May
6
A Beginner’s Guide to the Marvel Universe & “Iron Man”
Filed Under Comics, Movies, Summer Blockbusters
I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about the Marvel Universe recently, and in an effort to clarify things for the noobs, I thought I’d write a primer. Read on so you too can impress your friends by pointing out every fanboy nod in “Iron Man” and understand what that Samuel L. Jackson cameo at the tail end of the film was all about. With “Iron Man” being the first in-house Marvel Studios film, I’ll be using it as the main point of reference in this blog. It’s also the first of several interconnected franchise-starters — including “Thor” (due in 2010) and “Captain America” (due in 2011) — that will ultimately crossover into a full-blown “Avengers” film to be released in July of 2011.
What’s important to understand is that comic book continuity isn’t as tidy or streamlined as fanboys would like it to be. Efforts are often made to wipe the slate clean (or “retcon,” retroactively change the continuity) when creators paint themselves into a corner. As most people are familiar with the “Star Wars” saga, I imagine even casual fans can find some inconsistencies among the six films, regardless of how many Botoxed special editions that George Lucas releases. At any rate, when trying to explicate how the Marvel Universe fits together and translates to film, I’ll do my best to sum things up as neatly as possible, given the abundance of retcons, out-of-continuity and “What If…?” stories there are in the Marvel U.
Technically, there are two Marvel Universes — the Marvel 616 Universe and the Ultimate Marvel Universe; you’re already confused, aren’t you? The Marvel 616 Universe began in earnest with the publication of “The Fantastic Four” #1 in 1961; before you ask, “616″ is a meaningless numerical designation. Almost 40 years later, the Ultimate Marvel Universe was born with the publication of “Ultimate Spider-Man” #1 in 2000. The 616 and Ultimate universes exist parallel to one another, but do not crossover (at least, to date). What differentiates the two is that the 616 universe is rooted in the atomic age, where the Ultimate universe contemporizes 40-year-old characters and storylines (i.e. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider in the 616 universe, but in the Ultimate universe, the spider was genetically-engineered).
In the film “Iron Man,” Tony Stark’s a war profiteer whose convoy is attacked by terrorists in Afghanistan. An explosion gravely injures him, embedding shrapnel in his chest and forcing him to wear a magnetic device that prevents the shards of metal from plunging into his heart. Held captive, Stark is ordered to build the terrorists a WMD. Instead he constructs a suit of armor to effect his escape. He quickly creates more sophisticated armors with which he fights evil. This origin is more faithful to the 616 Iron Man than the Ultimate Iron Man, that is, if you swap out the terrorists with the Viet Cong. The Ultimate Iron Man has an extremely convoluted, Orson Scott Card-written origin which even I don’t understand. The Ultimate Tony Stark is, however, every bit the boozy playboy as Robert Downey Jr. plays in the film. But the Ultimate Tony Stark has a fist-sized brain tumor, not a heart condition. Still with me?
The “Iron Man” movie essentially cherry-picks elements of the 616 and Ultimate Iron Man mythologies, creating a composite character. So who the hell is Nick Fury? And what’s S.H.I.E.L.D.? I’m glad you asked.
Nick Fury in the 616 universe was originally a sergeant in the U.S. military and led a team called the Howling Commandos during the ’60s. Despite having to wear an eyepatch, Sgt. Fury was nevertheless an active duty soldier; depth perception is totally unnecessary in the two-dimensional comic book medium. Fury later went to OCS, became a Colonel and was put in charge of a super-secret government organization known as SHIELD — sort of the CIA on steroids. They jet around the world in a floating battleship called the Helicarrier and wear blue zippered jumpsuits with chalk white belts, pouches and gun holsters. The 616 Nick Fury is an older man, having served in WWII, with graying temples and a fondness for cigars. He’s also Caucasian.
General Nick Fury in the Ultimate universe looks exactly like Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. At least that’s how artist Bryan Hitch draws him. As the head of SHIELD like his 616 counterpart, Gen. Fury is the one who put together the Ultimates — a government-sponsored team consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye — to fight super-criminals…when they’re not at each other’s throats, anyway. The Ultimates are, as you may have guessed, a modernized equivalent of the Avengers in the 616 universe, a team founded in the early-’60s, one that’s gone through countless rosters over the years, broken up and reformed. Currently, there are two Avengers teams in the 616 universe — the Mighty Avengers and the New Avengers.
So, the “Avenger Initiative” that Fury mentions in the last line of the “Iron Man” movie is more or less the start of his pitch to Tony Stark about the formation of a super-team. You can find bootlegs of the final scene on YouTube (with Spanish subtitles: “Yo Soy Iron Man!”) in case you left the theater once the credits started to roll — philistine!
Is there anything else you may have missed in “Iron Man?” Well, the terrorist organization that kidnaps Tony Stark is called the Ten Rings. The follically-challenged big bad who’s the leader of the Afghani cell even wears a large piece of bling around his finger. One of Iron Man’s better-known foes in the comics is the Mandarin, known for wearing a magical ring around each of his digits. It’s possible that Mandy’s distributed his rings to the heads of terrorist groups across the globe. That’s call franchising, kids. I think the introduction of Ten Rings is more or less setting up the Mandarin to be a sort of bin Laden type figure in the film series. Or, if you want a less real world equivalent, think Dr. Claw in “Inspector Gadget.”
“Demon in a Bottle” is perhaps the most popular “Iron Man” story arc, dealing with Tony Stark’s alcoholism. In the film, Stark boozes it up a bit, and it’s implied that he’s something of a functioning alcoholic. There may be in a point in movie two when Stark becomes too stinking drunk to wear the armor and, as in the comics, his friend Jim Rhodes (played by Terrence Howard) steps into the suit; this is also suggested by the brief moment in “Iron Man” when Rhodes says of the Mark II armor, “Next time.”
What’s great about “Iron Man,” though, is that it’s totally accessable to non-fans. The film’s $100+ box office take last weekend goes to show that you don’t have to be as well-known as Spider-Man to clean up at the box office and make McDreamy’s dopey little rom-com run a very, very distant second. It’s rewarding to be a comics fan and find all the fanboy easter eggs hidden throughout a film adaptation of your favorite funnybook. But at the end of the day, no amount of winks and nudges can save a suckfest. Check out 2003’s “Hulk” for further evidence. That “Iron Man” is a brilliant adaptation and a valentine to the fans is what makes it a gem.
-Brad Lohan
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