The world loves superhero movies. For every release, it seems that audiences can’t wait to see the next superhero flick. And see it you will. Because if there’s one thing that people love more than the average movie, it’s Harry Potter. But now that Harry Potter‘s done, you have time for more superhero movies! Yay! But, if you’re anything like the rest of the world’s population, based on sales, you probably don’t read a lot of comics and you might be a little confused by the convoluted plot lines and science fiction elements you see in these films. It may be a little tough for the average moviegoer, but that’s why I’m here!

So, in honor of this week’s Captain America: The First Avenger, I’m going to take the time to sit down with each and every one of you in a feature I like to call Captain America 101 to discuss some of the characters and terminology that you’ll be seeing in this weekend’s #1 movie, that is, unless the world decides to see Harry Potter again, but I digress.

Let’s get to it, soldier!

Though it’s been spoken of quite often over the past few months, it’s now being reported that Jeremy Renner is in final negotiations to star as Hawkeye in Marvel’s epic upcoming merging of superhero forces in The Avengers.

Hawkeye will be joining the already-packed lineup including Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Incredible Hulk (though it remains unknown whether Edward Norton will return or if other options will be used), and lots more.

This movie should become the ultimate dream flick for comic book fanatics all over the world, so long as all of these different story arcs and characters we’ve seen built up are all brought together carefully. Naturally, there’s a growing fear that this plan has gotten too big, and everything might just crash together at the end of the road.

Back in February of 2009, it was announced that Samuel L. Jackson had signed a gigantic 9-picture deal with Marvel Studios, which would see his Nick Fury character showing up in the various upcoming blockbusters that would lead to The Avengers in 2012, and possibly even a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie.

In a recent interview with Radio Big Boy, Jackson was asked about the different movies he would be appearing in for Marvel. The actor first confirmed that though Fury was in Iron Man 2 and would be in Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers, he would not be appearing in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor. After that, Jackson went on to make quite the unexpected statement that might just get fans excited.

Iron Man 2
Directed by Jon Favreau
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson
Release date: May 7, 2010

The summer movie season blasted off this past weekend with the release of the eagerly awaited Iron Man 2, the sequel to Jon Favreau‘s 2008 blockbuster that launched Marvel Comics’ iconic armored adventurer onto the big screen in bravura fashion and made a bona fide movie star out of Robert Downey, Jr., surely one of the single most brilliant casting achievements in modern event cinema.

The original Iron Man also marked a turning point in the history of films based on the legendary Marvel superhero stable: for the first time, the company, which had seen its classic hand-drawn heroes and villains adapted into films ranging from the great (Spider-Man 2, X2: X-Men United, Blade) to the mediocre (the Fantastic Four movies, Daredevil), to the flat-out awful (Blade: Trinity, Elektra, Ghost Rider, the Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four, the 1990 Captain America), decided to take back control of their celluloid destiny and finance and produce their own films in order to ensure that characters such as Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor who’ve been cooling in the Valhalla of Development Hell for more than a decade would get the most faithful, highest quality cinematic treatments made with the best creative and acting talent money could buy.

In 2008 Marvel produced the smash hit Iron Man and followed it a month later with the superb The Incredible Hulk, which didn’t do as well at the box office as Iron Man , but was still a damn fine flick and the best film adaptation of the character to date (although I have a lot of admiration for Ang Lee’s 2003 version even though it went off the rails full speed in the last twenty minutes). Now that the company is self-financing its own superhero movies for the first time they had license to do something that had been previously unheard of: crossovers.

Well pretty much everyone across the world has been anticipating this movie since Iron Man came out in 2008. I was definitely among that group and had very high expectations for Iron Man. In short I did enjoy myself and had fun watching it but it definitely did not live up to my extremely high expectations. I really wish it had and I also really wish it didn’t have so much set up for other movies in it and was just what it should have been, a sequel to a really great superhero movie.

All that aside we are here to have fun so I won’t harp on all the things I didn’t like about the movie. What I loved about both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 is the graphics and they definitely hold up in this go around just as much as the first one. I still love Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and I pretty much love Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell in anything, even though Rourke was underused and Rockwell was just an annoying less-successful copy of Tony Stark. I also really love the addition of scenes with Clark Gregg, the mysterious agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and new characterization of Howard Stark, played by a new favorite of mine John Slattery.

I still am a little shaky on the casting choice for Black Widow because I don’t buy Scarlett Johansson being as badass as Black Widow should be. Might as well have just cast Megan Fox in my opinion. I also didn’t necessarily agree with re-casting James Rhodes with Don Cheadle and didn’t see why it was a requirement since no one can seem to give a straight answer as to why it was done. I still like Don Cheadle as Rhodey but I don’t think it was the best for the movie. I also wasn’t sure why Jon Favreau decided to give himself a more prevalent role.

While this isn’t the best made movie or even the most fun I have had in the theater this year, I do suggest going to watch it just for a fun romp and a few great fight scenes. I enjoyed the movie overall and hope that if and when there is a third, that it is back up to par with the first.

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, let’s get on with the SPOILER TALK! The following is my spoiler minefield for Iron Man 2 so step through it and don’t forget to drop a few mines of your own at the end of the post in our comments section.