The Muppet Christmas Carol is a Real-Life Iron Man 2

If it's Christmas Eve I'm talking Marvel movies, you might expect me to focus on “Iron Man 3.” After all, it was co-written and directed by Shane Black, which is another way of saying the movie takes place at Christmastime.

But we're going to sidestep the whole question of whether a movie taking place during Christmas is enough to qualify it as a Christmas movie, because “Iron Man 2” doesn't and isn't. But my favorite Christmas movie helped me finally get past my biggest problem with “Iron Man 2.”

The sequel came out in the early formative years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Iron Man,” in 2008, was an excellent kickoff to this now-gargantuan franchise, but it wasn't yet clear just how significant it was. I mean, we had “X-Men,” “Spider-Man,” “X2” and “Spider-Man 2,” so a successful Marvel movie and sequel weren't foreign territory. What hinted at the unprecedented future was the appearance of Nick Fury* in the mid-credits scene and the presence of Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark in a similar scene in “The Incredible Hulk” a month-and-a-half later. A shared movie universe was growing.

Could “Iron Man 2” continue building that, with the introduction of Black Widow? Would it follow the upward trajectory of Spidey and the X-Men before it?

In my opinion, no. It looked promising. Jon Favreau was back in the director's chair. You had resurgent Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell doing double villain duty in place of the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges. Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard as Rhodey was awkward off-screen but seemed more of a lateral move on, plus now we got War Machine. With the aforementioned Scarlett Johansson joining the cast, we had another foundational Avenger in the mix.

The idea of the arc reactor that kept Stark alive slowly killing him was solid. But it was the solution to that problem that really shook my confidence in what was, while not on the same level as the original, still an enjoyable movie.

The arc reactor in “Iron Man” was a project of his father, Howard, that Tony took to the next level. Apparently, his dad was also aware that the palladium that helped make the device work was not a sustainable ingredient. That is what's killing Tony and making him more reckless to the dismay of Rhodey, Pepper and S.H.I.E.L.D., in the form of the aforementioned Fury and Black Widow, with lovable Agent Phil Coulson also along for the ride.

The elder Stark's solution for this was an element that did not yet exist. He couldn't make it, but he knew the atomic structure, or something, and hid it in the design of the Stark Expo, which Tony just happened to be reviving at the start of this particular movie. It's a bit of a smaller scale “National Treasure”-esque reveal that feels incredibly forced. Tony winds up making the element, even using a prototype of Captain America's shield in an easier-to-spot Easter egg than the first movie.

It culminates when he puts the new element – which I don't think is ever named – in a new arc reactor that starts glowing, prompting Tony to say it tastes like coconut before shouting “Oh, wow, yeah!” The screen goes white, and we move on to the climax.

This confused me for a long time. So, his dad just happened to come up with the building blocks for this new element that would just happen to save his son's life years later? Eventually, I realized the problems were linked because both men were trying to solve the arc reactor puzzle. But it still felt awfully contrived and convenient and almost like Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux were saying, “Well, you see, science and family” as the explanation.

Downey, Cheadle, Rockwell and Jackson all make it sound great, and Johansson eventually settles in as Black Widow, launching to greater heights in subsequent movies. I still view “Iron Man 2” as one of the low points of the MCU, along with “The Incredible Hulk” and “Thor: The Dark World.” And yet, I will gladly pop any of those movies into the DVD player while I'm doing stuff around the house or just to watch every now and then and enjoy.

But eventually, I was able to overcome my reservations about the mystery element by realizing that my favorite yuletide movie – “The Muppet Christmas Carol” – is an example of that plot playing out in real life.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say my primary exposure to Charles Dickens' classic story was the version starring Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck and shown on TV every year. So when I saw this 1992 version directed by Jim Henson's son Brian with Kermit as Bob Cratchitt, Gonzo as Dickens himself and renowned Muppet Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, that's what I was comparing it to.

I'm not a die-hard Muppet fan. I enjoy and appreciate them, but I've seen very little of “The Muppet Show,” and the primary reason I own “The Muppets” on Blu ray, aside from fulfilling my obligations to the Disney Movie Club, is Amy Adams. So the reason their Christmas Carol is so close to my heart and an annual December must-watch is because it genuinely cracks me up and, yes, touches my heart.

Seeing it at age 12, I had the impression that this was much closer to the source material than the Mickey Mouse version. And in many cases, it was, but I didn't know that for sure until I actually read the book in high school or college.

When Gonzo-as-Dickens said the story started with “The Marleys were dead, to begin with,” I believed him. But that wasn't quite how it went. The actual book starts with, “Marley was dead: to begin with.” There was only one Marley, Jacob, in the original story. Somehow I had become convinced that there were two Marleys, Jacob and Robert, and the Disney version had combined them into one character played by Goofy. The Muppet incarnation, I thought, restored this inaccuracy and cast the relentless hecklers Statler and Waldorf in the roles.

False. And even when I finally realized I was mistaken, it still took me too many years to understand how they settled on the name of the second brother. Robert. Bob. Bob Marley.

Look, I also disliked “Starship Troopers” because I thought the “heroes” were acting like horrible people, maybe even Nazis. Sometimes I struggle with grasping the obvious.

The movie is full of terrific lines: “Thank you for makin' me a part of this.” “Our assets are frozen!” “It was … short. I loved it!” Sam the Eagle steals his scene as Scrooge's childhood headmaster. The patriotic bird declares his charge will love business because “it is the American way,” only for Gonzo-as-Dickens to whisper a reminder that the story takes place in Great Britain.

The Santa-like Ghost of Christmas Present is so genuine and enthusiastic in his description of the holiday and his invigorating song “It Feels Like Christmas” that Scrooge's softening heart feels completely natural. And while the movie is definitely toward the secular end of the spectrum, it doesn't dismiss or ignore the Christian tradition on which the holiday is founded, as Tiny Tim's “Bless Us All” song specifically acknowledges God and his dialogue Jesus.

It's been a while since I read the book, but it was fun to see what did make it into the interpretations I've seen, particularly my favorite. And that's what eventually made me draw a parallel to the Marvel movie we started talking about here.

Just as Howard Stark created some impressive technology that it took his son to push to its best and highest use, I suggest Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol” was a classic yet incomplete piece of literature until taken to its ultimate form by … the Muppets.

Sure, Dickens' narration is lively and universal enough that much of it could translate into a puppet-filled family movie nearly 150 years later. But who's to say Dickens didn't want to be even closer to the story, perhaps following along and observing his characters? Maybe he feared this would be too experimental for the literature of the day. Or perhaps he felt it could only be accomplished in a conversational fashion and simply couldn't conceive of an anthropomorphic rat like Rizzo to be his friendly foil.

Sure, Dickens got across just how cold and callous Scrooge was, but did he really take it as far as he could? Again, it's been quite some time since I read the book, but I'm 99% certain it didn't include vegetables singing “If he became a flavor, you can bet he would be sour” about the man.

The book, to my recollection, did not contain any songs, though I'm sure it referenced music. A Google search even less exhaustive than my standard Amalgam research shows Dickens was knowledgeable about music. Perhaps he just didn't know how to incorporate full-fledged songs on the page, and moving pictures, let alone musical ones populated by puppets, simply weren't an option for him.

I type this with tongue in cheek,** of course. But the idea that “A Christmas Carol” was a seminal work that somehow soared to new, or at least different, heights in the hands of the Muppets and the humans who bring them to life makes the idea of Tony Stark using his father's work not just once but twice to save his own life seem a little more plausible.

* - Samuel L. Jackson model, not David Hasselhoff.

** - Although I fail to see how that affects my typing