Remember me?
Hi, yeah. Not dead. The saga of the Dreaded Acid Reflux took an interesting turn... It was discovered I had gallstones, and gallbladder problems often cause an excess of stomach acid. So I was scheduled for laproscopic gallbladder removal. This is a very easy surgery, and I thank God they've invented it. That said, recovery still sucks, as I am gassy and occasionally nauseated, even if I'm not in pain.
My mother came down to take care of me the day of the surgery, and that evening, we watched Iron Man. A day or so later, I decided to break out the second disc that came with the movie, and watch the sneak preview of the animated series that came along with it.
Oh My GOD, it's horrible.
I am a fan of cheese. I'm horribly triggered by any humor that is based around embarrassing or humiliating somebody, but pure normal cheese? I can't get enough of it. I LOVE bad movies. I might fast-forward through someone making a fool of himself, but I almost NEVER turn something off in the middle.
I did this time. God, where do I start with just how bad this show seems to be? Well, it's an animated show, let's start with the animation. It's... it's CGI cel-shaded animation. It looks like Wind Waker, without the smoothness of motion, the interesting character designs, or any trace of actual ability that Wind Waker showed. The movement... come on, guys, Early Mainframe characters were more realistic than this! The character designs are generic, and... really, it's just lousy.
Voice acting is sub-par, too. Whoever they got for Tony's fairly good, and I heard poor Richard Dawson turning in his usual good job as one of Obediah's yes-men, but everybody else... I loathed Rhodey's voice with the first word that came out of his mouth. Pepper sounds like a ditzy twit. Happy sounds like a moron. And Stane... I'm sorry, he sounded like Professor X on a bad day.
Which brings me to another major problem with the show. Given that Obediah Stane is in charge of Stark Industries, and is set up to be a major villain, it's pretty obvious that this series is supposed to follow onto and capitalize on the movie's popularity, and grab the audience that liked the movie without necessarily knowing the comics. If that's so... why not use the movie characterizations? Hell, why not use ANY of the best-known canon characterizations? This series basically grafted the Iron Man characters onto a standard "Teenage superhero" cast and called it good.
Tony and Rhodey, not so bad. Tony's still full of his own genius, good at steam-rollering over objections, and Rhodey's still the mostly-overridden voice of reason. Unfortunately, this seems to come across more as "Long suffering Black Best Friend gets roped into yet another Zany Scheme" rather than anything really organic. Happy's a kind of weird jock type... and Pepper. Sweet God, Pepper. This is a woman who in ANY continuity is TONY'S ASSISTANT. She rides herd on him, makes him show up to meetings when he wants to invent, or drink, or play. She has a spine of tungsten carbide and a brain that can at least keep up with Tony's ninety percent of the time. She is NOT a dippy, ditzy twit who'd SUGGEST breaking into Stark Tower to destroy all of Tony's inventions that Stane is selling. She'd be the voice of reason, joining Rhodey in pointing out what a dangerous idea it was. That's what finally made me turn it off. The boys were just pale shadows of themselves. Pepper was unrecognizable.
Add in that this one episode is setting up Tony Vs. Stane, Tony Vs. the Mandarin, and Tony vs. Jien Kahn all in one swoop, which made it horribly scatter-shot...
And a little quibble, which I freely admit is much more personal than objective... Jeff Bridges was GREAT as Obediah Stane. WHY would you not base your Stane off of his portrayal? Why would you reduce the character to just another Corrupt Corporate Executive, when everything else about your series indicates you're following in the movie's footsteps? Bridges as Stane was this bluff, likeable, robust guy, the type of guy who you kind of felt had been riding herd on Tony for years as a sort of Uncle. And once you knew what a monster he was, that image made him that much more detestable. This guy is generic. He's Karl Ziktor with no hair, and less style. Come on, guys, we can do better than this.
My mother came down to take care of me the day of the surgery, and that evening, we watched Iron Man. A day or so later, I decided to break out the second disc that came with the movie, and watch the sneak preview of the animated series that came along with it.
Oh My GOD, it's horrible.
I am a fan of cheese. I'm horribly triggered by any humor that is based around embarrassing or humiliating somebody, but pure normal cheese? I can't get enough of it. I LOVE bad movies. I might fast-forward through someone making a fool of himself, but I almost NEVER turn something off in the middle.
I did this time. God, where do I start with just how bad this show seems to be? Well, it's an animated show, let's start with the animation. It's... it's CGI cel-shaded animation. It looks like Wind Waker, without the smoothness of motion, the interesting character designs, or any trace of actual ability that Wind Waker showed. The movement... come on, guys, Early Mainframe characters were more realistic than this! The character designs are generic, and... really, it's just lousy.
Voice acting is sub-par, too. Whoever they got for Tony's fairly good, and I heard poor Richard Dawson turning in his usual good job as one of Obediah's yes-men, but everybody else... I loathed Rhodey's voice with the first word that came out of his mouth. Pepper sounds like a ditzy twit. Happy sounds like a moron. And Stane... I'm sorry, he sounded like Professor X on a bad day.
Which brings me to another major problem with the show. Given that Obediah Stane is in charge of Stark Industries, and is set up to be a major villain, it's pretty obvious that this series is supposed to follow onto and capitalize on the movie's popularity, and grab the audience that liked the movie without necessarily knowing the comics. If that's so... why not use the movie characterizations? Hell, why not use ANY of the best-known canon characterizations? This series basically grafted the Iron Man characters onto a standard "Teenage superhero" cast and called it good.
Tony and Rhodey, not so bad. Tony's still full of his own genius, good at steam-rollering over objections, and Rhodey's still the mostly-overridden voice of reason. Unfortunately, this seems to come across more as "Long suffering Black Best Friend gets roped into yet another Zany Scheme" rather than anything really organic. Happy's a kind of weird jock type... and Pepper. Sweet God, Pepper. This is a woman who in ANY continuity is TONY'S ASSISTANT. She rides herd on him, makes him show up to meetings when he wants to invent, or drink, or play. She has a spine of tungsten carbide and a brain that can at least keep up with Tony's ninety percent of the time. She is NOT a dippy, ditzy twit who'd SUGGEST breaking into Stark Tower to destroy all of Tony's inventions that Stane is selling. She'd be the voice of reason, joining Rhodey in pointing out what a dangerous idea it was. That's what finally made me turn it off. The boys were just pale shadows of themselves. Pepper was unrecognizable.
Add in that this one episode is setting up Tony Vs. Stane, Tony Vs. the Mandarin, and Tony vs. Jien Kahn all in one swoop, which made it horribly scatter-shot...
And a little quibble, which I freely admit is much more personal than objective... Jeff Bridges was GREAT as Obediah Stane. WHY would you not base your Stane off of his portrayal? Why would you reduce the character to just another Corrupt Corporate Executive, when everything else about your series indicates you're following in the movie's footsteps? Bridges as Stane was this bluff, likeable, robust guy, the type of guy who you kind of felt had been riding herd on Tony for years as a sort of Uncle. And once you knew what a monster he was, that image made him that much more detestable. This guy is generic. He's Karl Ziktor with no hair, and less style. Come on, guys, we can do better than this.