Iron Man 2: A Love Letter to Ronald Reagan?

Pajamas Media ^ | May 7 | John Boot

[AJKauf]

and the movie is also a virtual love letter to Ronald Reagan.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., whose performance seems meant to school Christian Bale in the art of playing things loose) finds himself in trouble with a weaselly senator (Garry Shandling). The lawmaker accuses Stark, who has been boasting to the world of his ability to keep the peace, of purposely developing an offensive weapon that he misleadingly calls a defensive weapon.

That this is exactly the argument liberals (and the Soviets) used to excoriate Ronald Reagan and his SDI plan is delicious — but it gets better. As played by Shandling, the senator, who is from Pennsylvania, bears more than a slight resemblance to Arlen Specter, the classic Capitol Hill weasel who called himself a Republican for as long as he found it convenient and is now not only a Democrat but one of the most reliably liberal members of his caucus.....

[Bean Counter]

We just saw the Matinee premiere out here and I thought this was a great movie. Lots of laughs and some great visuals and yes, a conservative bent...

[spetznaz]

No probs ...as for the Green Lanterns there is one who is black, and three who are white. Parker’s still White in both main universes ...although in some others he is a young japanese boy, in another he is from India, in another a cyborg, another a mutant etc.

[Finny]

If it’s the Samuel Jackson character it’s probably because they got Samuel Jackson. He’s great for supporting roles.

I love Samuel Jackson. He's one of those few guys whose very presence in the cast makes a movie better. He's just plumb likeable.

[Finny]

Any actor who can intelligently use the phrase “informed my proclivities” in a non-scripted conversation gets my respect. ;)

LOL! I noted that elegant little turn of phrase as well. You hit the nail on the head!

[Ultra Sonic 007]

The Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson is based off of the Ultimate line of Marvel comics (which is an ‘alternate’ continuity of comics, separate from the originals). So the original Nick Fury was white, yes.

But the Nick Fury from the Ultimate line is black, and they specifically made him in the likeness of Jackson for movie purposes.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

There are thousands of Green Lanterns across the universe. Of the four on Earth, three are white (the original Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner), and one is black (John Stewart).

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Seriously? Good Lord, Marvel really is run by hard-core leftists....

More like bad writers. Political leanings aside, the story arc this incident occurred in ("Civil War") was lambasted with poor reviews due to character derailment, poor writing, and bad plotting.

[Richard Kimball]

Now, the choice of Affleck as DD is what disturbed me most.

I thought Affleck was perfect. I mean, Daredevil would get his ass kicked by Rainbow Brite. Who could play him better?

[SJSAMPLE]

Whaaaaat?

“Daredevil” was the incarnation of BAD ASS.

[JediJones]

The reason I liked Marvel in the ‘80s over DC was because it wasn’t so complicated that it had multiple universes with different versions of the characters crossing back and forth across them. The DC Crisis on Infinite Earths series looked utterly incomprehensible to me. Marvel was so much closer to a realistic, relatable world, which a few of the movies have captured well. It’s a shame that the Marvel comics editors have forgotten the relative simplicity of the good ol’ days and fallen into the same trap DC did with umpteen different versions of the same characters floating around. Even DC screwed up again and, after fixing that mess with Crisis, seemed to have brought all the goofiness back (with the writers saying they “missed it”).

Former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter has made the point that kids probably couldn’t begin to get into comics now because the continuity is an incomprehensible mess for even adults to understand. Marvel Comics quality pretty much went to hell in the ‘90s a few years after he was ousted. Once the good artists left for Image Comics, both the stories and artwork at Marvel were equally bad. Nowadays it doesn’t seem like the Marvel artists even try. Most of the art at Marvel now is plain, ugly, distorted, low-detail cartoon animation style drawing. DC, at least, seems to be retaining some decent artists these days that know how to draw exciting superheroes in the level of detail a printed page is supposed to have.

[spetznaz]

I agree. Continuity gets obtuse very quickly, and any attempt to fix it simply makes it more convoluted. For instance DC rebooted everything a year ago from #1, but it has simply led to the same thing. A new reader picking up a Marvel or DC comic would be hard pressed to understand what's happening ...apart from looking at artwork. Now, the main books in both houses tend to have more attention given to them (e.g. the various Batman books have great love applied), and certain minor characters also get good attention (e.g. Marvel's Black Panther had a run that was award winning), but generally it is a convoluted amorphous mess. For example, Spiderman died. Well, or maybe not. He died ...but apparently his body is occupied by the essence of Doctor Octopus, who has called himself 'Superior Spiderman.' Not only that ...but Peter Parker's mind is still alive and battling Doc Octopus for control. How's that for twisted.

Anyways, let's just say that the movies have really done a lot in keeping the companies alive. Left to print they would probably have died out like they almost did in the 90s.