Marvel Media Mania: Iron Man: Armored Adventures

Iron Man: Armored Adventures is a cartoon that started its run in 2009 on the Nicktoons Network and is still running today in its second season.

This series reimagines the Tony Stark/Iron Man character. Gone is the origin based in an Asian or Middle Eastern war injuries which happen when Tony's an adult. Instead, Tony gets his chest injury from a plane crash that kills his father when he's still a teen. Even Iron Man's look is different - the suit is lean and sleek, not the beefed up armor we're used to.

Simply put, this series is fantastic. Almost everything about the show just works. The characters are well-defined and interesting. Pepper Potts is a fast talking junior sleuth. Rhodey is Tony's remote backup and covers for Tony's frequent absences. Character designs are great. The series creators obviously took inspiration from the comics but aren't afraid to completely redesign a character when necessary. The series uses some villains that are perennial jokes in the comics series but because they're reimaged they work both visually and dramatically.

While each show tells its own story the overall plotline progresses from episode to episode. Pepper finds out Tony's secret. Gene Khan (a teen Mandarin, one of the series main bad guys) discovers that Tony is after the power rings he also seeks and starts attending Tony's school to get close to him. This gives the series a sense of continuity and purpose. So when Tony runs into the Unicorn and Killer Shrike in an early episode he's still wondering where they got their power armor several episodes later which sets up an ongoing storyline of "Mr. Fix" (The Fixer to longtime Marvel fans).

The action sequences are interesting. The series does a nice job of setting up the action with story so that watching the action actually means something. So, when Iron Man meets the Blizzard who is trying to take down the series main villain, Obadiah Stane, he initially works with the Blizzard before discovering that the Blizzard isn't actually such a good guy either.

The animation is all CGI and it's done very well. It reminds a lot of MTV's Spider-Man: The New Animated Series but with much improved visuals. The only problem I have with how the series looks is the mouths of characters. The lips don't quite synch up to dialogue and you can see way too many teeth. The "suiting up" and launch sequences are reminiscent of the transformation sequences of Thundercats or He-Man which is great. They also borrowed the "digital space" view of Tony inside the armor from the comics which allows us to see Tony's facial reactions as well as things like warning messages that Tony is seeing inside his armor.

Even the theme song is fantastic. It's truly "earworm" worthy.

1LR Review - 19 out of 20 - It's a Solid Hit!