In preparation for tomorrow’s Iron Man: Armored Adventures debut, I want to take a look back at the previous ventures beyond the comic, and into animated adventures. Beginning with The Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel has brought the Golden Avenger to the tube and most recently the big screen with the live-action movie. For the benefit of not working on this article all night, I’m bypassing the cameos on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the 90’s Incredible Hulk, and the oft-panned Avengers: United They Stand to focus on those shows that brought Mr. Stark to the forefront.
The Marvel Super Heroes (1966)
You know all the buzz over motion comics as of late? Marvel created that all the way back in the 60’s. The Marvel Super Heroes were really just adaptations of classic Marvel comics stories, using static panels and barely moving pieces. The voice actors seemed to just be reading right out of the comic. Iron Man was but one of the stories, joined by Captain America, the Hulk, Thor, and Sub-Mariner. If you’ve ever heard of the “cool exec with the heart of steel“, that was the Iron Man opening.
Iron Man: Season 1 (aka Marvel Action Hour-1994)
In the 90’s, Marvel created the syndicated Marvel Action Hour, featuring Shellhead and the Fantastic Four, each in their own half-hour story and introduced by Stan Lee, co-creator of both comics. The Iron Man cartoon has Tony teaming with Force Works, a team including fellow armored hero War Machine along with Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, and Century, a hero I hadn’t heard of before. Oddly, the comic Marvel released based on the MAH series (one was also done for the FF) also featured US Agent, who wasn’t in the tv series but was a member of the comics version of Force Works. For some reason, they decided to include an “armor up” sequence in each episode, featuring one portion in a really bad CG job, even for the time.
Iron Man’s main foe was the Mandarin, his archest nemesis from the comics. He had assembled a team of his own, made up of Hypnotia (who doesn’t appear to have a 616 counterpart, and thus appears to be a cartoon exclusive character), MODOK, Justin Hammer, Grey Gargoyle, Blizzard, Dreadknight, and occasionally the Living Laser. When it’s all said and done, the series was only meant to sell action figures. The stories were often terribile and made no sense, the animation was sub-par, and the otherwise good voice cast (speaking of terrible, Blizzard’s voice was grating) didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves, either.
Iron Man: Season 2 (aka Marvel Action Universe-1995)
In the hands of new producer Tom Tatranowicz (that took too long to write), both Iron Man and the Fantastic Four’s cartoons underwent a major improvement in both writing and animation quality. (Tom also made the better of the two seasons of UPN’s The Incredible Hulk, cartoon.) With most of the same voice actors and characters, the new version is still practically a separate series. (Note: Marvel Action Universe was also the name of another syndicated programming block Marvel used in the past, a 90 minute version that featured a slightly edited version of Amazing Friends along with original shows Dino Riders and Robocop, with the later interrupted with X-Men pilot “Pryde of the X-Men”.)
In this new version, a back ground story arc took place with the Mandarin searching for his rings, lost in the first episode. This episode also saw Force Works being tired of Tony’s solo act and going it alone, with only Spider-Woman and War Machine staying with Tony. However, both took on a lesser role with in the show. In an interview with Toon Zone, Tataranowicz explained that he thought a shorter cast would put the focus back on where he thought it belonged, on Iron Man alone. Also introduced was HOMER, a holographic program that ran Stark Industries’ computer systems, and other Iron Man foes such as Firebrand and others. They even fit an adaptation of the “Armor Wars” storyline from the comics into the series, which served to add to the Tony treats his friends poorly bit, having Hawkeye stand in for Captain America during one of the scenes.
To make Toy Biz happy with the armors, Tom and his crew added in a new ability for the armor to transform into other armors, rather than the remote unit used in the previous season. Outside of this rather odd shortcut, this is quite possibly still the best of the animated Iron Man stories, and a standard Armored Adventures is going to have to work hard to live up to.
Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers 2 (2006)
Loosely based (thank God) on The Ultimates, an attempt to cash in on the success of Ultimate Spider-Man by forgetting why the latter worked, Ultimate Avengers and it’s sequel were direct-to-video movies. The movies follows Nick Fury (here the black and bald version portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the live-action movies–so missed the ball on not using “The Hoff”) rescuing Captain America from his icy tomb, hoping to get the secret of the Super-Soldier formula to prepare against an alien invasion by shapeshifters. When Cap awakes, Fury changes gears, and reaches out to the super hero population. Since it’s in this list, you know Iron Man was one of the heroes, joined by Giant-Man (not a wifebeater in this version–YAY!), Wasp, Black Widow, and Thor. In this version, the Hulk is the result of previous attempts to recreate the formula (and in the toon version doesn’t go around eating people or having sex whenever possible). In the sequel, the aliens take their battle to Wakanda, leading to a team-up with Black Panther, who is far different from his Ultimates counterpart.
In this version, Tony Stark is a big jerk, pretty much in love with himself. However, between the two movies he and the other Avengers learn to work together as a team, although one of their team doesn’t make it to the end. (I’ll leave the spoiler out, just in case you decide to watch the movie yourself someday.)
Invincible Iron Man (2007)
Although using the same voice actor for Tony/Iron Man, Invincible Iron Man is set in it’s own continuity. In this new version, Tony is trying to raise an ancient city, not realizing that there is a curse involved that will release the Mandarin, in this version an ancient spirit. Four elemental warriors are awakened, while Tony is injured being captured by rebels trying to stop the rising in the first place. Rhodey stands in for Professor Yinsen in creating the armor in the cave, although in this version Tony has already created a whole bunch of armor in his secret lab back home. Howard Stark is also alive, and forced by the board to frame Tony when the rebels are found to be using weapons found at the excavation site. Now Tony must deal with magical forces he barely believes in, clear his good name, and deal with his damaged heart.
This version is radically different from previous Iron Man origins. Even in the MAH series, the origin is similar to the comics, although the Mandarin stands in for Wang-Chu. Here, Tony’s origin is tied in to ancient prophecy, a new friend has ties to the Mandarin spirit, and alien tech has no place in the Mandarin’s story. Also, a decision was made to use computer-generated characters for the elemental spirits and the Iron Man armors. More often than not, it is a bit of a distraction. However, although many fans are not fond of the story, I found it rather interesting and a fresh take on the Iron Man story while still paying some (granted, rather little) homage to the source material. At the very least, I recommend renting it and taking a look.
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008)
The future has been taken over by Ultron, an evil mechanoid determined to enslave or wipe out humanity. He kills the Avengers, except for Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk. Thor left some time ago to take control of Asgard, having no concern in human affairs. Banner goes underground, and Tony takes charge of the children of the heroes, training them for the day they can finish off Ultron. However, Ultron finds our heroes, forcing them into action in the final battle to save the human race.
In the comics, Ultron was a creation of Henry “more secret identities than there have been James Bond actors” Pym, but in the movie it was Tony who created him, hoping to add to Avenger’s effectiveness. Things obviously didn’t go well. Now he serves as mentor to the kids, being the only non-Hulk Avenger to not have children. Later, Hawkeye’s kid is found, though lost in the battle with Ultron. Tony as daddy is certainly an interesting change, and he handles it suprisingly well. He spends most of the movie as Ultron’s captive, though, and trying to redeem himself for unleashing the robotic menace on the world. Plus he’s old! How often do we see old Tony?
It’s not clear if this movie, a more kid-friendly but not exactly a “kiddie movie”, is set in the same universe as either of the last two movies. On the one hand, Captain America has a child with the Black Widow. On the other hand, unless the Pyms had a bun in the oven, it’s difficult for them to have a child. (I still don’t want to spoil UA2.) Also, it’s possible that Black Panther’s child was conceived with Storm, the X-(Wo)man he was married to in the Marvel Universe (616) at the time. (Things may have changed, should you come upon this article in the archives if T’Challa and Ororo’s marriage go the way of pretty much everyone not named Richards in the Marvel Universe.) Despite the younger target demographic, it’s a good, fun movie, and well worth watching.
Of course, there’s also the live-action movie, but you should have already seen it and love it, or something’s wrong with you. I was going to go into that version as well, but the article’s getting long, so we’ll stick with the animated versions. And now we need only wait until the next animated journey of our favorite armored hero hits the TV.
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