They're making movie out of Iron Man. He's a popular Marvel comics superhero, and special effects now are such that he'll look great. Robert Downey, Jr., is playing the title character, so he'll probably sound great, too.

And Shaun Toub will be playing The Mandarin.

Yes. Farhad from Crash will be playing a Chinese supervillain. Well, Chinese-English. A Hong Kong billionaire with alien technology.

Even though I'm something of a total comics geek, I was never that big an Iron Man fan, and not familiar at all with this guy. The Hand, yes -- they fought Daredevil and inspired the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing. (Although now that I think about it, I'm not sure if this is the same Hand, since that one's Japanese and the Iron Man one is run by the Mandarin. Which is just typical.)

But anyway, anyway, anyway Iron Man has always been a way for comics people to talk about how corporate America interacts with the world. He's essentially a symbol for big business -- often vying for leadership roles (or worse) with Captain America (the super-soldier who stands in for the best of everything the military can symbolize). He's the hawkish Republican to Captain America's Truman Democrat. No, really.

In the comics, millionaire Tony Stark starts out his heroic career doing weapons contract work for the U.S. and gets taken hostage by the Viet Cong. (This is during the Vietnam War, by the way.) He's kept prisoner and, even though he's got a piece of shrapnel working its way toward his heart, he's refused medical treatment and forced to build weapons for the communists. Instead, he builds himself a fancy suit that a/keeps the shrapnel from killing him and b/ turns him into a walking weapon. He blasts his way free and goes on to battle communism while building a multi-billion dollar technology company.

The movie apparently moves his captors to Afghanistan, but for whatever reason, is keeping the Chinese villain. Maybe they'll make him Arabic (the actor is, after all). But maybe they won't, what with China-business-fear being all the rage. And maybe they'll change the Fu Manchu Genghis Khan beard and flowing robes. But maybe they won't.

We shall see.

Or cringe, blindfolded, under the bed, until it all goes away....