Uh oh, Pepper looks pissed. And Tony looks alone. What happened to all his friends?

Garry Shandling makes his big debut as Senator Stern, so Tony mocks him, naturally.

See Tony is alone. Empty chairs. Empty soul. It's lonely at the top.

But wait, it's Rhodey, he's back...and he looks pissed. And who's that to Rhodey's left? It's Sam Rockwell, as Justin Hammer. Did they walk in together? And where did Pepper go? Where's Happy?

Same sexual chemistry between Pepper and Tony, check. But then again I think RDJ is so charming he could have chemistry with a lamp post... lucky lamp post.

Iron Man is America, and a rock star. And look in the background — it's the Iron Man dancers, thus proving the slutty Halloween rule to be true: any outfit can be made whorish.

These gloves could very well be the best little party favors ever. Please hand these out at Comic Con!

Whiplash is obsessed. See? See? He has newspaper clippings. And newspaper clipping are to stalkers what glasses are to shy mousy girls with a hot girl dying to get out inside: stereotypical. But let's assume that since he's spent so much time cataloguing the family story, that this grudge may go way, way back. Since he's had time to make a scrap book.

Who hit Tony?

The garage is all cleaned up and stocked with new rich guy toys. Bruce Wayne who?

What is happening to Tony's neck?

Yikes it's spreading. Tony is literally turning into an Iron Man. Also, he could be turning into a human computer, which has happened in the Iron Man comics before.

More Justin Hammer, and in perfect timing with Whiplash's "shark" comment.

Nick Fury just wants to get motherfucking Tony onto the motherfucking team.

More Iron Man-ettes. I suspect this may be a banner year for the cosplay fans.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff in her Black Widow "business casual" attire.

War Machine prototype!

Is the Black Widow working for Rhodey? Is that her in the background?

Black Widow in her ass kicking attire, is she beating up Happy? I bet Jon Favreau just loved that.

Whiplash finally shows us what his lightsaber whips can do — which is break Tony's car.

Which he does.

I'm still not sold on the Whiplash outfit, but it does look pretty bad ass from behind.

Uh oh — will Tony be Whiplashed in half, or will the bad guy just show off some more? Answer: Show off.

Whiplash has nasty metal mouth.

What is this flying contraption? It looks like it's shooting at Iron Man? Multiple Mecha suits?

A first look at War Machine, and Tony's new suit, with a triangle chest plate. Is this due to the metal veins? Also the background is filled with power suits, almost like an Armor War...

War Machine and Tony fight other mechas and you get a faceful of War Machines shoulder gun, and Tony's fully reconstructed suit, Mark VI. Very nice. So who thinks they are filming the Armor Wars story?

Hit up the link for the trailer in all its HD glory and tell me that you didn't drool a little bit too. [Apple —Thanks, Marco!]

Designed by Frenchman Charles Teyssier, the "Caffe Inn" concept is purely aesthetic, offering little in the way of improvements on the tried and true espresso machine formula. It does, however, remind me of Iron Man, and that's enough. [Design Blog]

The full suit comes in three sizes, with the largest weighing 50lbs (though it seems you don't notice that when you're wearing it). It now looks like single and two leg versions will rent for about $1570 and $2300 per month.

Despite the tests, Cyberdyne still won't say when the HAL suit will reach the greater public. Check out the vid, the future looks super strange. [HPlus Magazine]

Older video showing the suit can help users lift up to 10x the weight they normally could:

That bad guy is creepy—like a cross between M. Bison and this dude I saw on the cover of an anime in Blockbuster when I was 5 and gave me nightmares for a while and Guyver.

The show's for the Japanese market by the animation giant Madhouse, so except for Iron Man looking like Iron Man and beating ass, it won't be a whole lot like the all-American Iron Man we know. Still, I seriously hope they consider re-importing it so I don't have to download fansubs.

But uh, don't <a href="even ask what they're doing to Wolverine. It's just better that way. [Topless Robot via Technabob]

Robert Downey Jr. appears to be taking a break here, wearing only the top half of the suit, but it's still cool to see how he actually gets the thing on in a candid shot from the set. [People via Ain't It Cool News]

Director Jon Favreau says that Iron Man 2 will take place six months after Tony Stark tells the world that he's Iron Man, and they want "play with idea" of a superhero who's open about his identity. "But it obviously has consequences-in his relationships, on the team. There are a lot of areas we can explore." Yes, like what if all of his suits got together and formed a dance troupe?

