eat.sleep.geek.

When Jon Favreau released the first picture of Mickey Rourke from the Iron Man II set to the internet things got a bit crazy in cyberspace. Some people thought it was the greatest thing they’d ever seen, while others thought it marked the beginning of the end for the Iron Man movie franchise. Now clearly Rourke’s character is going to wind up being an amalgamation of a couple of different villains from the Marvel Universe. This has some comic fans up in arms, and after the X-Men Origins: Wolverine debacle I think geeks everywhere have ample justification if their spider senses are tingling a little bit after seeing Favreau’s first picture. There’s no question that FOX’s treatment of the Wolverine mythos could be considered a war crime to veterans of Marvel’s Civil War, so if seeing Rourke has you worried about Iron Man II you have just cause for concern. However, before you write off the movie consider the liberties Christopher Nolan took with Batman. Ra’s Al Guhl was a white dude who trained Batman in the Nolan Batverse, I haven’t read every Batman story, but I don’t remember either of those things being true in any Bat Books I read. There’s also the issue of The Scarecrow, now there might be some out of continuity stories where he works at Arkham, but to the best of my knowledge the job of being in charge has always belonged to Jeremiah Arkham. While it’s just a small detail I also don’t ever recall Mr. Zsasz ever working for the mob in anything other than a Christopher Nolan movie either. Finally there’s Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker, the sacred cow of comic movie villains; I’m in no way taking a dump on his performance but I’m pretty sure he’s the only Joker who ever put on white make-up (I also recognize that it’s not clear when he was wearing makeup, it might have been the case that he was using makeup when he posed as a guard).

So while the pictures of Mickey Rourke don’t exactly inspire me with confidence, and I’m more than a little worried that what look to be a hybrid of Whiplash, Crimson Dynamo, and Omega Red will turn into “The Scarlet Whippersucker” remember to keep an open mind. While he might be a strange dude, Mickey Rourke is a great actor and Jon Favreau clearly knows how to make an awesome Iron Man movie so there’s an awfully good chance it will all work out for hardcore comic fans. The important thing for comic movies isn’t that the director and the actors do a literal interpretation of the comic, but rather that they understand the spirit of what makes the books work and are able to translate that to film. Films and comics are different mediums so the interpretation isn’t going to be verbatim to the comic, but if they are able to understand the intangible quality that makes the comic work and translate it to the big screen like Christopher Nolan and Jon Favreau have done with their respective comic movies, hardcore comic fans will be happy. Personally I think that it’s going to work for Iron Man II, even if there is a lot of creative licensed exercised with the villains.