The Best Superhero Animated Series of All Time #4: Iron Man: Armored Adventures

The idea behind Iron Man: Armored Adventures is one that just screamed: stupid. Have a teenaged Tony Stark and a teenaged Rhodie along with a teenaged Mandarin.

I really expected to hate this series and at the start I did. In fact, I think I went months between watching the first and second episodes of this series, but eventually got hooked.

The idea of making an Iron Man show for kids based on Iron Man as portrayed in the comics would be an interesting idea except for one problem:

Tony Stark in the Marvel Universe is a jerk. When making a series for kids, having a middle aged alcoholic womanizer as your main character isn't going to work.

But the show was at risk of being infantile.

Instead, once it got going Armored Adventures became an amazing TV series. The computer animation allowed for some great looking battle scenes and some extremely well-done designs.

More than that, while other programs and comic books have pledged fresh spins on comic book characters, Armored Adventures actually delivered while still managing to stay true to many key parts of Marvel history.

The way it told the story of Armor Wars over ten episodes was not only better than the 1990s TV series, it was actually better than the original comic book. It introduced elements like Technivore and Extremis in ways that were actually inventive.

The characters were fascinating to watch. Their spin on characters like the Living Laser and Madam Masque were great touches. The series also allowed Tony, Rhodey, Pepper Potts, and even Gene Khan (the Mandarin) to have character arcs.

The series wasn't problem free. While its take on the issues surrounding Armor Wars was more realistic, it had some bizarre takes on the law that were just stupid. Yes, sometimes there were battles that were gratuitous (yet still somewhat awesome) and perhaps Tony Stark was more like Tom Swift at times, but to me this series was a pleasant surprise and showed that with a clear plan, respect for characters, and compelling ideas, a series can do something radically different and still produce a great series.