History WesternAnimation / IronMan

* AbridgedSeries: Got one as part of ''WesternAnimaiton/MarvelMashUp''; strangely, they chose to use season 2 instead of season 1.

* AbridgedSeries: Got one as part of ''WesternAnimaiton/MArvelMashUp''; strangely, they chose to use season 2 instead of season 1.

The first season dealt with Iron Man and his team of fellow superheroes, Force Works -- consisting of ComicBook/WarMachine, ComicBook/SpiderWoman (Julia Carpenter), ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}, ComicBook/ScarletWitch, and Century -- battling the forces of the evil Mandarin, such as Whirlwind and Grey Gargoyle. The episodes in this season were mostly one-part stories. Common points of contention for many during this season were the shoddy animation, and that other than the "Origin of Iron Man" two-parter, which modernized his origins, there were no attempts to adapt stories from the comic mythos.

* AchillesInHisTent: Force Works in Season 2 effectively disbands when half the the team (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and Century) quits, having become disgusted by Tony faking his death and not letting them in on it. They do come BackForTheFinale.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: Firepower is reenvisioned as a mecha, as opposed to the man in a MiniMecha from the comics.

** The show's version of Force Works replaces U.S. Agent with Hawkeye (apparently due to rights issues as U.S. Agent was tied to Captain America). Strangely, U.S. Agent still received an action figure in the show's toyline, possibly indicating that he ''was'' planned to be part of the team at one point; he and Hawkeye were both on the team in the tie-in comics. (It should be noted that the figure never received a wide release thanks to issues at Toy Biz; the figure later surfaced via semi-illegal means, and the mold was eventually repurposed-- first as Living Laser, but when the ''IM'' line was cancelled along with the show, Toy Biz remolded it once again into [[WesternAnimation/XMen Astral Armor Professor X]].)

** Justin Hammer has some traits of Obadiah Stane. As revealed in "The Origin of Iron Man" 2-parter, he caused the attack on Stark Industries.

** He also made a cameo appearance in ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour'' as a member/leader of the Avengers (although the colors of his leg armor are swapped in these cameos, and he doesn't speak).

** Ex-KGB who wants to basically bring back the Cold War and win it decides to launch a nuke at a Russian city and make America look responsible, and when stopped, decides to detonate it there, atomizing himself and anyone else in the immediate area, and causing numerous deaths from radiation poisoning. No, this isn't an episode of ''Series/TwentyFour'', it's an episode of a ''kids' cartoon.'' [[spoiler:Crimson Dynamo's swan-song, setting off the animated version of the ComicBook/ArmorWars storyline... which is also one of those episodes that shows Stark's dark side.]]

* DirtyCommunists: Crimson Dynamo, a deranged KGB agent-turned terrorist obsessed with destroying the capitalist system and bringing back the Soviet Union.

* ItsAllAboutMe: The episode covering his backstory depicted the Mandarin abandoning his own fiancee to die in order to enhance his own chances of survival, all the whilse justifying it on the grounds that he had a "great destiny" to live for.

** Likewise, in "Hands of the Mandarin: Part 1," Tony says "You don't have to be a cartoon writer to figure out the Mandarin is behind [the terrorist attacks in Hong Kong]." (Which may have been a TakeThat at the first season, where the Mandarin was behind ''every single plot''. Blame Ron Friedman, a writer who apparently didn't grasp that the 80s were over {he worked on the original ''[[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero G.I. Joe]]'' cartoon} and people wanted more from their shows.)

** In "Fire and Rain" Tony says Jim needs to meet him at the "Roxxon refinery"; in the comics Roxxon is a major oil company and a major foe of Tony's ([[AdaptedOut though their role in the Sunturion plot was transferred to AIM]])

* SelfServingMemory: In the season 1 finale, it's the Mandarin's idea for him and Iron Man to combine their powers to defeat the Makluan Dragons. However, this results in a large explosion and him losing his rings, and by season 2 he's convinced himself that Iron Man tricked him into the plan to try and get rid of him.

* TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects: The first season featured a completely CG-rendered [[TransformationSequence suit-up sequence]] whenever Tony donned his Iron Man armor. It looked out-of-place and was replaced in season two with an animated 2D sequence in the intro.

* NotSoDifferent: Arthur Dearborn from "Cell of Iron" used high levels of microwave energy to cure a deadly disease, but he was transformed into Sunturion. He gave off lethal radiation and banished himself to the Starwell space station.

* InNameOnly: The Scarlet Witch seen here bares no similarities with the comic book character except having the first name Wanda (in the cartoon she's Wanda ''Frank'' rather than Maximoff), and having a vaguely Eastern European accent. Personality-wise, she's quick to anger, mancrazy, [[CloudCuckooLander more than a little weird]], has the hots for Tony, and sees Jessica as her romantic rival for his affections. In the comics she's level-headed ([[ComicBook/HouseOfM normally]]) and has led the Avengers before, and she counts Tony and Jessica among her closest friends. Power-wise, instead of [[WindsOfDestinyChange probability manipulation]], her abilities are vaguely-defined but seem to be explicitly magical, including tarot-reading, shapeshifting, and altering matter. Even her costume is based on a very brief period in the comics where she experimented with short hair, rather than her more recognizable long hair and tiara. And zero references are made to her [[ComicBook/{{Magneto}} father]] or [[ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} twin brother]].

** The first season had an episode where Tony fooled the Mandarin into thinking that Tony Stark and Iron Man were separate people by having Julia (Spider-Woman) marry a robot duplicate with everyone being in on the charade except for Wanda, who was very upset at the deception. And even though she was in on it, [[CerebusSyndrome Season 2]] had Julia rightly point out how she was being jerked around.

** Outside of the Scarlet Witch, everyone knew the wedding between Tony and Julia was fake, but they wanted Wanda's reaction to be genuine.
** Force Works quits after Tony pulls this on them in the second season premiere.

** The adaptation of "Armor Wars" is pretty true to the comic that inspired it, but makes a few character changes:

** During the "Armor Wars" two-parter, after Tony discovers that his designs have been stolen, he goes on a crusade to disable the armored heroes and villains using his technology to keep them falling into the wrong hands. It gets to the point that he "fires" Iron Man as Stark Enterprises can't associate with a CorporateSamurai gone rogue, and acts more rashly - while shutting out his friends and allies, even attacking one of them. Julia goes out her way to call him out on the crap he's pulled over the years - not just recently, and when he fakes his death again but lets Julia and Rhodey know he's alive, the former goes through the emotional ringer - first in grief to Tony's "death", then elation, and later takes Tony to task again for his recklessness and selfish actions, and makes it very clear to him that he hurt both Rhodey and herself in his paranoia over the stolen Stark tech, even if he hadn't set out to do so.

* TheBusCameBack: Even before the finale, Blacklash and Blizzard appeared in the Armor Wars two-parter hijacking a plane. Also, Titanium Man, who only appeared in the first episode of season 1 until his return in the season 2 episode "Distant Boundaries".

** While the Mandarin's lackeys were used less frequently in Season 2 in general, Justin Hammer, M.O.D.O.K., Hypnotia, Whirlwind, Blizzard, Blacklash and Titanium Man all made at least one guest appearance each. Grey Gargoyle, Living Laser, Elastika and Dreadknight were far less fortunate, and completely stopped appearing after the first season, save for a few of them having a brief cameo in the Season 2 premiere (and Grey Gargoyle having a cameo in prison in the "Armor Wars" two-parter). What makes it odd is that the Mandarin eventually frees Hypnotia, Blizzard, Whirlwind and Blacklash from prison, but neglects to recover the rest of their former teammates.

