Drew does Iron Man

[Hucklebubba]

I must confess that commenting on your review is not the primary motive behind this thread. Don't get me wrong, it was great and all; I once again find myself envious of your ability to stay on one train of thought for more than three lines of page space, and am thinking about looking into herbal paragraph enhancement for myself.

But no, the real reason we're here is that I have a niggle with Iron Man, and I'm hoping someone can smooth it out for me. You seemed one of the most likely candidates; hence, the deception. And so, once again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away.

Hokkamamatusu! Mombata! Wisht wisht!!

Aaanyway. . .my issue is this: When Dr. Whosits initially installs the electromagnet in Tony's chest, its stated purpose is to prevent shrapnel from migrating into his heart. At no point (that I can recall) is the word "pacemaker" ever mentioned.

And yet, when Pepper removes the Mark I arc reactor, and also later when

SPOILER: Click to show

removes the Mark II, Tony is all like, "Oy! My heart was going but now stopping! I need the thing that does! Oh pretty lady!"

If what the Doc said is to be believed, then removal of the magnet would not precipitate a ten minute window of gasping and staggering; it would either result in instant death, or no ill effects for a couple of days, and then instant death.

Thoughts?

[Head Mutant]

I, too, was confused as to all this.

[PoolMan]

Not to mention the fact that there is now a pop-can-sized cavity right about where the heart ought to be in the first place...

Still, great movie, great review!

[bladestarr]

Continuing the problems with logic... if there IS shrapnel hanging around itching to get down into his heart, and doctors can't find and remove it all.... if this "pacemaker" is strong enough to keep the bitty parts away from his blood pumper for 1000 years... if it's a sort of electromagnet that's keeping the shards from going in any further.... why can't you just pump up the output and push the shrapnel OUT of his body? There, problem solved and no more need for being Mr.-Hole-In-The-Chest.

It doesn't work that way? Well you know what? Stark is an engineering GENIUS, if he can't figure out how to get tiny pieces of metal out of the body one way or another... I think he needs to toss away his Genius degree...

[DTH]

Ah you forget, this is based on a COMIC BOOK. Comic books and logic don't play well with one another.

Its the same reason why 9/10 of early superheroes all gained their power from RADIATION! Back in the 60s, it was little understood by the average person and so was mysterious enough to grant amazing abilities. Its pretty much down to the writers dreaming up a good idea which, with a bit of applied REALITY, turns out to be not so good an idea.

But you're right, there is no reason why they couldn't solve this problem and indeed, in the comics, they eventually do.

Let's say that Mr Stark has plenty of other issues to deal with by then...

[TheLuckyOne]

Yeah, I remember thinking that was a little weird the first time I saw it too.

I'm no expert on Iron Man, but my understanding is that in the original story, his heart was simply injured by shrapnel, rather than there being some left in there. He created a pacemaker (commonplace now, not so much in 1963) to keep his heart beating, powered by the transistors in his chest plate; that meant he had to have his Iron Man chest plate on at all times, even when out of costume, and if it was damaged during battle, he'd have to drop out of the fight to make repairs.

So for the movie, I think they tried to modernize the chest injury but keep the original weakness, leading to the slight "huh?" reaction from a lot of us.

-D