Comic books are big business. Hell, they're doing so well that they're giving the things away. The king of the comic business, Marvel, is so flush that they decided that instead of letting big movie studios buy the rights to their stories, they'd expand the movie arm of their operation into a full-fledged studio and just make them on their own. And if anyone doubted the studio's ability to make that leap, their first effort, Iron Man, should be enough to erase all doubts.

Iron Man might not be the equal of some of the better recent super-hero efforts; it lacks the visual style and razor-sharp writing of a Batman Begins or a Spider-Man 2. But considering the glossy train-wrecks that the majority of films in the genre end up becoming, it's a deep breath of exhilerating fresh air. Consistently entertaining, with engaging performances, a briskly paced plot, and just enough action to satisfy the 15 year old boys but not so much that anyone else is going to start yawning every time something blows up.

Marvel's smartest decisions were perhaps the mostly unlikely. First off, casting Robert Downey Jr. in a super-hero role that a dumber studio might have recast as a younger actor, no matter what the source material indicated, was a stroke of brilliance. Tony Stark, the genius at both mechanical engineering and business at the center of Iron Man is, we'll be honest, kind of a bastard. Downey is perfect for the blend of smug self-confidence and annoying snark the role demands. Yet Downey is also enough of a performer to drill down to the gooey, vulnerable center of the character that only comes out after his near-mortal wounding (at the hands of a weapon he designed) and subsequent capture and torture by a band of terrorists bent on using Stark's skills to build them a weapon. Stark, of course, instead builds himself the suit that makes him a hero.

The other surprise is Jon Favreau. The only other action flick on his directing résumé is the lackluster kiddie movie Zathura, so he'd seem an unlikely choice. But Favreau takes an unusual approach to the material, draining it of the usual hyper-stylization that overpowers most superhero movies until it has a remarkably realistic feel. At least, as realistic as a movie about a billionaire who can single-handedly manufacture a flying metal suit of armor is going to be. Favreau is also able to play up the humor without ever getting cartoonish; and his expertise at humanizing the height of male douchebaggery (he did write Swingers, after all) pays off in his ability to move Stark from cold-hearted celebrity womanizer to an untiring (but still ragingly egotistical) do-gooder.

Iron Man does suffer a little from the standard origin story fatigue that is often a problem with the first film in any hero franchise. So much time is spent setting up the reason why the hero comes into being that the actual plot of the movie separate from that can feel a little tacked on. The movie also leans heavily on the movies' go-to Communist threat for the 21st century: terrorists of indefinite nationality and political affiliation. Stark's captors are an international crew who pick him up after attacking a military convoy in Afghanistan, but don’t seem to be linked up in any substantive way to a government or an ideology. They're dirty, disgusting, and largely dumb folks who don't speak much English, so they must be the bad guys. But even if its politics in that respect are blatantly xenophobic, the film does take a leftist anti-war kick pretty early on. There's a constant tug-of-war between the ideologies of arming oneself to the teeth to keep the peace, and alternative paths to avoid conflict. While the film's treatment of the debate is never very sophisticated, it's a somewhat more sophisticated film for the attempt.

But no one's really going to Iron Man for the political discourse anyway. It's an early summer action movie, and on that scale, it delivers handily. Downey's supporting cast is as excellent as he is, particularly Jeff Bridges as his increasingly estranged mentor/business partner and Gwyneth Paltrow as the requisite spunky assistant-turned-love-interest. But that's just the people. Fanboys and girls are undoubtedly wondering, "What about the suit??" Fear not, for the suit is just as cool as you imagine it, but never becomes more of a character than the guy wearing it, which for any movie of this kind, is an accomplishment all by itself.