Director Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 has added a new cast member in the form of James Badge Dale.
Reports are stating that the character he will be playing is a villain called Savin. Most likely this will be a version of Lt Col Eric Savin, who, in Marvel Comics lore, was an Army officer assigned to a top secret project only to find himself the subject of its cybernetic experiments after he stepped on a land mine and had part of his body blown off.
(FBOL Comic Book Editor William Gatevackes disagrees with the assessment that character is a villain and considers the character “more of an antihero.”)
A relatively minor character, Savin, or Coldblood-7 as he became known post-cybernetic implants, appeared in only a handful of storylines and was last seen in making a cameo in Marvel’s big Civil War crossover in 2006. He was not part of the Extremis storyline that Iron Man 3 seems to be deriving part of its story from, but it is not hard to imagine how the character’s story could be slightly altered to replace the cybernetic technology with the nanotechnology that will be used here.
I do have a bit of a concern about yet another villainous character being added into the film’s mix. We already have two amoral scientists in the form of Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall who are the ones who created the plot’s nanotechnology and set it free. Plus, we have Ben Kingsley in an unnamed role which rumor has will be the long time Iron Man villain the Mandarin. Is there room for any more bad guys?
Production begins on the sequel next month in North Carolina with franchise cast Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle all set to return. The film hits theaters in May 2013.
