I am Iron Man

Great news. Dani is now officially into the Marvel comics superheroes. Also, but obviously to a lesser extent, the DC comics characters like Batman and Superman. I say ‘obviously’ because it is probably true to say that most men prefer Marvel. I certainly know some who prefer Wonder Woman – and she is DC comics – but that’s a slightly different topic.

So how do you get “officially” into the Marvel comics? It just happens suddenly and without warning but when it does it becomes all consuming. Dani and some of the other boys in his class are now always playing superheroes. One is always Spiderman, another always Batman. One little lad is Captain America. Also some other boy makes the odd appearance as the incredible Hulk. This is what I am told.

Dani is Iron Man! He takes great delight in telling me while imitating some of the actions…”I am Iron Man”.

This is a proud time in any dad’s life. I can now walk into a shop and buy Marvel comics again with my head held high.

Old School TV Superheroes

I used to collect them when I was younger. Who didn’t? Like most teenager boys I was still reading them up until I was about 15. Back in those days when I had my Spiderman Comics Weekly delivered with the newspaper the best we could hope for was the Spiderman cartoons on TV. Several years later came the Hulk played by Lou Ferrigno (a real-life nemesis of Arnold Schwarzenegger). At that time I would have been about 14 years old and those Hulk TV shows seemed just about OK to me. Looking back, and of course comparing to today’s Marvel productions, they now seem very poor.

During the late 70s there were a couple of sad attempts at making Spiderman movies. These were at best pathetic. Spidey looked like some drunken fool who, having stumbled across a fancy dress shop on New Year’s Eve, decided to hire the suit and try to make his friends laugh by jumping off the wall in the pub carpark. Attempts to make Marvel comic characters come to life on the big screen were almost non-existent for two decades.

The New Age…

That did not mean that there was no planning behind the scenes. In all that seemingly lost time technological advances in computer generated graphics were rising faster than the Hulk’s blood pressure.

We had to wait until 2000 and Marvel comics hit the screens in a big way with X-Men. A realistic Spiderman movie followed in 2002. There was no turning back now. Technology now allowed all the comic books to come to life. All of those crazy action scenes in other worldly settings could now be transformed on the big screen even better than in any of the old cartoons. The audiences lapped it up. One after another the comic book characters came to life. Even sequels. And more sequels… It has almost gotten out of hand and I personally think they need to slow down. No chance of that happening though. This is a money-making machine and it shows no signs of slowing.

Back to Iron Man…

Meanwhile despite the plethora of action heroes Iron Man remains one of my favourites. He was in fact one of the earliest Marvel creations. I am glad Dani likes him. It gives me the chance to watch the movies with him as well as reading the comics. Who knows he may well decide he likes the AC/DC tracks in the first two movies. Oh, and it also gives me the chance to introduce him to Black Sabbath.