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Buoyed by the huge success of the X-MEN animated series, Marvel Comics unleashed a swarm of new animated shows, based upon their superheroes, in the 1990s.  In just 1994, Marvel debuted Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, and Iron Man, which were all seen on the now defunct Fox Kids Saturday morning and weekday afternoon, animation blocks.  The complete 26 episode IRON MAN series has now been released on DVD, coinciding with the recent release of the big screen IRON MAN 2.

Unfortunately, Iron Man holds the distinction of perhaps being the worst of the 1990s Marvel Animation projects, certainly as far as the debut season goes, anyway.  Produced by the Rainbow Animation Group, the first season was simply was not as good as the X-Men or Spider-Man series from either a visual or story standpoint.     The animation was very weak and filled with short cuts.  (Rainbow would use the same sequence over and over again whenever Stark dons the Iron Man armor; no matter where he happened to be and no matter what he had been wearing a few seconds earlier, he would be in the same lab coat. ) These cheap cost-saving measures may have worked in the 1960s and 1970s but stood out like a sore thumb to today’s more sophisticated viewers, especially since there was such a strong appeal to comic book fans.

The stories were little better. They were written by primarily by Ron Friedman, a prolific TV writer, but he simply wasn’t a comic book guy.  Season One’s episodes were mostly self-contained with little connection in the narrative from one to the next.  There was a couple of two-part episodes, notably “The Origin of Iron Man” which retold Shellhead’s origin, although greatly modified from the comic books.

The other problem with the stories is that the Mandarin is Iron Man’s villain throughout season one.  When Iron Man wasn’t battling the Mandarin directly, he was battling one of the villains who worked for the Mandarin, like Blizzard, Backlash, Whirlwind, Living Laser, MODOK, etc…This makes for rather restrictive and ultimately unsatisfying storylines that are not based on any original comic stories.  Iron Man was frequently aided by War Machine, The Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and Spider-Woman.  This group was based on a short-lived title that ran in the 1990s called “Force Works”.

Another weakness of the series was the less than inspired voice acting.  This is an area in which Marvel’s animated projects have always fared poorly when compared to DC Comics’ animated projects.  Marvel simply has never ponied up the big dough to hire top-notch, name talent.  Robert Hays voices Iron Man/Tony Stark and is OK but nothing special.  Add to that that most of the actors due double or triple duty as other characters, and its one pot of bland stew.

Season Two saw an almost complete overhaul.  The production was taken over by Koko Enterprises, who also worked the Fantastic Four animated series along with shows such as “Batman Beyond”, “Freakazoid”, and “Johnny Bravo”.  There was also a new primary producer, Tom Tataranowicz.  The Mandarin was still present, but his influence was reduced as he had lost his ten rings.  The Force Works group was also basically written out of the series (thankfully!).  Season Two featured several stories based upon the comic books including the two part “Armor Wars”.  The Hulk would also make an appearance in one episode, which would eventually lead into his own animated TV series.

The improvements could not save Iron Man from cancelation and the final episode was shown on February 24, 1996.  Iron Man deserved better treatment and has, to some extent, received it with the new Iron Man Armored Adventures show.

Iron Man The Animated Series (1994 – 1996)  Cast: Robert Hays, Dorian Harewood, Robert Ito.