Game Revolution posted an early preview for the upcoming Iron Man 2 video game tie-in, which is trying to distance itself from the awful Iron Man 1 tie-in game. The Iron Man 2 game will supposedly act as a companion piece with the movie, rather than a re-hashed playthrough of the film's story.

In their report, the developers would only discuss and confirm one villain from the game: The Crimson Dynamo.

What's so special about that? Well, when news of Mickey Rourke's possible involvement with Iron Man 2 first starting spreading, there was a lot of talk and speculation that he would be playing a Russian villain, whose description seemingly pointed towards The Crimson Dynamo as Iron Man's next dance partner.

“Rourke is in discussions to play a villain described as Tony Stark’s Russian alter ego, a heavily tattooed bruiser who is in the arms trade and battles Iron Man in his own nuclear-powered armored suit.”

Later, when Rourke officially signed for the role, his role wasn't so clear as half of the reports explained that he would be playing the character of Whiplash and the other half were unclear or still speculating he would be The Crimson Dynamo.

It was eventually confirmed that Whiplash would be the featured villain of Iron Man 2 and that his on-screen incarnation would sort of be a combination of Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo, from what director Jon Favreau described, in that he'd be designed after Whiplash, only as a  Russian. The first official image of Mickey Rourke in costume as Whiplash hit the web soon after:

Mickey Rourke as Whiplash in Iron Man 2 570px

The photo above is from the race track scene where Tony Stark is ambushed by Whiplash. As you can image, speculation began that this costume in the pic above might just be the first version we see in the film, as Rourke is obviously not armored at all and probably couldn't do much against Iron Man's latest suits.

So, what would Whiplash's full-on armored suit look like? Well, a preview comic for Iron Man 2 got solicited on Marvel's official website and it featured the following piece of artwork of an armored variant of Whiplash to be featured in the comic.

Continue to pg. 2 for the first images of The Crimson Dynamo...

Armored Whiplash in Iron Man 2

That fully armored Whiplash certainly looks more menacing, but is that all we'll be seeing from the villain? There were still some who thought that we'd see Mickey Rourke play the unarmored Whiplash earlier in the film and later, possibly with the help from Sam Rockwell's character Justin Hammer, we'd see Rourke get suited up in a heavy-duty suit and go by the name of The Crimson Dynamo.

If the video game previews hitting the web are any indication, that latter bit of speculation may pan out to be fact. Attached to early reports of the video game were several images including the following two of The Crimson Dynamo:

Iron Man 2 Crimson Dynamo
Iron Man 2 Crimson Dynamo Armor

I think it's a cool adaptation of the comic version of the character. Could this be the final version of Mickey Rourke's character in the film?

What do you think about the villains and Iron Man 2 and the possibility of seeing The Crimson Dynamo?

Iron Man 2 stars Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sam Rockwell. It opens May 7, 2010 and we'll be there.

Source: Game Revolution