... so that means periodically yours truly will be providing you with some background and assorted trivia about the various characters in the flick.
As you may have heard, the main villain will be Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke. But Rourke's character will actually incorporate aspects of two classic Iron Man bad guys -- Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo. Indeed, Rourke's name in the film is Anton Vanko, who was the very first Dynamo (introduced in 1963 in Tales of Suspense #46). The Dynamo was originally a Cold War Soviet analogue to the United States' Iron Man.
Whiplash first appeared years later, in 1968 (Tales of Suspense #97, below). The original 'lash (Mark Scarlotti) was a former employee of Stark's company. He appeared many times in the Marvel Universe over the course of 30 years, until being killed by Iron Man in 2000 (Iron Man volume 3, #28). (It wasn't Tony Stark in the armor then, for what it's worth; the Iron Man armor was actually operating on its own at the time.)
Check out this pic of Rourke as Whiplash. He neatly makes use of the coolest aspects of both Iron Man baddies!
