So first we had the teaser for the trailer, and now we have the teaser trailer…

Explosions! Iron Man suit without Tony Stark! The Mandarin played by the perennially sexy Ben Kingsley! Pepper Potts is kidnapped! And then strapped into the Mr. Freeze roller coaster at Six Flags over St. Louis! I don’t know if that’s right but it feels good so I’m going with it!

I’m part of the 1%… of people who actually like Gwyneth Paltrow and I like the movie character of Pepper Potts. So sue me, she’s cute and likable. Even though we did get a glimpse of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes (sidenote: if you aren’t watching House of Lies on Showtime, you are missing out), where was Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan?

Seriously- Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian. Just from what little we can see of the suit and the hair, it looks like he’s moments away from shooting at Crockett and Tubbs of Miami Vice fame.

Overall initial impression- I like it. I’m a big fan of when traditionally “happy” things turn a little dark. Tony Stark has always been the Whopper eating shit grinned billionaire playboy without many cares in the world (I mean there have been obvious cares to tend to but he’s done so usually with a somewhat good attitude) so it’s nice to see him be a little bit more introspective.

This obviously won’t be the only trailer released but even if it was, I’m excited. Marvel seems to have found their groove with this group of movies and for the time being, they aren’t feeling played out. Now ask me again when we reach Iron Man 7, but for now, I’m looking forward to Iron Man 3.

This doesn’t have a lot to do with Iron Man specifically but seeing his mountain side palace be blown to smithereens reminded me of it. I was listening to NPR the other day and a story came on about superheroes and their finances. It was entertaining, if nothing else. You can listen to it here and if you were so inclined you can order the book The Law of Superheroes from Amazon.