Heroes Aren't Born...They're Built.

I love superheroes. My heart was stolen by the X-Men when I was eight years old. Fox debuted the X-Men animated series in their Saturday morning cartoon lineup in 1992. That same year, they also launched the Batman animated series. I fell in love with them both and watched them every weekend before I did anything else.

I learned the ropes of both universes through those television programs. Intricacies, backs stories, friends and foes, dirty little secrets, hookups, powers, etc. Eventually, I started expanding into Superman, Spiderman and the various other minor (comparatively) superheroes and super villains that existed in those universes. I picked up comics “late in life”: I didn’t read my first one until I was a sophomore in high school. However, I quickly devoured those too…mostly Batman and the X-Men with bits of Spiderman here and there.

And then the movie universe exploded with superheroes. The big screen had already seen Superman and Batman before. So studios started with Spiderman and the X-Men, making huge, special effects-laden films in groups of three. Some of them were good, some not so much. Then they rebooted both the Batman and Superman movie universes. Once they’d tackled the “Big 4,” studios moved on to more minor superheroes: Daredevil, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Hellboy…the list is nearly endless.

I knew at least a little bit about almost all of them. But somehow, in my years and years of superhero admiration, I never heard about Iron Man. I mean sure, I knew his alter ego was Tony Stark, billionaire, and he was a self-made superhero…but beyond that? Nada. However, once I found out that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be Stark and Jon Favreau would be directing, I got a lot more excited. The teaser elevated that excitement.
The full trailer, released at the end of last week, completely did me in. I. Can’t. WAIT. May 2 needs to hurry up and get here. Like, now. I need to expand my superhero worship.

Robert and Jon, you are my heroes.