Iron Man (the 90's Animated Series)

The modular armor, my second favorite armor.

Despite the fact that Marvel Comics has had a long term relationship with television spin-offs/adaptations, the only character who had the longest run and success was Spiderman. Soon after the 80's were gone, the 90's would mark the second wave of Marvel Comics animated series. The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Spiderman (again) X-Men (the most successful of them all, critically acclaimed as a masterpiece up to this day) all had their chance and did pretty well I might add. Nevertheless, one of the second class characters (that is until he had his live action film that also started the Marvel Cinematic universe) had its chance and didn't do that well in the end. Yes peeps, we're talking Ironman and his 26 episode series.

Iron Man, also known as Iron Man: The Animated Series, aired from 1994 to 1996 in syndication as part of The Marvel Action Hour, which packaged Iron Man with another animated series based on Marvel properties, the Fantastic Four, with one half-hour episode from each series airing back-to-back. The show was backed by a toy line that featured many armor variants (of course! the 80's lessons in marketing taught Marvel they could sell as many toys as they wanted if they put mediocre series based upon the action figures they wanted you to buy)

Armor time!

Mexican Moustache.

This series of Iron Man was among the few television series to be re-recorded in THX (George Lucas anyone?). This may have been usual at the time for a motion picture, but it is rare for a television series. Off the heels of the release of the live-action Iron Man film in 2008, reruns began airing on the Jetix block on Toon Disney.

Although only lasting two seasons, Iron Man was the subject of a major overhaul between seasons when its production studio was changed. The result was a massively changed premise, tone, and general approach, which left the disparate seasons scarcely recognizable as being two halves of the same series.

The first season of Iron Man featured little more than a Masters of the Universe-style battle of "good against evil", as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark battled the evil forces of the world-conquering Mandarin as the armored superhero, Iron Man. In his evil endeavors to steal Stark's technology and Iron Man's armor, the Mandarin led a group of villains consisting of Dreadknight, Blizzard, Blacklash, Grey Gargoyle (when it comes to fighting Iron Man and his team, he has a tendency to accidentally turn his fellow villains to stone), Hypnotia (Dreadknight and Blacklash were rivals for the affections of Hypnotia), Whirlwind, Living Laser, MODOK, Fin Fang Foom and Justin Hammer. To combat these villains, Iron Man had the help of his own team (based on Force Works, a then-current comic book team which has since faded into obscurity), including Century, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye (replacing U.S. Agent from the comics) and Spider Woman.

What can I wear for prom night?

Modular armor, I love thee.

Season 1: Nope, not based upon any Comic Book story arc.

Unfortunately, the first season of the series bases very few of its stories on the comic books, aside from its retelling of Iron Man's origin. In modernizing the character's origin story, Tony Stark is not injured in a Vietnamese war zone, but in an act of industrial sabotage plotted by Justin Hammer (who also orchestrated the death of Tony's father, which was later revealed to be a cover-up by S.H.I.E.L.D. in "Not Far From the Tree") and the Mandarin. Wounded not by a chunk of shrapnel near his heart, but by slivers near his spine, Stark and Ho Yinsen (whose first name is changed to Wellington) were held captive by the Mandarin, rather than Wong-Chu. Yinsen works with Arnold Brock before Arnold becomes the Mandarin. The Mandarin later captures Wellington Yinsen to use him to help Tony Stark build an invincible armor for his minions. When Tony Stark becomes Iron Man for the first time, he manages to escape, but Yinsen is killed by the Mandarin. The Mandarin himself was subject to heavy modification, altered by his rings to a much greater extent than in the comics. He gained green skin (a fate which befell other Asian villains in animation around the time, such as Doctor No in James Bond Junior and Ming the Merciless in Defenders of the Earth) and an enhanced musculature, but the show did retain the connection between his origin and Fin Fang Foom. 

The season consisted mostly of single-episode open-and-shut-case adventures, with two two-part stories late towards the end. Unlike many other Marvel animated series, despite featuring over-the-top titles that paid homage to the early Stan Lee written Marvel comics of the 1960s (for example, "The Grim Reaper Wears a Teflon Coat", and "Rejoice, I am Ultimo, Thy Deliverer"), almost none of the episodes were adaptations of comic book stories, consisting instead of original stories penned by Ron Friedman, occasionally collaborated on by Stan Lee himself. The closest the season came to adapting a comic book tale was in the two-part "The Origin of Iron Man", which recounted a (modified and modernized) version of the character's comic book origin just before the season concluded.

The dynamic duo?

Friendship is magic.

From Confusion to Oblivion.  

The late-run recounting of the title character's origin is symptomatic of what is generally thought of as the season's greatest weakness - despite (or perhaps because of) having such a large cast of characters, very few of the show's heroes and villains were actually developed in any way, leaving viewers unaware of their personal stories and powers. The show is generally held to have been at its best when filling in these origin blanks (MODOK in "Enemy Without, Enemy Within," Iron Man and the Mandarin in their self-titled "The Origin of..." episodes), but these were rare occasions, with virtually every other plot simply consisting of the Mandarin attempting to steal Stark's newest invention and being bested, often through very strange and illogical means (with the nadir perhaps being Iron Man somehow using the energy of a small tape-player to restore his armor to full power in "Silence My Companion, Death My Destination").

