Will Iron Man’s Realism Clash with The Avengers Universe?

Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr addresses his concerns about the announced superhero team-up movie The Avengers in a new interview with MTV:

“If we don’t get it right, it’s really going to suck. It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel’s best and brightest, because it’s the hardest thing to get right. It’s tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters,” Downey tells MTV, later adding: “The danger you run with colliding all these worlds is that Jon was very certain that “Iron Man” should be set in a very realistic way. Nothing that happened in Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion.”

It’s good to see that Robert has a good grasp on the material. The concerns he has mentioned are the same things that have worried me since the ultimate Marvel team-up movie was first announced. And before comic book fans comment — yes, I am well aware that The Avengers has worked in comic book form for years. I’m currently reading The Ultimates, and it works tremendously. But I think the world that Favreau set-up in the first Iron Man film has very different rules than say the world of The Fantastic Four, or the world that might be introduced in Thor. While the Iron Monger may have been somewhat fantastical, he was still rooted in reality, as is the entire film. It will be interesting to see how Marvel will work this out.