“Oh Ricky, what a pity, don’t you understand that every day’s a rerun and the laughter’s always canned.” — From Ricky, written by Weird Al Yankovic

I have no idea why they still call it “social media.” We all know there’s very little social about it.

In fact, if you had been raised on the planet Mars and you perfected your command of American English from, say, reruns of “I Love Lucy,” you would be likely to think of it as anti-social media. You might share this opinion all day until the time when your fingers dance over your keyboard and you, too, feel you’ve had enough of those other assholes.

Case in point: You may have heard about the big Marvel movie panel a couple days ago at the annual San Diego Comic Con clusterfuck, or “SDCCC” for short. Anyway, it was revealed — to the surprise of a very, very few — that Doctor Doom was going to be the big bad in the next two Avengers movies, the second coming out sometime after global warming melts down the 12 remaining movie projectors. So they had their big reveal and, to a fanfare that actually came within a mile of Donald Trump’s Don Kirshner-like unveiling at the RNC, out in full, jerry-rigged green robotic glory, came the actor signed for the role.

In case you were still watching I Love Lucy reruns on Mars and you had yet to be informed, that actor was Robert Downey Junior.

And the interest responded the way it always does: a sizable number of people completely lost their shit, and not in any polite way.

OK. Fine. Downey made Iron Man, and Iron Man made the Marvel cinematic universe. Those are two facts. Here’s a third: they killed Iron Man off in the last Avengers movie. Maybe you saw that. They did not bring him back in any of the subsequent Marvel movies (we will have just seen Deadpool/Wolverine when you read this, so SPOILER ALERT I don’t know shit about all the cameos). Being an actor, indeed one who just won the Academy Award, he can handle all kinds of roles.

However, I refer you to the second Avengers movie, which co-starred James Spader as the big bad Ultron. Seeing that you are reading this column, you probably knew that even though you did not see Spader in the role. He was the voice of the big-ass tin man.

As I have said repeatedly, when Michael Keaton played the costumed Batman in the movie that got Michael Uslan his autobiography gig, it just as well could have been Rin-Tin-Tin in that thick rubber costume. Keaton was head-to-toe bat. Well, Doctor Doom is not supposed to exist on panel with his naked face. How many great-grandpuppies did Rin-Tin-Tin have anyway?

Remember Chris Evans? He played Captain America in all those Marvel MCU movies, including all the Avengers movies. He’s been making noises about playing that part once again. But our anti-social media has yet to check into Arkham Asylum over the unimpeachable fact that before Steve Rogers, Evans played Johnny Storm. A.K.A. the Human Torch. Fellow Invader to Captain America. OK, you were probably staring at Jessica Alba because that movie was so boring the wallpaper pealed off the theater walls, but look it up: he was the Human Torch first. As it turns out, the world did not implode at his Captain America casting.

Jumping into our Waybac Machine, we notice that Buster Crabbe played both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, as well as Tarzan, Captain Gallant, and Red Barry, who was a comic strip detective. And then there’s Timothy Dalton, whose comics-based career makes Buster’s look barren. Dalton played James Bond, Niles Caulder (Doom Patrol), Lord President Rassilon (Doctor Who), Neville Sinclair (The Rocketeer), Basil St. John (Brenda Starr), Prince Barin (Flash Gordon), and in many more such films, including Tales From The Crypt and Tiny Toons.

So, don’t sweat Downey playing Doctor Doom after playing the currently-late Tony Stark. Earlier this year, Robert played seven different roles in the streaming series The Sympathizer, which I highly recommend. He even played several different characters in the same scene. One such scene featured Downey as all seven characters.

I loved it. I enjoyed the series a lot and Downey’s turn was breathtaking. Then again, I would buy an audiobook of Robert reading War and Peace in pig-latin.

You don’t like Downey as Doom? You don’t like Downey at all? Hey, if yours is an informed opinion — you watch movies, right? — you’re completely entitled to react as you sincerely feel. Sadly, “manners” and “logic” and “facts” are not part of the social media experience.

But if you’re that upset at his latest casting, let me recommend you give his next Avengers a pass.

Yeah. That’ll happen.

(With love, thanks and gratitude to Michael Uslan.)