyone knows they're the same person anyway. Maybe this is the most dangerous way for a superhero to go on the secret identity path, but you have to admit, it takes real guts. Take John Stewart, for example, the Green Lantern who chooses not to wear a mask because he feels he doesn't have anything to hide. Plus we've got Tony Stark. And the only people who don't know he's Iron Man are pretty much either dead or . . . Actually, you might have to be dead not to know.

Exhibit C: Where the Secret Identity Isn't Actually Anything Like You
This is where Batman comes in. About the same time that the world decided that Clark is more real than Superman, they also decided that Batman was more real than Bruce Wayne, which is probably a good thing, because I don't trust Bruce Wayne, flaky playboy extraordinaire, to do a very convincing job at pretending to be Batman. Meanwhile, Batman, crafty genius that he is, can do a very good job at faking playboy billionaire. (Perhaps the only Batman and Bruce really have in common is the billionaire part. Bruce is very good at making sure Wayne Enterprises keeps making money in order to continue funding Batman's very expensive hobbies.) In this case, of course, Bruce is the mask adapted to keep those closest to Batman safe from his veritable legion of certifiable foes. This delineation gets a little messy, though, when you think about the fact that those closest to Batman mostly all know he's Bruce Wayne, but the Bruce Wayne that they know can be described more as "Batman when he's actually being nice to people and not trying to scare them half to death."

At the moment I'm hard pressed to think of another superhero who does what Batman does to the extent he does it, but on a totally different note, Billy Batson is absolutely nothing like Captain Marvel, in that he's a kid and Captain Marvel is the man he becomes, making Billy's life pretty much my childhood dream. (Although I guess I didn't want to spontaneously turn into a man.) In this case, however, he's a completely different person physically when he's a superhero than when he's a kid. And in terms of superheroes whose super identity is the guise, I can't help but always want to bring up the Blue Raja from Mystery Men (who was not, as far as I can tell, part of the original Mystery Men from the Flaming Carrot comics), because he adopts a British accent while in costume, despite being American-And I'm sure for a fact that there are less ridiculous examples out there, but I love Hank Azaria.

Exhibit D: When You Become a Superhero First and Get the Identity Later
It's the Superclan that has the best track record of doing this, I feel. For someone whose home planet is supposed to have been destroyed, Superman sure ends up with a lot of wayward Kryptonians who turn up on Earth, being all flashy and super, and have to retroactively have civilian identities created for them. Power Girl (Kara Zor-L) created Karen Starr, Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) became Kara Kent, Nightwing (Lor-Zod, not Dick Grayson) acquired the name Chris Kent, and the latest guy to become an honorary Kent, Mon-El, took up the name Jonathan Kent in last month's Superman. At this rate, Clark Kent has a ridiculous number of surprise cousins, all orchestrated on paper in order for their pre-existing superheroics to continue.

More interestingly, though, is John Jones, secret identity of J'onn J'onzz, secret identity of the Martian Manhunter. Because he can shapeshift, he's able to pose as John Jones, a human detective, which doesn't seem like so much of a break from his usual line of work, but doing this is probably mostly a case of having somewhere to blend in and get out of the Manhunter costume. (And who can blame him? It's an awkward costume.)

I don't want to blanket-statement here, but I can help but feel that they're mostly right when they explain the necessity of keeping a secret identity as a safeguard against total insanity. After all, nobody can be super all the time. (Even if Batman would really like to try.) Sometimes you just need to be the girl who spends her lunch break balancing her checkbook. Or the guy who plays Scrabble in the park. Besides, there's always gotta be more to a person than their job. Just because you're a Green Lantern doesn't mean you can't also be an artist or architect, and just because you're Black Canary doesn't mean you can't do a stint as a florist. So while the invention of the "secret identity" is an interesting side effect of the superhero genre, it's pretty much unavoidable.

Besides, Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel did it far before these guys, and it worked for them.

Talking to MTV's Splash Page blog, Iron Man 2 screenwriter Justin Theroux explained that Stark's outing of his secret identity at the end of the first movie will play a major role in the second:

The obvious thing to improve upon — well, it’s not even an improvement it’s just something to embrace — which is that he’s now a hero that lives in the real world. That’s unique... Yeah, it’s something that we’ve made a real decision to run towards rather than away from.

Maybe this is my jaded comic-reading self speaking here, but while having a public identity may make him unique in superhero movies, it's been done many times before in the comics (more than once by Tony Stark himself) , and... well, it almost never ends well. Sure, there's more leeway to make it work in a movie franchise that doesn't feel the need to constantly up the ante on a monthly basis, but even so; almost superhero who's ever revealed his identity in the comics has, through many an unlikely plot device, ended up with a secret identity again sooner rather than later. If the end of Iron Man 2 sees Stark realize for whatever convoluted reason that life as an internationally-known weapons maker is much safer than life as an internationally-known superhero, then I'll be the one in the theater shouting "bullshit" at the screen over and over again.

‘Iron Man 2’ Screenwriter Insists Theme Of Sequel Will Be Identity [MTV Splash Page]

According to the ODI, the Iron Man sequel is putting out a call for two lead characters in the new movie: a brilliant, gritty Eastern European man in his thirties, and a beautiful, athletic woman in her thirties who speaks several languages and is great at martial arts. They're not named, but we're guessing the man is Crimson Dynamo and the woman is Natalia Romanova or Natasha Romanoff, also known as the Black Widow.

It would make sense for those two to appear together, since they're both Soviet/Eastern European characters. And the long list of people to wear the Crimson Dynamo armor has included the Black Widow's ex-partner, and another ex-partner's son.

In any case, these casting calls — plus a call for a "Russian bruiser," a smaller role — suggest that Tony Stark will be spending some time in the former Soviet Union. Expect Russian gangsters, ex-Soviet nukes and other hardware, and maybe some angsty discussions of Stark International's role in arms proliferation in the region. [The ODI]

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that complete digital copies of Iron Man (including DVD bonus footage — although both that and the movie will only be available in SD, not HiDef) will be offered for $20 as part of Dell's customized purchase process:

"Iron Man" will be presented as an option to consumers as part of Dell's personalized purchasing process, which allows buyers to customize virtually every facet of their PC from such essentials as storage capacity to stylistic touches like laptop-cover artwork. The Paramount/Marvel Entertainment film would be preinstalled on Dell's Inspiron, Studio and XPS laptop and desktop models.

While Dell is getting started with "Iron Man" as a preload, the company eventually will broaden the selections as it signs other studios. In time, Dell likely will enable consumers to purchase films after they've bought computers, too.

This isn't the first time that a Marvel character has led the way towards possible digital revolution; Nokia offered Spider-Man 3 as a preload on various regions' versions of their N95 last year, leading to the famous "WTF is this jazz shit" handheld riots of 2007. Neither Dell nor Paramount are talking about what kind of DRM will be accompanying Tony Stark on his journey to your new computer, although Dell have said that customers will be able to burn one copy of the movie onto DVD.

Is this enough to make people want to buy a Dell instead of another type of computer? I'm unconvinced — especially as you can buy the movie on iTunes or DVD for at least five dollars less. And everyone knows that Tony Stark would never be seen dead with something as clunky looking as a Dell, anyway.

Superhero support available at Dell [Hollywood Reporter]

Speaking at a press conference for the DVD and Blu-Ray release of Iron Man, Favreau talked about what he'd like to do to make the sequel much more impressive than the original, if money was no object:

I would love to do some of it on Imax for Imax. It's all a matter of dollars and cents for them. I would also love to do 3D... because 3D because, just think of the hub, think of the virtual space and what that would be like, the layers. How what fun that would be. And it also drives people to see it in the theater, it makes that much more of an experience. But it all comes down to how much does it cost, and what they get for it.

As to what we can definitely expect from the sequel, Favreau admitted that Dark Knight can own the dark and brooding "side of the playground"; the next movie will keep the light tone of the original movie, but may build off of the storyline from Matt Fraction's enjoyable Invincible Iron Man comic - which may mean that, before we get to the Mandarin (who we'll get to see, eventually), we may be seeing the Iron Man technology being reverse-engineered by terrorists out to destroy Tony Stark's business as much as the man himself. Even without the seeing a giant Iron Man fly off the screen, that alone will get me to be first in line when Iron Man 2 appears in 2010.

Could Iron Man 2 Be in 3-D [Collider]

Co-writer and inker Layton (Michelinie scripts the comic, and Bernard Chang pencils) explained the idea behind the comic on his website:

Decades in the future, a 70+ Tony Stark is overseeing his ultimate project of his lauded career—the completion of Earth’s first commercial space elevator, whose inauguration will change the world’s economy and the future of space exploration forever. However, not everyone is looking forward to this project’s launch with the same enthusiasm as the head of Stark Universal. Sinister forces are at work, behind-the-scenes, to insure that Stark’s pinnacle scientific achievement ends in disaster.

Damn, Tony looks good for someone over 70.

Iron Man: The End Preview [BobLayton.com]

We've actually had nano-iron for a while - the crystalline structure that gives iron its physical properties is improved, making it significantly harder and stronger. One problem: at moderately high temperatures, the stuff is about as durable as an ice cream cone on a summer day. Since most manufacturing methods using iron involve high temperatures and pressures, that made previous versions of nano-iron even less useful than an ice cream cone on a summer day (melty nano-iron is neither tasty nor refreshing).

The NC State team's solution was to add one percent zirconium to the iron, giving it heat resistance somewhere near the melting point of regular iron, but all the awesomeness of nano-iron. They even gave the stuff a catchy name: Nanocrystalline FeZr Alloy (those are the chemical symbols for iron and zirconium, for those playing along at home).

We ran that by Tony Stark, but he says "FeZr Man" has poor branding potential. Image by: Marvel Studios.

Super-hard Nanocrystalline Iron Developed That Can Take The Heat. [Science Daily]

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• There's a lot of improv between Tony and the fire-safety robot who keeps dousing him with foam. He has a somewhat more stable flight around his garage (although he nearly cooks his cars). Then with a little fast forward action we see him in the full-fledged Mark II suit, testing the systems. Jarvis (now an A.I. robot instead of a proper English butler, although he retains the prim English accent). Tony decides to take an early flight around the city with his first test flight, and we want one of those suits. Flaps extend, thrusters fire, and it's pretty swanky.
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• Someone asked him what his inspiration to make the movie was, and he said "I was inspired by the box office returns on Zathura." Hey, dammit. I liked that movie!
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• When asked about the rumors on the internet about a scene with Nick Fury as Samuel L. Jackson appearing in both this movie and The Incredible Hulk, Jon said "Yes, it's true. There are rumors on the internet." He said the rumors are partially true, but not which part.
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• Stan Winston Studios designed the physical Iron Man suit, but ILM provided a CGI version of the suit. Sometimes the two are married together, but they use the physical suit whenever possible.
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• He talked about the flying scenes in-depth, and used Stealth as an example of how bad flying scenes can be. They tried to emulate the look of the flying scenes in both Top Gun and Battlestar Galactica that have more of a documentary feel.
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• If Iron Man does well, Favreau may be directing the Avengers movie.
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• There will be a new 90-second trailer shown during Lost this week. He showed us a 2 1/2 minute version of the trailer that will be in front of 10,000 B.C., and it has a lot of new stuff in it. New shots of Obadiah Stane, a brief glimpse of the Iron Monger, Tony's first test flight, Pepper catching him changing into his Iron Man suit, to which his says "Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing."
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• He hadn't wanted to reveal that Iron Monger would be in the movie, but Hasbro released images of the toy, so they included some very brief shots of him in the new trailer.
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• They haven't yet figured out how Iron Man will sound when he's wearing the suit. Jon was literally leaving WonderCon to spend a few weeks at Skywalker Ranch to work on the sound mix, and to try and work out what Tony's broadcast voice will be.
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• There was a concerted effort to have a teenaged Tony Stark play Iron Man, much like Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man. Thank god that didn't happen.
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• He's stayed in touch with Doug Liman, who directed Favreau's Swingers script in 1996, although he hasn't gotten any action film directing tips from him.
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• We asked Jon about the sexy shot of Tony Stark with two scantily clad women that recently surfaced, and how hard would they be pushing the envelope of sexiness: "Well, this is rated PG-13, so not too hard, as a matter of fact that shot is not in the movie right now. It was mostly for time, but we'll include that scene on the DVD. I've made a movie that I would feel comfortable bringing my kids to. It's not a hard PG-13, but it's intense. I wouldn't say that there were any compromises made, but it definitely was informed by what the personality of the film should be."
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Iron Man armors image courtesy of ScreenRant.

Production stills from Slashfilm.

David Guivant is an aspiring production artist by day, and a fan filmaholic by night. What's more impressive is that he made this trailer for a fictional Iron Man television series using Apple's iMovie software and Adobe Photoshop for the 2D special effects that look like they were rendered in 3D. It's been a two year labor of love for the resident of New Caledonia (a tiny island between New Zealand and Australia) which really showcases the power of doing it yourself.

Now, if these characters only had some actual lines... we'd think he might be onto something.

If you slide eyes right, you'll see not one, or two, but three mentions of Marvel. First, you've got an embedded "Marvel authentic wallpaper" logo, which just sort of boggles the mind. Do you need a big note telling you that yes, this is indeed wallpaper? In case you didn't get the point, you've got the trademark and copyright by Marvel in 2007 note, and then the official Marvel logo right below that. So apparently Marvel is releasing an Iron Man movie this May, just an FYI.

Beyond that, the wallpapervertisements of the Mark III armor look great, but what's with those lame-o Mark I shots? Seriously, they look like shaky-cam shots that didn't make the advertising cut.

Iron Man movie wallpapers [Comic Book Movie]