Have The Iron Man II Villians Been Revealed?

Today I received a blurb from a little casting birdy that revealed the casting breakdown for Iron Man 2. This is the first casting breakdown that has been released for the film and it reveals a few things that lend themselves to strong theory.

It goes without saying that SPOILERS FOLLOW!

BEWARE! THE SPOILERS COULD BE HUGE!

I’M SERIOUS!

OKAY? STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT A HINT OF IRON MAN 2 BADGUYNESS!

But it’s obvious that you do… so here goes, copied from the original casting breakdown:

[MALE LEAD] 30s, Eastern European, brilliant, gritty…

[FEMALE LEAD] 20s, beautiful, speaks several languages fluently and is 
equally proficient in martial arts…

[BRUISER] Russian, 20s or 30s, at least 6’2″, able to perform own 
stunts, has the build of a MMA fighter…

Okay… does the role of BRUISER officially confirm the inclusion of The Crimson Dynamo?

It’s a safe bet that we will see this guy laying some MMA/robot suit smackdown on Tony. But what about the other two characters?

The recent Invincible Iron Man written by Matt Fraction had a pretty cool storyline involving suicide bombers with Obadiah Stane’s son Ezekiel Stane targeting Stark Enterprises for revenge. Obviously, this run could work really well as a sequel to the first Iron Man because Obadiah’s kid would definitely have reason for getting revenge on Stark (maybe you should have kept that identity secret after all, Tony) and in the Fraction series, Ezekiel IS aided by a female Asian tech tech specialist.

But Ezekiel Stane is NOT an Eastern European. He’s a bio-engineered freak, having performed many techno-upgrades to his own body until he is less man than machine. Are we going to see elements of this in the new Iron Man 2 villain? Maybe. It definitely doesn’t sound like The Mandarin to me.

The techno-suicide bombing storyline is in line with the terrorist/Mandarin subplot of the first film. Imagine an updated Mandarin, with the 10 rings being different terrorist factions. What other modern day enemy could an ex-arms manufacturer like Tony Stark ask for? It’s like Rocky in Rocky 2 having to put the gloves back on to fight all over again. So far, I definitely approve and am excited.

But those are only my initial geek thoughts. Now it’s your turn. What do you guys think? Did you love the original as much as I did?