In the photo we see the original suit used to break out of his hellish imprisonment, his Mark II armor and two sets of the Mark III—the old and busted one from fighting Iron Monger and a brighter, shinier one that's all cleaned up. I know I've still got Terminator, Star Trek and Harry Potter and Transformers this summer, but I want Iron Man 2 to come out now. [USA Today]

The Pre-likeness goes beyond the shape and style of the slider—the front panel is touch-sensitive too. Besides that it's got 3G, Wi-Fi, a high-res camera and a "screamin' CPU." Okay, I'm starting to the like the idea of Android running on this a bit more. And besides, given Tony Stark's fondness for dinky LG handsets in the movie, maybe he would use this. What kind of phone do you think Tony would use, anyway? [Boy Genius]

[Thanks Karl]

There aren't a whole lot of movies from this crop that astound us, so these three capture the landscape of 2008's special effects fairly well. Which one should win? [Oscar]

And a second bonus poll.

The trades are powering up the speculation, regarding Jon Favreau’s next Iron Man installation. Rumors have it Mickey Rourke is on board to play the Crimson Dynamo (which has been reported as a character in supposed casting calls). Which would mean get ready to see Rourke power armor clad beating the crap out of Iron Man.

The Hollywood Reporter says they've heard rumors that Rourke could also be up for the role of Whiplash, but many entertainment sites are standing by the Dynamo reporting.

Sam Rockwell is rumored to be portraying Justin Hammer, the bazillionaire rival of Tony Stark. Similar to Stark, Hammer is a genius and has his fingers in hundreds of gadgety pies. So he's smart, rich and well equipped, just like Tony, but he makes his money from criminals.

[Variety]

• Repulsor Air - Blows air with CO2 air pump on hip and hose back to his hand.
• Repulsor Missile - Using CO2 air pump can also launch a paper missile.
• Repulsor Sensor/Light - A magnetic switch sensor lights his repulsor hand light and fades out and in his glowing eyes. Arduino handles this effect.
• Repulsor Sound Effect(s) - Originally not working. Worked around problem by using right-mouse, middle-mouse button and configured Elightenment17 to playback sound effects using Mplayer script. Mouse buttons activated by Arduino Digital output triggered by sensors.
• Arc Reactor - A LED night light from Costco embedded in his chest.
• BeagleBoard: Powerful Computer - With BeagleBoard already running in JARVUS box on my son's back need to add other features. Possibilities: Web cam, mobile router with hotspot and a head-mounted display, VoIP, streaming video of Iron Man view.
• Arduino: Super Input/Output Board - Handles repulsor effects but can add other sensors to enable even cooler special effects!!

And in the off chance that the LED arc reactor ever fails, we hear the suit is powered by backup generators that run on pure adorableness. [Nice job Enrique!]

To get a look at Kill Bill and The Bourne Ultimatum, head on over to Antrepo's site. [Antrepo via TrendsNow]

More seriously, the rush to download Iron Man BD-Live content from Paramount left many consumers completely unable to download the content contained on Paramount's servers. The standstills got so bad that the hapless Paramount was forced to issue a statement on the server snafu:

"The Iron Man Blu-ray went on sale Tuesday and due to the overwhelming popularity of the release an unprecedented demand was placed on the BD-Live connection. The disc represents a truly state-of-the art Blu-ray presentation with a first of its kind BD-Live application. As such, the heavy amount of traffic strained the servers due to so many people heading to the same destination.

The bandwidth capacity was increased in preparation for the release but the demand exceeded all expectations so capacity was expanded dramatically last night and local servers were established worldwide to accommodate all the fans. The issue should be completely resolved but if anyone experiences a brief traffic jam, we have provided consumers with a menu option during disc startup that allows them to go directly to the movie main menu or continue to download the BD-Live features."

I suppose this is one of those "good problems to have," because it shows the popularity of the title (and Blu-ray? Maybe?), while at the same time "educating" Paramount on what not to do with the sequel. Or maybe it's just a straight up problem—you decide. [High Def Digest]