I AM IRON MAN on Fighting Monkey Press

Photo by Jimmi Kilduff.
Image by Dave Youmans.

Yesterday the second of my guest posts appeared on Pavarti's site. This one is significantly less spiritual in content, but still speaks to my heart and holds a connection to the debut of Pav's novel, Shadow on the Wall. She invited anyone who was willing to ruminate on superheroes to write up a bit of an argument for the supremacy of a particular one, and initially assumed I'd contribute something about my dear Batman.

What no one (I mean - no one) knows is that the first superhero comic I owned was actually an Iron Man one. I thought it would be interesting to make an argument not for Bats, but for the closest thing Marvel has as an analogue to him. A bit of my case for Tony Stark:

"On his own, Tony Stark is the power fantasy even without his miraculous suit – rich, brilliant and irresponsible. Robert Downey Jr.’s irrepressible id in a nutshell. Ah, but that shell! The added armor of Iron Man actually strips some of that power away, even as it introduces the ability to fly and repel bullets. It turns Tony into so much the archetype of a man, it’s astonishing that we tolerate such blatant analogy, much less hunger for more."

You can read the full, but brief, argument here: I am Iron Man. While you're there, check out the other arguments thus far for the likes of Wonder Woman, Wolverine and, yes, the Batman himself.

Was I Naked? Did I Speak?

These are the two questions I immediately ask anyone who tells me they've dreamed of me. I've been asking them since college, though I can't remember exactly why I started. (In all probability, it had to do with someone once dreaming of me as a silent ninja [true story {I used to wear a lot of black}] and the other bit . . . because, you know: college.) At any rate, it's been quite a while since anyone other than Wife Megan has mentioned to me of a dream-me paying a visit, but last week someone did. And I was quite taken with the dream.

I'll leave the analysis to you, Dear Reader, both of the dream and of my particular affection for it. I will say this about that, though - I'm certainly in a place in my life wherein I am coming to appreciate a good plan.

Without further adoobie doobie do:

"You dominated a dream of mine last night. 

"I was holding a party in my apartment, although, as dreams often do, the apartment was larger and more elaborate and in fact looked nothing like where I now live.  Anyway, I was 'holding' it, but you had organized it.  And it was remarkable what you did.  There were teams of enthusiastic helpers and functionaries, none of whom I had seen before.  They all had specific jobs in rooms with specific purposes.  There was a dessert room overseen by a very beautiful French woman and her very handsome boyfriend who was not French, but only ever spoke French so I didn't get an idea of where he might have been from.  There was a beverage room with very jolly bald men in charge.  There were rooms upon rooms of buffets manned by unfamiliar actors, except that [NAMELESS DEAR KOOKY FRIEND] somehow snuck in amongst them.  The entire scheme was so elaborate that you had painted arrows and directions wittily worded onto the carpets with some kind of durable but removable spray paint.  Then behind all this in a small room with a window, you sat with sleeve garters and a humorously improvised visor, like from some Dickensian novel, with electronic gear in hand that communicated with your empire, and another one of those jolly bald men as your assistant. 

"The only thing the party seemed to have lacked were guests.  But maybe I woke up before it started. 

"Thanks for all your hard work. I hope you got some sleep in spite of it."