an icepick through the keyhole

Watched Iron Man last night. Possibly the most enjoyable super-hero movie Marvel has ever put out, and right up there in my top three super-hero movies, period, next to Superman II and Spider-Man 2. It does pretty much what I've always said about adapting comic books and icons to the screen — you don't have to be word-perfect faithful (and, in fact, you probably don't want to be... case in point, Daredevil), you just have to be able to get the character enough to show us what he's all about.

And Favreau did good. He hewed as close to the origin as he could and still make it up to date, and kept the action and big explosions going along at a good enough clip so that the two hours just flew by. Of course, the biggest credit has to go to Robert Downey, Jr., who played Stark with the right combination of arrogance, self-righteousness and vulnerability that is the essence of the comic book character. What helps of course is the good humour that permeates the script, allowing the audience much more empathy with Stark than, say, we had with Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, which wins points on awesome but loses to Iron Man in terms of heart (no pun intended, given Tony's condition). But then, that's always been one of the dividing lines between DC and Marvel.

Marvel Studios acquitted itself very nicely with this first foray. Here's hoping The Incredible Hulk will similarly measure up. Now, I want the toys.

I am grateful for scans_daily, because from it, I can see enough of the obscenity that is the Marvel Universe these days and not have to actually touch those issues with my bare hands and then have to disinfect them with a blowtorch afterward. Of course, I still have to scrub out my eyeballs with Lysol, but that's another story.

I mean, this. And this. Or this and this.

By the way, the last piece of dialogue in that last link is the best epitaph I've heard for Civil War so far. That, and the characterization of the insanity of the past year as the worst lover's tiff (feel the Steve/Tony man love) in history.

Seriously. What is wrong with these people?

Here's a comic book recommendation. I haven't been buying comics for a long while, due to financial constraints, and readers of this journal will remember me talking about when I met up with my friend Tom during Consonance and Tom filled me in on what was going on in comic books in my "absence", leading to two hours of generally, "What the fuck?!?" being hurled back at him.

So I'm not keen on picking up stuff on the stands. I've flipped through a few of the Countdown to Infinite Crisis stuff - interests me not. I've flipped through some of the Marvel Universe stuff. Ditto. I've basically been catching up on the Essential Marvel volumes I missed, like Iron Man and Avengers, and finally picked up Darwyn Cooke's horribly underated DC: The New Frontier in trade paperback as well as Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen's Secret Identity, which I also cannot recommend highly enough. One of the runs I did enjoy a lot catching up on while staying overnight with Tom was Dan Slott's She-Hulk, which was by turns funny, dramatic, and just plain fun, an element sorely lacking in comic books these days.

One of the things that came out in my absence was the Spider-Man/Human Torch limited series, written by Slott and drawn by an equally underrated Ty Templeton (Ty, I still want you to finish Stig's Inferno. Please.). The digest form of the 5-issue series, under the overall title of "I'm With Stupid", is out, and this is one of those things you'll have to take from me, and trust that my taste in comic books is impeccable. Which it is. I'm not modest about it. I know good stuff. Buy this book.

"I'm With Stupid", a story in five standalone parts, chronicles the love/hate friendship of Peter Parker and Johnny Storm, two super-powered teenagers who think each other have got it made, who get on each other's nerves because they're so much alike - insecure, masking that with cockiness, struggling with teen angst issues and love lives, and yet faced with awesome responsibilities that they keep trying to run away from but always catch up to them. They also grew up together, and this book recognizes that.

Issue 1 takes place during the early days of their careers, when Johnny was still dating Dorrie Evans and Peter was still trying to avoid meeting Mary Jane. Issue 2 is set in Peter's freshman year in college, when Johnny was seeing Crystal and the two (Peter and Johnny, not Johnny and Crystal) switch places for a day. Issue 3 is just after Gwen's death, and what would the Gerry Conway era be without the infamous Spider-Mobile? Issue 4 is from the 80s, before Spidey's black suit turned into Venom, and has the babelicious Black Cat as well. Issue 5 is set in the present day, and a long overdue event takes place in the middle of a hostage situation in Peter's school... an event I won't spoil, because it's the absolute highlight of the series.

Slott is spot on with his dialogue, with his flair for adhering and alluding to continuity while at the same time pointing out the complete ludicrousness of it ("What about that time when we...?" "Clone." "And when we...?" "Clone." deserves to go down as one the absolute classic exchanges ever), proving that you don't have to retcon anything to do a good story. Ty Templeton, of course, is a master of comic timing as well as composition, able to summon the styles of eras past from Ditko to Romita to today.

I gush, I know. But it's good. It's not world-shattering, it's not deep, it's not something that will be mylar sealed or appreciate in price a hundred times over, but, gosh darn it, to sound like a broken record, it's fun. Ultimately, it's about two people who are best friends almost despite themselves, and reminds us that friendship is about compatibility, but mostly it's also about history.

Now, hie thee to your comic shop. Buy it, and begone.