Fin Fang Foom To Cameo in Iron Man 2

According to ScreenRant, Marvel’s most aristocratic giant monster, the Great Dragon Fin Fang Foom, will be making an appearance in Iron Man 2 (US-2010; dir. Jon Favreau).

Don’t get too excited though, as he will only be there as an “Easter Egg”, hidden in the background of one scene — a sort of tribute to the fans. Iron Man 2’s lead conceptual artist, Adi Granov, is reported as saying:

This was my design for Fin Fang Foom for the Iron Man Viva Las Vegas book I was doing with Jon Favreau. But this image in particular was done for the IM movie and used as a billboard in one of the scenes where Iron Man flies past it. It’s very quick, but Jon wanted to have a kind of a cool easter egg in there. (SuperRobotMayhem)

Though he began life in a solo story in Strange Tales, Foom also appeared in the Iron Man, Thor and Fantastic Four storylines. As all these are currently existing or in-development film franchises, perhaps the Great Dragon will pop-up on-screen as a character yet, especially as Marvel is reportedly leading up to a mammoth mash-up project featuring the Avengers.

Fin Fang Foom featured in a two-part Undead Backbrain special in April 2008 (“He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains”) and in fact the Backbrain managed to interview him in a now-demolished restaurant in Sydney’s Chinatown. You should check it out, if you haven’t come across it before.

Anyway, curious about this recent news, I tried getting hold of Foom using an archaic landline number his agent sent me after the interview appeared back in 2008, and to my surprise  I got through. Below is a transcript of our conversation.

Undead Backbrain: Is that you, your Royal Foomness?

Foom: Who else would it be, you pathetic creature? Eragon?

Backbrain: You know Eragon?

Foom: I ate Eragon over a year ago. All those artificial ingredients gave me indigestion for a week. What d’you want, fool? You disturbed my perfectly enjoyable re-enactment of the destruction of New York…. in New York.

Backbrain: There’s a rumour going around that you might be going to appear in a future Marvel Superhero movie — Iron Man 3 perhaps. Or the Thor movie? Is it true?

Foom: It might be. If I told you I’d have to come ’round and tear your guts out to feed to my starving minions.

Backbrain: The design work for your background cameo in Iron Man 2 has you looking very metallic. What’s the story there?

Foom: Background cameo? What are you talking about?

Backbrain: Apparently Iron Man does a fly-by of a billboard that has your likeness on it.

Foom: Rot and damnable libel. Who told you this?

Backbrain: It came from a guy named Adi Granov. He worked on the Iron Man 2 film.

Foom: Hmmm. If it’s true, it’s a copyright infringement. I have to go.

Backbrain: Go? But —

Foom: I intend to speak to my lawyer.

Backbrain: And then what?

Foom: I’m going to tread on the fool. Then I’m going to pay a visit to a certain conceptual artist. Purely a social call, I assure you.

Backbrain: Oh. Listen, don’t tell him you were speaking to me. Okay.

Foom: Where did you say you were ringing from? I’d like to chat with you face-to-face about your role in propagating this slander.

Backbrain: Um, a few kilometres south of the North Pole. Gotta go now.

Foom: [Indecipherable cursing]

I hope he doesn’t read this blog….

• Source: via Avery. Really, Mr Foom, it’s Avery’s fault, not mine. I had nothing to do with it. I was an innocent victim.