The Iron Man 2 Comic-Con Panel: A Live Blog

So I'm inside Hall H again, this time having just witnessed more CGI destruction than my already-addled brain can handle with Sony's 2012 panel. (Q: "Why do you keep destroying the planet?" Roland Emmerich: "Because I love it!") Now up is Iron Man 2, which I'll live blog, for your sitting-around-hearing-me-talk-about-something-you'd-rather-be-watching-for-yourself pleasure.

4:40 Everyone stands up to leave the stage, and receive loud cheers and a standing ovation from the crowd. A tip of the hat to the 12-year-old kid in the knit cap who gushed at the mic, thanking "everyone responsible for this orgasmic endeavor." He kind of summed up the overarching sentiment in the room better than I ever could.

4:38 We close out with an even more obscure/self-serving question asking Don Cheadle to compare his role in Iron Man 2 to his part playing villain Goldilocks in legendary Robert Townsend flop Meteor Man. Cheadle pretends not to know what the questioner is talking about.

4:37 One of the last questions is the requisite, "You did blackface in Tropic Thunder, therefore were you in consideration to replace Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2?"-type zinger that Downey Jr. must now weather at every press conference for the remainder of his career. He fakes finding it amusing very convincingly.

4:34 They take a few more questions from the audience. This one dude is annoyingly EMPHATIC ABOUT HOW WE ALL NEED TO GIVE THE AUTHOR OF IRON MAN BOB LAYTON HIS DUE. A smattering of reluctant applause. What do you know -- Bob Layton is here! Why don't we bring him up on stage to take a bow. (This all feels a little staged.) None of the superstars on the panel seem too excited.

4:32 Audience is whooped up into a frenzy.

4:31 Smash-cut to War Machine, seriously BAD. ASS. Artillery flying out of him from every hole and crevice. Not clear here if its Cheadle or Rockwell in the suit, but man -- what a shot to go out on. Smash to title card a second time and release date.

4:30 But wait! There's more. Airport hangar: Cheadle's Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes meets Rockwell's Justin Hammer, who's showing him an array of weaponry for sale. Rhodey says he'll take them all.

4:29 Smash cut to title logo.

4:28 Sky battle scene, in suit. Iron Man is being bombarded with projectiles in the air -- he gets hit by one. As exhilarating as the best airborne sequences in the first. If you're wondering where the Black Widow is in all this, there's very little ScarJo in the trailer. You see her crawling in a quick shot, in the skin-tight suit. She looks hot.

4:27 The showdown on the racetrack between Whiplash and Iron Man. Tony Stark, sans suit, lays prostrate on the ground as Whiplash approaches, cracking his two whip-extension thingies menacingly with both arms as electricity runs throughout his suit and out the ends of the whips. The electricity is white.

4:26 OK more detail from the trailer: You see Whiplash constructing his suit behind bars. No sign of drunk cockatoos.

4:24 Don Cheadle asks for them to replay the trailer. They do.

4:22 Someone asks Downey what it was like working with Mickey Rourkey. He replied, "I thought I was eccentric."

4:18 Scarlett Johansson is on the panel (as is Sam Rockwell and Don Cheadle). She's asked if she had to audition -- she didn't -- and Favreau says her body of work was her audition.

4:17 Jon Favreau confirms Avengers movie will get made (after Thor and Captain America) but a young questioner from the audience asks if he'll direct it. He defers, saying he still has a year left to go on Iron Man 2.

4:12 Preview ends. Footage -- possibly the trailer? -- looks great. [SPOILERS] Starts with Stark cradled inside the Randy's Donuts donut, as Sam Jackson/Nick Fury approaches. Next is a long sequence at a congressional hearing, with Stark pit against Garry Shandling. Hilarious back-and-forth banter, as Shandling's character insists he give over the suit, and Stark insisting its a prosthetic device. "I am Iron Man. Iron Man is me. If you want the suit, you get me too -- its tantamount to indentured servitude, or prostitution in some states." Pepper Potts looks on disapprovingly.

4:06 After leading the crowd in "Happy Birthday to You" for Favreau's 8-year-old son, they roll the REAL footage.

4:05 They roll a really lame clip of B-roll. Robert Downey Jr. comes out (crowd goes wild) and he complains, "What was that unadulterated garbage?! This is bullshit, dude! You showed me better stuff in the edit room!" Crowd goes wild again.

4:04 Jon Favreau emerges, and gets a standing ovation.

4:00 The panel host has emerged -- some goofy dude from Access Hollywood -- and received an enthusiastic round of boos from the crowd. (He made few friends administering a verbal hummer of apocalyptic proportions to Emmerich just minutes before.)