** From "Armor Wars":

** Ex-KGB who wants to basically bring back the Cold War and win it decides to launch a nuke at a Russian city and make America look responsible, and when stopped, decides to detonate it there, atomizing himself and anyone else in the immediate area, and causing numerous deaths from radiation poisoning. No, this isn't an episode of ''Series/TwentyFour'', it's an episode of a ''kids' cartoon.'' [[spoiler:Crimson Dynamo's swan-song, setting off the animated version of the Armor Wars storyline... which is also one of those episodes that shows Stark's dark side.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: "Armor Wars: Part 2" has a scene where Rhodey becomes extremely worried after Tony locks himself in his lab and stops answering when anyone tries to communicate with him. Julia's response implies (but doesn't outright state) that the two of them are worried that Tony may have committed suicide after his latest bout of depression.

** Iron Man could count, too, given he does jackass things like faking his death and the "Armor Wars" stuff, but he did believe he trying to help people.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: In the "Armor Wars" two-parter, Tony starts out by simply attacking villains using armor--stopping them in the middle of crimes and demonstrating that they were using technology stolen from him. However, he quickly becomes more obsessive and starts going after good guys that wear armor, such as Stingray and even War Machine. All the while, Iron Man is condemned as a menace, while Julia and Rhodey denounce him, Nearly getting killed by Justin Hammer's new weapon, though, knocks some sense into him and causes him to clean up his act.

* PutOnABus: Hawkeye, Century, and Scarlet Witch quit the team after Season 2's premiere. Hawkeye returns for "Iron Man, On The Inside", again the part 1 of the "Armor Wars" two-parter, and both he and the rest of the team return in the finale.

** Tony has one of these in "Armor Wars."
** Rhodey also takes a step back from heroics after "Fire and Rain." Circumstances force him back into the armor a few more times throughout the season, before Tony destroys the War Machine suit during the "Armor Wars" two-parter. He finally becomes War Machine again in the two-part series finale.

** While chewing Tony out for his actions in Armor Wars, Julia insists that he can't just ask her and Rhodey for forgiveness; their emotions aren't something he can switch on and off like a computer. H.O.M.E.R asks if [[InsultFriendlyFire he should be offended by that]], and Tony, Julia and Rhodey all crack up. Tony isn't laughing for long, since he's in pretty bad shape.

** Justified for Stingray, Controller, Stilt-Man, and Firepower, as they were only in the "Armor Wars" two-parter, Justin Hammer was merely a civilian (albeit one secretly corrupt), while Firebrand was only in one episode.

* WeWillMeetAgain: The Crimson Dynamo promises this to Iron Man in "Not Far From the Tree." They meet again in the first part of "Armor Wars," and it's a complete disaster.

** The "Armor Wars" two-parter is pretty much this non-stop until Tony has a WhatHaveIDone moment after defeating the heroic Stingray only to find that Stingray was not using his technology.

** During the "Armor Wars" two-parter, after Tony discovers that his designs that been stolen, he goes on a crusade to disable the armored heroes and villains using his technology to keep them falling into the wrong hands. It gets to the point that he "fires" Iron Man as Stark Enterprises can't associate with a CorporateSamurai gone rogue, and acts more rashly - while shutting out his friends and allies, even attacking one of them. Julia goes out her way to call him out on the crap he's pulled over the years - not just recently, and when he fakes his death again but lets Julia and Rhodey know he's alive, the former goes through the emotional ringer - first in grief to Tony's "death", then elation, and later takes Tony to task again for his recklessness and selfish actions, and makes it very clear to him that he hurt both Rhodey and herself in his paranoia over the stolen Stark tech, even if he hadn't set out to do so.

** "The Origin of the Mandarin" revealed the origin of the Mandarin.

* GrandFinale: Season two's "Hands of the Mandarin" two-parter, where Mandarin--having finally collected all of his Ten Rings--launches a scheme to make all of the planet's technology useless, which would make his arch-enemy Iron Man ineffective against him. As Mandarin reforms his team of super villains, Iron Man reforms his superhero team and develops new armor to negate Mandarin's anti-technology spell, and a final confrontation between the two ends in [[spoiler:Mandarin's death]].

