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Released just in time for a certain movie, the Iron Man Animated Complete Series collects the two season series that ran 1994-1996 as part of the Marvel Action Hour (alongside the Fantastic Four) – but the two seasons are so different that it may as well be two different shows.
In the first season, Iron Man – accompanied by War Machine and a barely-developed Force Works team (consisting of Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and the Century) battles the Mandarin and his minions (which include M.O.D.O.K. occasionally disguised in a baby carriage) in pretty much self contained episodes. The animation and simplicity of the stories could have been made ten years earlier and are about on a par with He-Man.
In fact the first season could almost be recycled He-Man scripts with the names changed; they’re really that simplistic and dated.
Marvel Entertainment must have realized that they were on to a loser, because in the second season everything changes.
The animation improves, most of Force Works leaves, storylines are sometimes stretched out over multiple episodes, stories are cribbed from the comics (such as the Dragon Seeds storyline), the Mandarin’s presence is dramatically reduced, Iron Man gets new armor, Tony Stark gets a mullet and the show gets a snazzy new title sequence.
It feels like a completely different show – and one that can stand next to the Spider-Man, X-Men and Hulk cartoons of the day (and when do we get the Spidey and Hulk series on DVD?). For these episodes alone, the boxset is worth a look.
Plus, you get Fin Fang Foom. Can’t go wrong with that.
Iron Man: The Animated Series was provided free for review and is available from Amazon here.
Oh mullet Tony.