Iron Man 2: Heroes and Villains and Henchmen, oh my!
Comic book franchise films all seem to suffer from a similar fate. The first movie usually covers the origin story of the hero and the villain. The second movie introduces one or more new villains. If they make it to the third film, you get Spiderman 3’s tangled web of story lines and personalities all pulling in different directions.
Iron Man 2 not only introduces new villains, but also new heroes. In spite of claims made in this interview, the film miserably fails to avoid the pitfalls of a multi-villain comic book movie. Just take a look at this list of the new heroes and villains crammed into Iron Man 2:
Black Widow: The typical “girl who kicks ass” character
Back story: Blah, Blah, Blah, orphan, blah, blah, blah, Russian spy, blah, blah, blah…
Powers: Ability to hit things, kick things, use James Bond / Batman style weapons, kung fu grip
Whiplash: Typical mad scientist character
Back story: In Russia I am electromechanical engineer. In USA I live in warehouse plotting revenge
Powers: Ability to construct weapons out of spare parts, like building a bomb out of some toothpicks, a bag of sugar and an iPod
Henchman: Think of the foot soldiers from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons
Back story: Lost his job when the economy went bad and decided to go to henchmen college
Powers: Ability to be easily defeated in a spectacular manor
Texting Addict Girl: The future of America
Back story: @ mall rite now & just saw Justin Bieber!! OMG! cant beleave it!!! LOLZ!!
Powers: Ability to txt 700 words per minute while crashing her dad’s car into a crowd of school children.
UPOM (Unreasonable Political Opponent Man): Typical politician
Back story: After loosing an election, UPOM went insane and started calling everything his political opponents tried to do a “government takeover”
Powers: Ability to defeat any argument by claiming his opponent wants to destroy America
Insurance Company Executive Woman: scum of the earth
Back Story: Sold soul to Satan in exchange for billions in profits
Powers: Ability to maintain profit margins by denying coverage to children
Wall Street Executive Boy: scum of the earth
Back Story: got bored raping butterflies and kittens one day and decided to starting start raping everything else
Powers: Ability to lose billions of dollars, destroy the entire global economy and still get a huge performance bonus at taxpayer expense
With all of these crazy characters, it’s hard to enjoy all the explosions and special effects. Iron Man 3 will be even worse when they introduce yet another new character: Franchise Milking Hollywood Executive Man.
When will they ever learn?
As soon as they stop making shit loads of money, I suppose. Bastards.