Iron Man: Armored Adventures

As with most comic book heroes, there's always been a distinct element of power fantasy to Iron Man. But it's not just the fact that Tony Stark has a cool suit of armor and gets to fly around and blast robots. The fact that he's a billionaire inventor with his own company has always been just as important to the vibe, to making readers and moviegoers not just want to hang out with Tony, but to BE him. He flies around the world on a whim, vacations in exotic locations, and gets the babes wherever he goes. He runs a business, has lunch meetings with the movers and shakers of the world, and then runs back to his garage to tinker with the next high-tech toy. He's Steve Jobs as James Bond.

Not so in Marvel Animation's new Iron Man: Armored Adventures cartoon. Here Stan Lee's famous billionaire industrialist/playboy Tony Stark has been redesigned as a sixteen-year-old who first puts on the Iron Man armor after his father's murder. Tony's still rich, but his company's being run by the man he's sure killed his dad (ostensibly until Tony turns 18 or exposes Obadiah Stane for the villain he is). When he's not flying around town in his new armor, he's struggling through high school with his friends Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes and Pepper Potts. It's cute, sure, watching the rich genius kid trying to cope with the banalities of his classes and being badgered by the more down-to-earth Rhodey and Pepper. But is it Iron Man?

At one point in the 4th episode, as Tony angsts about finding evidence against his father's murderer, Rhodey points out that his dad would just want him to live and enjoy a normal life. And therein lies the rub. In the comics and the movie, Tony Stark never had any problem enjoying his normal life, even with all the superheroics going on. This isn't to say it made him happy, that he didn't still internally monologue in grand Stan Lee fashion about the life and the relationships he REALLY wanted, but he still always found time to go to the parties, to date the girls, to at least enjoy the surface pleasures his money made possible. So who is this Tony?

IM: Armored Adventures is an entertaining enough superhero cartoon, with likable characters, witty dialogue, and some slick computer-animated action sequences, but it it feels more like an amalgamation of Batman ("I'm rich, and I will avenge my father!") and Spider-Man ("aww, man, how do I juggle the responsibilities of my power with a normal teenage life?") than a story of Stark. If I have some free time and a hankering for a generic superhero show, I'll catch up on the episodes, but it doesn't have the intrinsic Iron Man quality that makes me look forward to it as I do the next Matt Fraction issue, or even Iron Man 2 on the big screen.

- JC