It’s curtain up on Iron Man

Finally, with Iron Man, there is a superhero for the truly geeky to get excited by. Not a man born with super human abilities, or the victim of a power inducing spider bite / radioactive experiment gone awry, but a self-made superhero.

He may not have any superhuman abilities, but Tony Stark is a genius engineer and his big brain is all he needs to be a superhero. He is a heartless weapons manufacturer who becomes a self made hero after witnessing the devastation that his weapons have caused. His metal, gold titanium alloy to be exact, suit provides him with the ability to fly and generally kick ass.

The idea of geek turned superhero has been fairly well established with Peter Parker turned Spider-Man, Reed Richards turned Mr Fantastic, Bruce Banner turned Hulk and so on. Yet Tony Stark stands out, because he is the complete antithesis of geek. He might have the big brain, but he is also rich, popular and a complete prick. Despite his character having an epiphany mid way through the film, he begins life as someone who couldn’t give a shit about anyone except himself. Unlike the hero geek squad before him, all full of hope and responsibility, you don’t really don’t feel you should like Stark. But despite his obvious flaws, the fact that he is a geek playboy makes him strangely likeable.

And Stark’s modest collection of cars, the R8, Cobra and Saleen S7 included, are in no way the best machine in his collection. The Iron Man suit would be the best boys’ toy ever. The funniest parts of the film are when Stark is trying to work out the logistics of getting it suit to fly.

The whole geek chic thing is not something that I’ve really got on board with, especially when it involves people trying to be geeky, that just completely defeats the object. But a geeky billionaire playboy/superhero is definitely something that would take my fancy… any offers?

ANNA WRIGHT