The career resurrection of Mickey Rourke could be complete if Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are to be believed.  Both are reporting that Rourke is in talks to play the baddie in "Iron Man 2".  This would be great for Rourke (and for us because the guy can act) because it's one thing to make a comeback; it's another to make it stick. 

Variety is reporting that Rourke is in talks to play the character of Crimson Dynamo, 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.  I don't know if they would update that since Nuclear-power is sort of old-fashioned.  If the character is Russian, maybe he can make a suit that runs on corruption.  Then, Tony could make his suit run on alcoholism and together they could put aside their differences to solve the world's energy crisis.  Variety is also reporting that Sam Rockwell is in talks to play a second villain because moviegoers just won't pay to see just one villain in a sequel (please ignore "Spider-Man 2").

But THR is reporting a very different story.  They agree that Rourke is playing a Russian (is it 1982 and no one told me) but that he'll be playing Whiplash who has fought Iron Man in Ultimate Iron Man #2.  I'd give more credence to Variety, not because of their journalistic integrity, but because Crimson Dynamo has a longer mythos to draw from and fans like to see established villains instead of new upstarts (even if Iron Man does have a weak rogues gallery).  As for Rockwell, THR says he's playing Justin Hammer, a multibillionaire businessman and a rival of Stark.  I hope this part of the story is true because I'd rather see Stark have a real-world foe and a super-powered foe rather than take on two villains at once at the expense of character development (as is so often the case).