*** Edwin Cord's role as the backer of the Firepower project is replaced by Hammer. Since Firepower is changed from an armored suit to a robot, Jack Taggert also doesn't appear.

** The show's version of Force Works replaces U.S. Agent with Hawkeye (apparently due to rights issues as U.S. Agent was tied to Captain America). Strangely, U.S. Agent still received an action figure in the show's toyline, possibly indicating that he ''was'' planned to be part of the team at one point; he and Hawkeye were both on the team in the tie-in comics. (It should be noted that the figure never received a wide release thanks to issues at Toy Biz; the figure later surfaced via semi-illegal means, and the mold was eventually repurposed-- first as Living Laser, but when the ''IM'' line was cancelled along with the show, Toy Biz remolded it more into [[WesternAnimation/XMen Astral Armor Professor X]].)

** MODOK's condition wasn't cause by A.I.M. trying to turn a man into a supercomputer (like in the comics), but was rather mutated by his rival, the Red Ghost (who apparently created Titanium Man)[[note]]in the comics, Red Ghost is typically an enemy of the Fantastic Four, and is/was a Soviet scientist who intentionally exposed himself and his trained apes to cosmic rays to gain superpowers; aside from both having worked for the Soviets, he and Titanium Man have no connection, and he and the comics M.O.D.O.K. have never worked together either[[/note]], over the affections of a woman. This results in MODOK serving the Mandarin as TheIgor, whilst they have never worked together in the comics.

** In this series, Mandarin is connected to Fin Fang Foom -- his "power rings" contain crystals taken from the core of Foom's spaceship, and the dragon reluctantly works for him -- whilst they have nothing to do with each other in the comics.
** Before he became the Leader, Samuel Sterns was Bruce Banner's lab assistant. The toxic waste accident that mutated Sterns occurred while he was performing cleanup duties at the site of the fateful G-Bomb test that turned Banner into Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk.

* AchillesInHisTent: Force Works in Season 2 effectively disbands when half the the team (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, and Century) quits, having become disgusted Tony after faking his own death. They do come BackForTheFinale.

* TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects: The first season featured a completely CG-rendered [[TransformationSequence suit-up sequence]] whenever Tony donned his Iron Man armor. It looked out-of-place and was replaced in season two with an animated 2D sequence in the intro.

** He appears too (alongside War Machine once again) in an episode of the then-latest ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk'' cartoon. The Hulk himself appears in an episode of this show as he teams up with Iron Man to stop The Leader from going back to the past to take Bruce Banner's place in the gamma bomb explosion that created the Hulk. The episode in question is something of a SequelEpisode to "Hulkbuster", with Tony and Bruce Banner already being friends and being a SecretKeeper for the other.

** The 2011 ''ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} series brought in the idea that "Walter" is Howard Stark's middle name.

* AdaptationNameChange: Ho Yinsen became ''Wellington'' Yinsen.
** Tony's dad is called Walter instead of Howard.

* {{Retcon}}: In Season 1, the accident that killed Tony's father was caused by Justin Hammer. In Season 2, it was caused by A.I.M.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iron_man_tas.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Yeah...[[PutOnABus don't get too attached to half these guys come Season 2.]]]]

!! Tropes present in this series:

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In his first appearance, Crimson Dynamo says that he is willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the capitalist system and Tony Stark. [[spoiler: He does indeed sacrifice himself in his very next appearance, detonating a nuke in an attempt to start World War 3.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In his first appearance, Crimson Dynamo says that he is willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the capitalist system and Tony Stark. [[spoiler: In his very next appearance, he does indeed sacrifice himself to detonate a nuke in order to start World War 3.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In his first appearance, Crimson Dynamo says that he is willing to sacrifice his life to destroy Tony Stark. [[spoiler: In his very next appearance, he does indeed end up dying while trying to kill Tony.]]