The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film) Louis XIV and attempts to explain the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, using a plot more closely related to the flamboyant 1929 version starring Douglas Fairbanks, "The Iron Mask", and the 1939 version directed by James Whale, than to the original Dumas book. Like the 1998 version, the two aforementioned adaptations were also released through United Artists. In 1662, the Kingdom of France faces bankruptcy from King Louis XIV's wars against the Dutch Republic, which has left the country's agriculture impeded by a heavy tax burden and forced the citizens to live on rotten food. Though the
The Iron Man (novel) Iron Man to a metal scrap-heap to feast. The Iron Man promises not to cause further trouble for the locals, as long as no one troubles him. Time passes, and the Iron Man is treated as merely another member of the community. However, astronomers monitoring the sky make a frightening new discovery; an enormous space-being, resembling a dragon, moving from orbit to land on Earth. The creature (soon dubbed the "Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon") crashes heavily on Australia (which it is large enough to cover the whole of) and demands that humanity provide him with food. Terrified, humans send their armies to destroy