History WesternAnimation / IronManTheAnimatedSeries

** In keeping with the earlier idea her father was the Whizzer, not ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, the ComicBook/ScarletWitch's last name is "Frank", not "Lehnsherr".

* ShowAccuracyToyAccuracy" Zig-zagged. The first season had the normal, space and hydro armors accurate to the toys. Season 2 replaced the normal armor with a more streamlined version (most notably lacking the mouth slit), which wasn't available as its' own toy; the closest thing was the inferno armor (which owing to the needs of the toy wasn't as accurate). The samurai armor, which was only briefly glimpsed (notably during the intro) was also colored a dark blue/black as opposed to the greeny-blue of the toy, and the stealth armor was colored in shades of gray, as opposed to the dark blue/black color scheme from the action figure. The magnetic, lava and radiation suits were accurate to the unreleased toys, however.

** In "The Beast Within", Iron Man fakes his death by the Mandarin's hands, leading the rest of the team without their leader and to battle with Fing Fang Foom and the other dragons without him. Just as they seem to be losing, Iron Man appears out of the sky, and teams up with the Mandarin to stop the dragons. The scene has War Machine sound overjoyed at his best friend's survival, but in literally the next scene, Rhodey knocks Tony to the ground and chews him out for not having enough trust in the team to let them know he's alive. This is actually what led to Force Works disbanding.

** An alternate future counterpart of IM, in green armor, made a quick cameo in the ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "One Man's Worth".

** 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 "ComicBook/ArmorWars" two-parter. He finally becomes War Machine again in the two-part series finale.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: It's never explained just where the Mandarin got the Heart of Darkness he used in the season 2 finale from. During Century's peering into Hypnotia's mind, we briefly see a shot of the crystal with the face of a Makulan (the race of alien dragons, including Fin Fang Foom, seen in "The Beast Within") briefly visible, so presumably it's another one of their artifacts like his rings. (In the comics, it was a 20,000 year old sphere that fell to Earth, but it was from a long-gone alien race and had no connection to the Makulans.)

* CloudCuckoolander: H.O.M.E.R. briefly becomes this during "Iron Man, On The Inside" thanks to The Hacker uploading a virus into the Stark systems. The result is H.O.M.E.R.'s holo-avatar constantly switching colors, his voice randomly switching tones and him spouting non-sequiturs. Fortunately, Julia uploads an anti-virus program and he quickly returns to normal.

* CompressedAdaptation: "The Beast Within" is an adaptation of the comics' "Dragon Seed Saga" storyline, which went on for multiple issues; here, it's only one episode long (though it's a WhamEpisode). Downplayed with the "Hands of the Mandarin", which in the comics spanned the separate ''Iron Man'', ''War Machine'' and ''Force Works'' titles (plus a few backup stories in the ''Marvel Comics Presents'' anthology series); it's compressed into a two-parter season finale here.

** Iron Man appears (alongside War Machine) in a few episodes of ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'' (with a new design that mixes his season one and two designs with new elements borrowed from the Telepresence unit from the comics; War Machine also got a different appearance, with comics-accurate shoulder cannons).
** He appears too (alongside War Machine once again, plus H.O.M.E.R.) in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996''. 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.
** He also made a cameo appearance in ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourTheAnimatedSeries'' as a member/leader of the Avengers (although he doesn't speak).

** "The Beast Within": Fing Fang Foom is written out, the Mandarin's rings are scattered across the world, his LegionOfDoom gets arrested, and Iron Man's {{Jerkass}} scheming costs him half his team.
** “Armor Wars: Part 1”: Crimson Dynamo commits suicide by flying to the base of a nuclear missile while pursued by a heat seeking missile, and the resulting explosion leads to thousands of people getting radiation poisoning.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: In "Distant Boundaries," Iron Man and War Machine head into space to save an alien civilization from Dark Aegis. By the time they arrive, Dark Aegis has already slaughtered them.

'''Iron Man:''' Life is life, pal! Even yours--as twisted as it is--is born with value.

*** Hawkeye replaces [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica the Captain]] as the Avenger who fights Iron Man at the Vault (presumably due to the aforementioned rights issues).

** Roxxon, while namechecked as owning a refinery, has its' villainous role in the Star Well project transferred to AIM; AIM also took the role of the villainous forces attacking the Star Well (which in the comics was taken up by the Soviet Union).

** He appears too (alongside War Machine once again) in an episode of the then-latest ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996'' 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.

