NEWS: HUGE Iron Man 2 Casting...

Hey guys! I just got home from my first "meeting" at the Lanthorn (thanks to all for the status comments), and came upon this little diddy. It looks as though Mickey Rourke is continuing his sudden role with not only an Expendale performance, but a role as the villain the much much anticipated Iron Man 2...

/Film reports..

Mickey Rourke is on a roll as of late. His highly praised performance in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler has given the actor’s career a jump-start. Last night it was revealed that Rourke has been added to Sly Stallone’s action hero team-up film The Expendables, and today Variety reports that Mickey is in talks to join the cast of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 as the potential villain.

Ivan is described as “Tony Stark’s Russian alter ego, a heavily tattooed bruiser who is in the arms trade and battles Iron Man in his own nuclear-powered armored suit.” Variety initially hinted that Rourke’s character would be Crimson Dynamo (pictured above), but THR says that Ivan becomes Whiplash, a man “with deadly, technologically enhanced coils.”So I’m unsure which report is correct.

In the comic books, Whiplash is Mark Scarlotti, brilliant engineer and weapons designer who becomes the head of research for Stark International Cincinnati. Scarlotti is lured into developing weapons for an international crime syndicate and then for himself. According to Marvel’s case files, “Whiplash designed two cybernetically controlled whips that could be converted into nunchakus or vaulting poles. The whips could be spun so fast that they could even blow Spider-Man’s webbing away from Scarlotti preventing him from being ensnared. As both Whiplash and Blacklash, Scarlotti used a necro-lash which could be electrically charged by his gauntlets, released from its handle to deliver a concussion charge, or he could turn up the electric charge to its maximum which caused anything it hit, including Iron Man’s armor, to become brittle. He also used anti-gravity bolas, heavy gravity bolas, and various other devices also of his own design. When Mark returned to his original alias of Whiplash, he also upgraded his armaments with a kinetic whip, a cat-o-nine-tails, and a whip made of super conductive filament in order to channel lightning as an offensive weapon.”

Crimson Dynamo is a power armor-wearing Russian agent who first appeared in Tales of Suspense #46. Created by Stan Lee and artist Don Heck, there have been twelve versions of Dynamo over the last 45 years. According to Wikipedia, The Crimson Dynamo wears “an armored battle-suit that serves as an exoskeleton, providing the wearer with superhuman strength and durability. The suit’s outer layer was composed of a carborundum matrix alloy, and is equipped with: hand-blasters that can fire high-frequency electrical bolts; small missiles contained in the back shoulder area of the battle-suit; computers and radio transmitter and receiver; boot jets that allow flight.”

So that's a lot, so let me sum it up. Mickey Rourke will be playing a man named Ivan, who is described as "Tony Stark's Russian alter ego" who ultimately becomes either Whiplash/Blacklash or Crimson Dynamo (who is shown in the photo above). Me personally, I hope it is Whiplash/Blacklash, as I'm not to fond of two people in exoskeletons beating the hell out of eachother, as proven in the first Iron Man film. The last battle sequence was vastly lacking, and it's partly due to the lack of emotion from the two characters. What do YOU think???

Come back later for more news and notes...

Go see something good!