Entertainment Weekly’s new Comic Con preview issue is out this Friday and one of the goodies that it holds is our very first look at Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Jon Favreau’s mega-sequel Iron Man 2. Click the image to go larger, and head over to EW for a look at the cover that features stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, and Johansson.
The image is pretty basic, but fans of the comic and the character alike will be itching to get a peek and compare how Johansson stacks up as the Widow — an assassin who is also known as Natasha Romanova and gets a job as Tony Stark’s new assistant after Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is promoted to CEO of Stark Industries. As expected, some fairly thick jealousies begin to make their presence known.
The article also touches on some more in-depth character details. Odd-couple villains Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who is described as “a fast-talking weapons manufacturer who fancies himself the next Tony Stark,” and Rourke’s “Vanko, who, while incarcerated in a Russian prison, creates his own battle-suit, which shoots devastating, whip-like beams,” will team up to try and take down Tony Stark.
Rourke wanted to add a little humor to his character, so he made a little suggestion to his director:
I told Favreau, ‘I don’t want to just play him as a one-dimensional prick. He let me have a cockatoo, who I talk to and get drunk with while I’m making my suit.
Iron Man 2 is set for a May 7, 2010 release date.