* {{Expy}}: Elastika is visually similar to Zarana from ''Franchise/GIJoe'', and has the same basic MasterOfDisguise theme.

* 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 (possible) death]].
* HeartOfTheMatter: The series finale saw [[BigBad The Mandarin]] hold the world hostage using a gigantic gem called The Heart of Darkness which, by draining the energy of superbeings, could blanket the world in an anti-technology field, grinding the modern world to a halt

** When Iron Man and the Hulk get sent to the prehistoric past in "Hulk Buster," Tony sarcastically asks if someone just changed the channel.
** 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]." [[note]] This was likely a TakeThat at the first season, where the Mandarin was behind ''every single plot'' and it would typically take a while for Tony and the others to catch on. 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.[[/note]]

* MomentKiller: In "Distant Boundaries," H.O.M.E.R. and later Rhodey do this to Tony and Julia.

** Julia in a season 2 episode name-checks Captain America.

* AdaptationDyeJob: The Mandarin has green skin, [[RaceLift and is British to boo]]t, presumably to avoid falling into the YellowPeril trope (this despite still keeping the Mandarin name). Strangely, he's a lighter shade of green in season 2.

* BraggingThemeTune: Distilled into four words in the second season's theme song- "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis I. AM. IRON MAN!]]"

* OffModel: The first season even [[EpicFail fails in]] [[UpToEleven comparison to both]] ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' or the first season of sister series ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourTheAnimatedSeries''.

This series ran for two seasons from 1994 to 1996 alongside ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour'' as part of the syndicated ''Marvel Action Hour''. Like ''Fantastic Four'', it had a bland first season and a significantly improved second.

** 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]].)

** He also made a cameo appearance in ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour'' as a member/leader of the Avengers (although he doesn't speak).
** An alternate future counterpart of IM, in green armor, made a quick cameo in the ''WesternAnimation/XMen'' episode "One Man's Worth".

-->'''Tony''': Hello Fury, what bug crawled up your -?
-->'''Nick Fury''': It's about Iron Man.

-->'''Julia''': You lousy, lying -!

--->'''Dreadknight''': Give me a chance, Hypnotia. I'll make you lose your taste for Tony Stark.
--->'''Hypnotia''': I'm more likely to lose my lunch.

* OffModel: The first season even [[EpicFail fails in]] [[UpToEleven comparison to both]] ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' or the first season of sister series ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour''.

** "Hulk Buster" reuses the climatic explosion from "The Beast Within" and a Hulk transformation from ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour''.

* SupermanStaysOutOfGotham: The series was generally lighter on special guest stars than other Marvel cartoons of the era, especially ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'' and ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFour''. This is particularly noticeable in the two-part SeriesFinale, where the Mandarin shuts off all of the technology in New York City. Despite New York being home to the vast majority of the superheroes in the Marvel Universe, no other costumed heroes are seen helping out while the city is devolving into chaos.

See also ''Comicbook.IronMan'' and ''Film.IronMan'', other works with this title.

* WhamEpisode: "The Beast Within" - Fing Fang Foom is written out, the Mandarin's rings are scattered across the world, his LegionOfDoom gets arrested, and Iron Man's {{Jerkass}} scheming costs him half his team.

** Iron Man could count, too, given he does jackass things like faking his death and the "ComicBook/ArmorWars" stuff, but he did believe he trying to help people.

* AscendedExtra: An odd example. Hypnotia is the first villain actually shown in the first episode, beyond the opening credits, and she's shown successfully completing her mission. She then disappears for the next few episodes and is briefly replaced by another villainess, Elastika, before Hypnotia reappears and starts getting bigger roles. This is only in the first season mind you, as she's mostly absent alongside the other villains for most of season two besides the opening and ending episodes.

** The Hacker from "Iron Man on the Inside."

* InNameOnly: The Scarlet Witch seen here bears 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, man-crazy, [[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, shape-shifting, 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]].

* TenMinuteRetirement:
** Tony has one of these in "ComicBook/ArmorWars."
** 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 "ComicBook/ArmorWars" two-parter. He finally becomes War Machine again in the two-part series finale.

* DramaticUnmask: In "Hands of the Mandarin, Part I," [[spoiler:the Mandarin melts off Iron Man's helmet]].

** Elastika is also one, and she only appears once in the first season.

** 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 "ComicBook/ArmorWars" 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.

** Roxxon, while namechecked as owning a refinery, has its' villainous role in the Star Well project transferred to AIM.