A small sub-plot in the first season revolves around Mandarin secretly spying on Force Works. It culminates in "The Wedding of Iron Man" when Stark realizes they have been spied on by reviewing events from previous episodes (and explaining how Mandarin's forces always knew where they would be), realizing that Mandarin has acquired enough information to potentially deduce the true identity of Iron Man. The entire episode's plot is dedicated to resolving the problem, culminating in Iron Man and his team setting up an elaborate deception where Mandarin sees Iron Man and Tony Stark in the same place with the intention being to convince him that the two men are not the same person (The 'Tony' in the situation was an android).

I must prevent Ironman 3 from being filmed in the future!

Not so tough.

Season 2: Yes, based upon some Comic Book story arcs.

The second season performed a complete turnaround, and began regularly adapting major Iron Man comic book stories including "Dragon Seed" (as "The Beast Within"), "Armor Wars" and "The Hands of the Mandarin" and introducing more characters derived from the comic books, including HOMER, Firebrand (the Gary Gilbert version), Sunturion and more. However, the artists chosen for the animation of the episodes left much to be desired.

In 1995, Marvel switched The Marvel Action Hour to a new animation studio (as previously mentioned, the animation in Season 1 was provided by the Rainbow Animation Group, while the animation in Season 2 was provided by Koko Enterprises), and with it came new writers (Ron Friedman was replaced by Tom Tataranowicz for Season 2) and new music for each sequence, coupled with a new direction for the series. The first season's subtle keyboard theme music for Iron Man (composed by progressive rock artist Keith Emerson) was replaced by an intense electric guitar theme featuring the repeated refrain of "I am Iron Man!", while showing Tony Stark beating red-hot iron plates into shape with a blacksmith's hammer (possibly to mimic the Black Sabbath song "Iron Man"). Tony Stark's longer hair style in the second season was based upon the artist Mark Bright's depiction of Stark from the late 1980s, which is where most of the episodes from Season 2 were based upon.

The new story lines spanned multiple episodes and were no longer "open and shut" cases. They formed a linking narrative, featuring themes of duplicity, consequence, and phobias. Also, the stories were no longer centered on the Mandarin, whose rings had been scattered and whose power had been depleted. While the Mandarin did appear in these episodes, his appearances were reduced to cameos in the cliffhangers at the end of the story, as he tried to retrieve each ring.

I still have this action figure.

Some of the spectacular action figures from the toyline.

Another change was that Force Works was mostly written out of the series, parting ways with Stark after he deceives them in order to work in secret with the Mandarin when Fin Fang Foom and his fellow Dragons were plotting to eliminate Earth. When Stark's counter plan against Justin Hammer, which includes faking his death without the knowledge of his teammates, leads to a disbanding of Force Works, Julia Carpenter and James Rhodes are the only ones who continue to work with Stark. This split would be revisited with Stark's ensuing conflicts with Hawkeye over the course of several episodes.

Also, War Machine develops a phobia of being trapped inside his armor (also based on a then-current comic storyline), but this is resolved before the final episode. While Rhodes was active as War Machine in Season 1, he remained out of armor for the majority of Season 2 due to reliving a tragic drowning experience while being trapped underwater in the War Machine armor in the Season 2 episode "Fire And Rain". Rhodes eventually overcomes his fear and dons the War Machine armor once again in the episode "Distant Boundaries".

Not the Avengers but close enough.

Nick Fury is white!

Prior to finding his last two rings, the Mandarin claims his eighth ring from MODOK in the episode "Empowered". "Empowered" was the clip show of the season, the purpose being that the Mandarin wanted to learn of Iron Man's recent activities. In the finale, the Mandarin, having regained all of his rings, unleashes a mist using the Heart of Darkness to render everything technological useless. Iron Man reunites with Force Works in order to stop him. The Mandarin unmasks Iron Man before their final showdown ends in his death. More specifically, Iron Man manages to reflect the power of Mandarin's rings, destroying them, and ultimately leaving the Mandarin with amnesia and helpless before a band of desert bandits who likely killed him, or at least cut off his hand/fingers for the rings. After Mandarin was killed, MODOK and the rest of Mandarin's henchmen were sent to jail.

After predictable disappointing ratings, the series was canceled for good. I for one, not being an expert but a lifetime comic book fan I can say the producers of this series totally underrated their target audience. Season 1 feels like a series made for children were the extreme paradigm  of "good prevails over evil" makes it campy. For season 2 producers noticed this, but the artists chosen for the most important task (animation) were complete unskilled noobs. Nevertheless, Iron Man had always been the thorn in Marvel's spine. Poor comic book sales, poor ratings and mediocre story arcs had the character's reputation buried six feet under until the early 2000's and most notably until Iron Man's big screen debut in 2008, where all of a sudden Iron Man was everyone's favorite!

Here's the cool intro sequence for season 2: