Do Ya Like Black Sabbath...

Because "Iron Man" has been inevitably linked to this, the movie of the same name.

A while back, I mentioned that Iron Man might turn out to be pretty cool. (I've also mentioned that it might suck. I'm fickle like that.) Having seen it, I'm kinda in between on my actual opinion of the movie.


I was wrong about Robert Downey Jr. maybe ruining the movie; he was actually pretty enjoyable in it. And Gwyneth Paltrow was completely serviceable as Pepper Potts. All and all, I was pleased with the movie.

But I'm hearing some shit about how great this movie is; maybe the best comic book adaptation ever.

Uh-uh.

In terms of the origin story, they got that right. They even got a lot of the ancillary characters, like Jim Rhodes and Happy Hogan, in there. But in terms of story possibilities as a franchise? Well...there really aren't any more.

Iron Man butted heads with Obidiah Stane for, like, every issue for years. It was Stane who caused Tony Stark to become a drunken vagrant and Jim Rhodes to assume the Iron Man mantle. But after one movie, Stane's dead. (And why is it that comic book movies feel the need to kill the villains. Dr. Octopus has been a Spiderman villain for nearly 50 years, yet, one movie, and he's dead.) There really aren't any other Iron Man villains. I mean, there's the Mandarin, but...Hello, embarrassing Asian stereotypes! Basically, we're to the point where you have to make shit up to continue this story, which is what I suspect they'll do.

I guess we'll see in two years when the sequel comes out.