Iron Man 1994 Animated Series "Rejoice! I Am Ultimo, Thy Deliverer" Review

There are quite alot of animated shows that are based of off comic book heroes some series are fairly well known like Batman: The Animated Series or even perhaps X-Men: The Animated Series or even Spider-Man: the Animated Series. There are however some that aren't quite as well known like the show that i'm going to be taking a look at today as while the character that this series is based of off is now very popular thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe he wasn't always as popular as he was today and so then join me as I review that has Iron Man fighting against a giant robot with the episode in question being called simply just "Rejoice! I Am Ultimo, Thy Deliverer" enjoy.

The plot of this episode is when The Mandarin unleashes and looses control of the giant robot Ultimo it's up to Iron Man and his team to stop the robot before it's far two late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad but that's also the issue tho as this episodes plot wasn't all that good either as it just gave the stereotypical superhero kids animated series plot and nothing more then that with the plot of this episode feeling rather like that it really belonged in the plot of an eighties animated show and not one that was made in the nineties as the plot of this episode wasn't all that strong either with the plot of the episode not really being really rather entertaining and nor is it really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.  

Starring in this episode is Robert Hays as Tony Stark / Iron Man and The Charter Boat Captain and James Avery as Jim Rhodes / War Machine. Also starring in this episode is Ed Gilbert as The Mandarin and Ultimo , Jim Cummings as Modok and Luciano Pavarotti , Tony Steedman as Justin Hammer , James Warwick as Century and Sam Jaggers , John Reilly as Clint / Hawkeye and Vacationing Man , Casey DeFranco as Julia Carpenter / Spider-Woman , Shepherd Girl and Vacationing Woman and Katherine Moffat as Wanda Frank / Scarlet Witch.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. As the cast that you expect a good performance from like Jim Cummings and James Avery really do deliver a really rather solid performance in this episode as there respective episodes how it's the rest of the cast that just don't turn in that good of a performance with alot of them being really wooden at best and just downright bad bad at there worst which is something that really god bring down the overall quality of the acting in this episode with the acting in this episode not really being helped by the fact that the script for this episode is just so bad as it doesn't really give any of the actors anything to work with interms of what it is that there respective characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place.

Doing the animation for this episode is Encore Communications and the legends and the greats that are currently over at Rainbow Animation. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad as there was quite clearly alot of love and effort put into the animation for this episode but with that being said it's also quite clearly not that good either as there are some animation errors in this episode which could have been fixed very easily and yet for some reason wasn't and while the animation in this episode was better then the animation in say Fantastic Four for example it's still not as good as the animation was in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

This is the episode that introduces the friendly rivalry between Wanda and Julia Carpenter as they each try to become Tony's love interest. This was a pretty bad down point in this episode as it's something that really doesn't play a part in the episode this is despite it being a fun aspect of both characters as it gives them something to do for the rest of this first season of the show despite being backup for Tony Stark but with that said they could have handled this part of both of there characters that little bit better as it's something that really does come out of nowhere and heck if they wanted to connect it to the plot of this episode then they really could have done by having each woman trying to outdo the other leading to Julia Carpenter confronting Ultimo by herself thus setting up the third act of the episode and yet the episode doesn't do that with this aspect of the characters feeling like something that wasn't all that well thought out with there storyline really alot more like an after thought and not like something that's an important aspect of both characters.

Out of both this episode and the debut episode for the Fantastic Four animated series this one does come across as being the worst one of the two. As at the very least the one for the Fantastic Four animated series was at the very least entertainingly bad where as this one isn't even that it's just straight up bad with the episode being very cutty cutter in that everything that you think is going to happen does happen in the episode with the episode doing nothing new or all that interesting compare this with Spider-Man: The Animated Series which aired not long after this show they at the very least took risks with more long form story arcs having six or seven part episodes or even X-Men: The Animated Series which would tell one story over the course of one single season despite having multiple single episodes stories as well this show however just plays things to safe which would have worked back in the eighties but it doesn't work in the nineties.

Ultimo in this episode really isn't that good of a villain which in this case is understandable as he is just a mindless robot. However at the same time we don't really get to find out why he's disobeying The Mandarin and MODOK as he just does it when we first meet him in the episode and yet they never explain it away when they really should have done as it's a key plot point as it gets the whole plot of the episode moving and is the whole reason why Iron Man is needed in the first place and yet the episode never goes into detail about it with Ultimo himself being nothing more then a mindless machine which again does make sense but we also don't really get to find out why he's doing what he's doing as he's just walking around the desert for no reason and yet for some reason he's treated as a big threat when he really isn't all that big of a threat especially when compared to either to MODOK or even The Mandarin for that matter.

Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly twenty one minuets and fifty six seconds. Which is a really rather solid running time for this episode to have and is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for this show to have but at the same time tho this episode could have done with being just a little big longer as that would then allow the makers of this episode to fully develop some of it's characters including the series main characters and to fully develop the episodes plot as well but this would also have had the issue of stretching the episodes plot even thinner then what it already is and when push does indeed come to shove the story has to always come first no matter how much time you add onto the episode if it effects the plot then it should remain as it is no matter what improvements could have been made if the episode was even a little bit longer but I will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is was an action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With the episode doing a decent job of showing why each member of the team belongs on the team but for some reason Wanda despite being the strongest member of any team that she's on really does nothing to help the team out action wise and even the show is named Iron Man and Iron Man is the main character of the show it's not Iron Man that takes Ultimo down it's Hawkeye which is in a way really refreshing as it does make sense as Hawkeye is there best archer but at the same time with the show being called Iron Man you'd expects Iron Man to be the one that really delivers the show that takes down Ultimo in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall while this show is better then the Fantastic Four animated series in some regards this episode is far more worse then the debut episode of the Fantastic Four animated series in alot more regards with the worst thing about this episode being the fact that it's both boring and forgettable in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then iv;e talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6 out of 10 from me,

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen the images that I personally used in this very review from the official marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I personally used in this very review being the really great and really legendary the official Marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page simply really just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this episode and are really of course on the official Marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page are all really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.

Iron Man 1994 Animated Series "And The Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead" Review

 

Marvel fans right now the character of Tony Stark / Iron Man is a household name and alot of that is due to the MCU and how well the character was portrayed and written in those films. However the character wasn't always that well known and so it's baffling that he got his own animated series in the early to mid nineties and what's even more odd is that for alot of kids myself included this was there introduction to Iron Man and those characters and so here is my review of the 1994 Iron Man animated series debut episode which is called "And The Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead" enjoy.

The plot to this episode is The Mandarin captures and somehow turn a bunch of sailors into zombies all to try and take down Iron Man once and for all. Yeah the plot really is that ridiculous even for an animated show based on a comic book the story is absurd and honestly it was at the point where the zombies were introduced that the episode lost me because of how silly it all was which is a shame because the story had some sort of potential to be good but for some reason the writer didn't care about making a good story he just cared about making something that even little kids would struggle to take seriously.

Starring in the episode is Robert Hays as Tony Stark / Iron Man and the late and great James Avery otherwise known as Uncle Phil as Jim Rhodes / War Machine. Also starring in the episode is Ed Gilbert as The Mandarin and Admiral Younger , Voice acting legend Jim Cummings as Modok and E.L.F. , Tony Steedman as Justin Hammer , James Warwick as Century , John Reilly as Hawkeye and Gletkin , Casey De Franco as Julia Carpenter / Spider-Woman , Katherine Moffat as Wanda Frank / Scarlet Witch and Radar Technician , Jeanine Elias as Veronica Benning and Computer , Chuck McCann as Blizzard , Neil Dickson as Dreadknight and Scanner Voice and Linda Holdahl as Hypnotia.

The acting in the episode is a little better then the actual story but that's more down to who's in the cast rather then the script. Since alot of these actors do deliver solid performances and are enjoyable to watch and listen to on screen but sadly what let's pretty much everything down is the script which as I said before when talking about the story is just so bad and it gives the actors nothing to work with in terms of character or a character's personality as such the actors only do the best that they can to make the script work.

Now for once I cannot find who did the animation for either this episode or the series as a whole which given what i'm about to say is most likely a good thing. Since yeah the animation in this episode is pretty freaking bad I give whoever did the animation credit because it most likely wasn't easy working on this show but the finished product is clearly not a good example of good animation and if i'm being honest it looks cheap as hell.

Making things worse is for at least the shows first season the show would make use of CGI which as you can see in the above picture looks laughable at best. I will give the CGI this tho for early to mid nineties CGI the CGI isn't that bad the problem is it's aged horribly and it comes out of know where they only use it for two scenes in this episode and that's it I have a feeling that the animation studio only included CGI just to prove that they could do it and not because it was something that actually looked good.

I have to talk about the zombies because it's such a strange and weird thing to have in this episode hell it's strange and weird to have them in this show. Why writer Ron Friedman thought including zombies was a good idea is beyond me because it's no stupid and so out of place with everything else that's going on in the episode I have to assume that he was high as a kite when he wrote this episode because that's the only logical reason I can think of altho he is the guy who milled Optimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie so maybe he was getting back at the adults who demanded Optimus be brought back by giving them something mother freaking stupid.

Yeah incase I haven't made it clear I don't like the fact that there's zombies in this episode because one as I said it's a stupid idea and two the designs for the zombies are just bland and uninspired. Honestly the writer Ron Friedman could have come up with something a little bit better and something that would have made sense but nope he chose not to any of that which just makes the idea freaking stupid as all hell and I wouldn't blame anyone if the episode lost them the second they entered the picture because that's when the episode lost me.

I will give not only this episode but this series this they do The Mandarin alot better then how Iron Man 3 did the character. Granted that's not really a high bar to reach but it's still something since this version of the character is still trying to be menacing and is actually evil instead of whatever the version in Iron Man 3 was meant to be. However what let's the character down is the fact that his evil plan for this episode is just to kill the hero and nothing more which just makes him blend in with all the other villains which is a shame because his design is pretty cool and the fact that he uses to rings to magic stuff is a pretty unique idea.

Now this show didn't actually have a network that it started on it started airing in syndication so basically a bunch networks had the rights to air the show.I honestly think that this is a first for a Marvel animated show but I could be wrong. the show aired for two seasons spanning from September 24th 1994 until September 23rd 1995 with the series having a total of twenty six episodes which I believe makes this shortest of the nineties Marvel animated shows but again I could be wrong when I say that tho.

                                                                                     

Now then since this is an action show that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in this episode. Which in my opinion is one of the better things in the episode not that the action is any good but when you compare it to literally anything else in the episode (apart from the acting that is) however if I was comparing the action to something like the acting in this episode then the action would come of looking worse because the action is just boring to watch in my opinion but when you compare to all of the bad things in the episode the action comes of looking better because of it.

Overall to say that this was a bad episode would be like saying alot of people dislike the Captain Marvel movie no duh. There are some good things in this episode the issue is there's alot more bad things with the episode which make this episode pretty bad and since this was the debut episode it gives people a bad impression of the series as such this episode gets a 6 out of 10 from this Marvel / comic book and animation fan.

All the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page. As such I have no choice but to recommend them for images from this show or any of the animated nineties Marvel shows but with that being said alot of the images are fairly low quality which is to be expected given the time period that this show came out and so don't expect to find that many if any high quality images from either this show or any of the Marvel Animated Universe shows because you won't find them.