I've heard of Iron Man, but I don't know anything about him, other than that there's an awesome Black Sabbath song named after him.

Neat! I wonder if they'll play that song during the movie.

Chantal

I'm pretty sure I've heard it in the background of a few of the TV spots.

They played an instrumental version of the song in the end credits. I'd actually heard it before!

Ah, Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

He's one of those 'is he, isn't he' superheroes because he isn't anything 'super' by himself but he has a cool gadget (the suit) to do it for him.

There are several variants of Tony Stark by now, as there are with most superheroes, in fact reading through the Wikipedia entries (there's an entire separate article for his alternatives!) there are a LOT of variants. The main theme seems to be the same as the movie, so I would suggest you go see the movie untainted by spoilers first off, and then look him up afterwards if you're curious.

From the trailers I've seen, the look and feel seems to be fairly true to form for Tony Stark as well.

Apart from Ultimate Iron Man, Iron Man has been mostly attached to The Avengers as part of the team, so that might easily explain why you haven't heard of him much.

Yeah, but to me, the Avengers are John Steed and Emma Peel. (g) This SHIELD stuff...nah.

I enjoyed the movie quite a lot, despite the fact that the writers seemed very confused about their message. They kept verbally trying to ram home the idea that 'Weapons are Evil.' But what they showed was the true dichotomy of weapons:

1. Anything is a weapon.
2. Weapons can be used for good as well as evil.
3. Unscrupulous use of a weapon is a poor reason to stop making it. Instead, one must prevent further unscrupulous use.

I enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal, showing Stark changing from being an irresponsible playboy who took everything for granted to becoming a mature adult but still with a bit of the playboy in him.

I hope there will be sequels!

Chantal