What's happening? We're introduced to the classic villain The Scarecrow, only not the nightmare-inducing DC version but a crappy contortionist version. As escape artist turned burglar, The Uncanny Umberto dons a scarecrow outfit and robs Tony Stark of some Transistor-powered plans. (I am NOT shitting you.) Umberto decides to extort Stark to get the plans back but doublecrosses him and makes for Cuba where his genius and style of dress will surely win him friends. Scarecrow meets up with some Cuban militants in the ocean north of Cuba to sell the transistor-flavored plans, but Tony switches into Iron Man in time to foil the whole thing. While Shellhead is sinking banana boats and being a nuisance to the militants, Hayhead is pulled on to Cuba by his pet crows. Tony returns to America where he forces Happy and Pepper to go on a date while Scarecrow is left on some dark beach in Cuba to consider his plight.
The all-important plans are recovered, so don't stress about that.
ETC: The Great Umberto is not a great mind. After helping Iron Man stop a robbery in the beginning, he decides he would make a great villain. After all, no lock or chains can bar him and his contortionist skill is basically a super power... right? So, after bragging about what a great lockpicker he is, Umberto smashes open the window of a costume shop to steal a Scarecrow outfit. He also steals some trained crows from another sideshow act and uses them as his extremely loyal henchbirds.
After robbing Tony of the plans, he tries to extort him, steals the briefcase of cash (which is actually a briefcase with some ... crap Iron Man uses to save the day) then tries to sell the plans to Communists from Cuba. I'm not against anyone trying to be anything but the very best they can be at whatever it is they do, but damn, Umberto, maybe you should have started with a little B-and-E and worked your way up to convoluted multinational espionage.
MIA: The Uncanny Umberto's understanding of sports apparently. When the robber in the opening scene ducks Iron Man by running into Umberto's show and interrupting things, Umberto rolls himself into a ball (contortionist style) and bowls the thief over. He uses that term exactly. "Bowl him over." He knocks the thug over, much like a bowling ball knocks over a pin. The metaphor is obvious, right? No. Instead, Umberto says, "Strike three! You're out!" THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE!
MVP: The crows. These guys are clutch as shit. They whip Iron Man by dropping a drapery on him and tripping him with some rope. They also create an excellent diversion to keep Iron Man out of the way while Scarecrow kicks Happy's ass and robs Tony blind. They did much more than that. So much, in fact, they probably should have broke out on their own and left the deadweight of the Great Umberto behind.
WTF: Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment