There are few things that live up to our childhood experiences. When you watch an old cartoon that you perceived as your favorite or high entertainment of its age, very few times does it replicate the same experience. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1987 is still beloved to this day because of how nonsensical but fun the show was, even when it was at its lowest in logic. The same cannot be said for Iron Man, a series that was created 7 years later.
This show has a lot wrong with it beyond its illogic. This show suffers from absolute stupidity as well as some of the worst performances. This is coupled with the absolutely terrible exposition it feels that it needs to tell. When you had the turtles, you had Donatello to deliver some science mumbo jumbo and get it out quick. Iron Man is constantly talking out this stupid science BS as well as the plot, telling us the storyline over and over again. Sometimes, the fighting is just too fast, as the Avengers West Coast just beat maybe one of them and then the rest of them immediately leave.
This is coupled with a cast of cardboard characters with some of the worst melodramatic dialogue and Deus Ex Machinas that are just so contrived, it makes the TMNT Donny inventions look like subtle plot genius. The Mandarin is a terribly overdramatic moron that comes up with some of the worst hairbrained schemes every single week. The real insult to the audience is that it always works exactly how he wants it to. Like when War Machine comments that they are destroying Stark property and "breaking their bank", the Mandarin immediately catches onto this and starts just doing things that try to make Tony Stark go bankrupt. Nowhere else in this entire series is this ever referenced again, because it's pretty obvious that he has unlimited funds.
Somehow, almost every single episode, Iron Man is always the one to solve all of the problems because Spider Woman and all of the other team are only useful for one thing or less. Sometimes, they're just in the background watching the scene play out, wishing Tony Stark luck. The voice acting is just so stilted, and you can tell when the writers are running out of time, because they just explain a problem away and beat the badguy quickly. The epilogue ends with some of the most cliche "Oh, now everything's alright!" This gives the Mandarin the queue to give his defeated line like "You've won this round, Iron Man!" Or even the old chestnut "I'll be back!" It's just sad that this is the best version of the Mandarin I've ever seen. And no, I've never seen the Shang Chi movie. I'm merely pointing out the MCU's gross misuse of Ben Kingsley.
Some of the worst scenes in the show are when they switch to a very jarring and ugly scene of Iron Man transforming. They felt the need to make it into an Iron Man action figure with how bad the CGI effects are. Seriously, if you can't beat Sega Saturn technology, you shouldn't be putting that into your show. Even the Spider-man CGI show was better looking, even with its own probems. That can be considered outdated for its time as well, but the story and the characters are very likeable. In Iron Man, they rely on idiotic comedy between Mandarin and MODOK. Tony barely ever cracks a joke, he just blurts out one-liners like "It's time to get things ironed out.".... Get it?!?!
It's clear that they did not have as much budget as they wanted, and what little money they did have was used on effects that were already dated in 94. Now, is there a "So bad it's good" quality to this? Yes, actually, the cheesy dialogue is ironically golden. Every single time the badguys make a stupid decision or just give up immediately is honestly hysterical when you don't take it too seriously. If you're in the mood for cheap, campy 90's animated goofups, this series delivers in a big way. Don't expect high storylines or quality characterization, just expect everyone to make all of the wrong decisions until it's conveniant to clear the plot. Jim Cummings can be a little funny with MODOK on occasion, and sometimes they give some decent gags and jokes, but they are rare.
Iron Man has its moments on occasion. Sometimes it makes you laugh, sometimes you cringe, but it's never to be looked at with any sort of expectations. The only thing you should expect is pure 90's Cheese Whizz. That's what this show is good at. If you want to finish all of Iron Man's franchise in movies and TV shows, then I wish you luck. The Marvel properties were treated with grace and stupidity all across the spectrum.You can expect some gems, but don't expect a short dig through some trash.
