Within three days of opening Iron Man, Marvel Entertainment had announced their plans for a sequel in 2010. Apparently, a $100 million-plus opening weekend and near-universal critical praise is enough to put a sequel on a very fast track. Director Jon Favreau has expressed his desire to direct it, and star Robert Downey Jr. has expressed his desire to make up to 15 Iron Man movies (one hopes he was just kidding).
You don’t have to wait two years for more of Favreau’s Iron Man, however. The director’s next Iron Man project is already available in comics shops.
Marvel Comics has been pumping out an awful lot of Iron Man product of late, in the hopes of capitalizing on the character’s higher-than-usual profile, and Favreau’s should be the one most likely to attract fans of the film.
In addition to featuring Favreau’s comics-writing debut, four-part miniseries Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas features artwork by Adi Granov, the comics artist who served as a designer and consultant for the film’s version of the hero’s armor.
Granov’s art style is hyper-photorealistic, with every panel looking like a digitized painting. His suits of Iron Man armor are top-notch, but when he turns his attention to things that aren’t Iron Man armor, they often look stiff and devoid of life.
One of the most difficult skills comics artists have to master is conveying emotions through their characters, and there are plenty of pros who excel in many aspects of the medium but never quite get the acting part of the equation. Granov can be a pretty miserable actor, and there are a couple of scenes in the book that show just how lucky the film was to have cast Downey—lines of the sort he made seem witty and charming seem crass and creepy coming out of the mouth of Granov’s Tony Stark, who gives a pretty wooden “performance.”
Favreau, on the other hand, has turned in a fairly polished first effort, avoiding the pitfalls of a lot of writers from other media trying their hands at comics (this issue is neither too light on content nor too jam-packed with words). Oddly, however, this doesn’t read like it relates to the film version of Iron Man at all—he’s still in the secret-identity closet—nor does it relate to the comic-book Iron Man, who quit drinking decades ago.
The story? After thwarting an attempt to hijack an airplane and being dressed down by the ungrateful passengers, Tony Stark decides he needs some rest and relaxation, so he heads to Las Vegas.
There, a new casino called the Golden Dragon is about to open up, and its owner has reassembled an ancient dragon statue purchased from archaeologists to decorate it. Meanwhile, a plague of desert lizards descends on the Strip, probably because the statue isn’t actually a statue, but Fin Fang Foom, an old Marvel monster created by artist Jack Kirby, back when the company was more into monster comics than superheroes.
The first issue is in comics shops now; the second is due June 4.