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Of all the whining I heard over the past few days from Comic-Con, the complaints about missing the Iron Man 2 panel and footage seemed to be the loudest and most drawn out. Perhaps people were just that eager to see Scarlett Johansson as she talked about playing Black Widow? It’s likely considering the whole SDCC event has apparently turned into something more to do with sex appeal than comic books (though one could argue that comics have always been about sex appeal anyway).

The big topic of the day seems to regard ScarJo’s character in the movie, specifically her weight loss and fitness training for the role, which makes her somewhat the female equivalent to New Moon’s Taylor Lautner, who helped promote his movie at the Con by showing off his amazing abs. But because this isn’t a gossip blog, I’m going to spin the discussion toward the more important things learned from the actress and the rest of those involved with IM2.

Check out the last of my collection of favorite Comic-Con coverage, as it focuses on the man of iron, after the jump:

• Anna Pickard at the Guardian Film Blog acknowledges that ScarJo had to just show up and look hot for the panel to be a hit:
  

  It is Scarlett Johansson. She is playing The Black Widow - and has gone blonde again. In the panel, she claimed the usual when asked how she prepared for the role: all egg-white omelettes and working out. And, importantly, a good stunt team, she said. That was about all Scarlett Johansson said. For an hour. But she looked great, and everyone said so.

• Anne Thompson at Thompson on Hollywood compares ScarJo’s appeal to that of a costar:
  

  At the panel, Sam Rockwell (who plays arms monger and Tony Stark wannabe Justin Hammer) had no clue how to charm the crowd. (That’s one reason he’s a great actor and not a movie star.) The crowd roared for Scarlett Johannson as Natasha Romonov, or Black Widow. She dyed her hair red before she took the role, took her training seriously, ate egg white omelettes and insisted on doing her own stunts so that her action scenes would look authentic.

• Dominic Patten at TheWrap spotlights Jon Favreau’s insistence that the Iron Man franchise is not usual studio fare and continues with an overreaching statment from ScarJo:
  

  “The fans have been punished by studios who don’t care,” Favreau told reporters at a press roundtable after the panel. “We try to do things that are a bit unexpected.”

  Scarlett Johansson, who joins Downey and Favreau as the Black Widow, agreed with her co-star and the director. “In my mind,” she told The Wrap,  “I compare this with ‘Hamlet’ — and this is the second act, and a lot of the characters have to make a choice.”

• Kyle Buchanan at Movlieline exposes ScarJo’s slight research skills while talking with her about Marvel characters she was interested in playing prior to being cast as Black Widow:
  

  …she admitted, “I was familiar with the character in that I’d researched all these superheroines.”

  I asked which ones had she been discussing with Favreau and Feige. “There were different characters, like Moon, and…what’s her name, the Scarlet Witch?” Johansson said. “The Blonde Phantom, that’s another one we talked about, perhaps, unless I’m getting it all wrong. There were a couple that I kind of, like, looked through and thought, ‘OK, these are characters that maybe could work somewhere.’”

• Kristopher Tapley at In Contention was one of the many who missed the panel first-hand:
  

  I wish I could tell you how awesome the “Iron Man 2” footage form yesterday’s Paramount panel was, but Hall H was packed to the gills and even us schmoes int he VIP line couldn’t get in because it was at capacity.  Without a doubt, the event was the most popular attraction at this year’s Comic-Con.

  It sounded good muffled through the walls.  That’s all I got.  Hoping for another screening in LA soon.

• Devin Faraci at CHUD.com crowns IM2 as the winner of Comic-Con:
  

  I ran upstairs to do some press for the movie and the first question I asked Jon Favreau was ‘Are you ever going to give another film a chance to get the best buzz at Comic Con?’

  To say that the Iron Man 2 presentation killed would be understating it. Sure, the room was packed with the faithful but what we saw onscreen reminded everybody why they’re the faithful.

• Brad Brevet at RopeofSilicon notes that IM2 took the crown before the last day of Comic-Con arrived:
  

  It seems there is something of a consensus around the Internet at the moment claiming the Comic Con panel for Iron Man 2 was the big winner this year, and considering Sunday’s line-up is devoid of any movie content that could possibly touch it I have to assume the verdict of the masses is final.

• Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog describes the panel as being even holier than royalty and comments on the lack of ScarJo in the footage:
  

  The religious revival disguised as an “Iron Man 2″ Comic-Con panel has just ended, but not before a frenzied lovefest and another peek at the footage went down…Scarlet Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow were barely in the footage (no lines, either) so hard to know how their performances play.

• The actual footage isn’t available anywhere (that I can find), but Elisabeth Rappe at Cinematical (who also didn’t make it into the panel) points us to a video by the people at ScreenCrave in which they’ve sweded the IM2 Con footage. Elisabeth defends its worth:
  

  There may not be a War Machine, or any CG or explosions, but Silas Lesnick is dashing in the role of Tony Stark, and you’ll finally know just what that first glimpse of Whiplash looked like … kind of. You’ll know just what butt kicking Scarlett Johannson did before she posed for that Entertainment Weekly photo, and just how much drinking Tony does in this movie.

Here’s that video: