Homem de Ferro

In the mid-90s there was a string of cartoons based on Marvel comics, from the wildly successful Spider-Man and X-Men to the lesser ones such as The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and this show, Iron Man. FF and Iron Man both started as part of the Marvel Action Hour with debut seasons of 13 episodes each. They were both rubbish. Choppy animation, lame out of place CGI and inconsistent voice acting didn't help the stories, which ranged from limp and mediocre to indecipherable (one episode about a plane being stolen through some sort of time displacement makes absolutely no sense).

Despite this, Iron Man got a second season and managed to prove itself as a good show. The glut of regular characters was cut down. The Mandarin being reduced to appearing in minuscule vignettes at the end of each episode while hislackeys disappeared almost completely, allowing for a fresh batch of villains such as Firebrand and AIM to appear. The Force Works team also broke up, with Century and (the terribly accented) Scarlet Witch being cut almost entirely and Hawkeye reduced to a handful of appearances. War Machine and Spider-Woman were keep along and both managed to grow more as interesting characters in their own right, helped by War Machine finally getting a consistent voice artist in Dorian Harewood. Robert Hays stayed on as the best interpretation of Iron Man yet; smart and funny, yet able to convey action and drama well. He was joined by his armour's new AI Homer, who added some nice comic relief. The show improved in the second season visually as well. The art became more detailed and moodier, the animation much smoother and the mind-numbing opening credits of the MAH season were replaced with a fairly cool rock theme. If you can catch it in repeats, the second season of Iron Man is well worth watching, with engaging and entertaining super-hero stories (many of which are adaptations of stories from the comics, such as the Armour Wars two-parter). Just try and avoid the first season.

The first 13 episodes are some strange 80s cartoon fever dream. What makes episode 14 so special? New writers, new director, new theme song. All waaaaay better. Episode 14 and onward is actually worth your time if you enjoy 90s superhero shows.

I didn't watch Iron Man on Sky Digital. Instead, I watched every Iron Man episode (26 episodes) at a hospital when I was a boy. Iron Man was shown on the this tv channel - Fox Kids. It belonged over there. So did other ones such as The Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfur, and the Fantastic Four. Neither was as popular as Spider-Man and the X-Men on Fox Kids, however, among the children. If I could reverse back-the-clock, I would've made an effort to see every episode or season of Iron Man (26 episodes), Spider-Man (65 episodes), The Incredible Hulk (21 episodes), Fantastic Four (26 episodes) and Silver Surfur (13 episodes). Not the X-Men (76 episodes) however though it was deemed too long. I didn't mind if for example X-Men had over a 100 episodes even, but I still wouldn't watch it. Realism I presume. If the Spider-Man had over a 100 episodes, I still would've made an effort to watch these 100 or so episodes of this spectacular show ;) I'm glad for 65 episodes in the end ;) I liked how Iron Man looked in this animated series ;) I even liked how Tony Stark looked in this Iron Man series ;) Yet I would've preferred had Tony Stark looked different completely to the one we usually know or see ;) Not some man. If you want to see the Mandarin, see this tv series. Iron Man 3 will disappoint you. 8/10.

The first season of "Iron Man" was written for the most part by Ron Friedman, who would be better known to most animation fans as the writer of "Transformers: The Movie." And, quite frankly, the first season of "Iron Man" sucked.

The overlarge cast of characters did not help Friedman's meandering scripts, which were usually needless complex (the first episode, "And The Sea Shall Give Up It's Dead," is a very good example of this) - and not in an intelligent way, more of a lurching, stumbling way. Crammed to the gills with awful pseudo-science which didn't make a lick of sense, bizarre, out-of-left-field dialogue (the title of this review is one such example, which Tony spontaneously recites while briefing his teammates), and ill-fitting humour that, for the most part, just wasn't funny, about the only thing this show had going for it was the animation, and even that was weaker than other shows on TV at the time. "Iron Man" season one was entirely too 80's to stack up against it's fellow Marvel shows, such as "X-Men" and "Spider-Man."

It's bizarre, because Friedman also wrote the first season of "Iron Man"'s sister show on the Marvel Action Hour, "Fantastic Four," and it was much better. The pseudo-science and humour WORKED on that show, sounding just right coming out of Mr. Fantastic and the Thing - Friedman seems to be a better hand at dealing with outer space fantasy than with the business-and-espionage world of Iron Man. Regrettably, FF was hampered by truly, truly appalling animation, which could have stepped right out of the 70's. To me, however, "Iron Man" was just the show I had to sit through before I could watch "Fantastic Four."

The SECOND season of "Iron Man," however, saw Marvel Productions switch animation houses, and the whole series got a makeover. Gone was Friedman - gone were the bad humour, oversized cast and stupid plots. The show started to make *sense.* Some of the changes were a little sudden, yes, and could have done with a little exposition to help them (Iron Man's new armour, the sudden appearance of HOMER), and it'd be lying to say that the shift in voice actors for the bulk of the cast wasn't jarring. Ultimately, though, the performances on the show were better in the second season, the animation was modernised, and there was finally a sense of arced plot, as we watched the Mandarin reclaim his rings.

You can bet your booties that if an "Iron Man" motion picture is produced, then some old episodes of this series will see a DVD/video re-release - hopefully they'll elect to go with the vastly superior second season.

I don't think any current Marvel cartoons can compare to the awesome 1960's cartoons but the Marvel cartoons from the 90's and early 21st century are still entertaining enough.

This Iron Man series was shown in 1994 and Iron Man was joined by other superheroes which meant much more action and excitement. Joining Iron Man were the likes of Hawkeye, War Machine and Spider-Woman. And Iron Man's armour was so cool.

The villains were okay but Iron Man's arch-enemy The Mandarin tended to be over-exposed a bit too much. He didn't look much like The Mandarin from the comic book;he looked more like Ming the Merciless from the 1980's Defenders Of The Earth cartoon.

All in all, there was plenty of action throughout the series run.