Hellboy & Iron Man DTVs

[Talavar]

In the last little while Hellboy: Sword of Storms and the Invincible Iron Man direct to video movies both came out.  I think there was a thread about the Hellboy one when it aired on Cartoon Network, I enjoyed it with some slight reservations, and I'll leave it for others to comment on.

Iron man was overall a better film than either of the Ultimate Avengers movies in my opinion, though it still had some weaknesses.  It had an odd setup, seeming like an Iron man origin story, what with the make-shift armor Tony makes, only for it turn out not to be, as he's already been got a ton of better suits (a ridiculous number, really).  The villain was also weak; I would either have preferred a technological baddie like Crimson Dynamo, or a version of the Titanium Man, or a more classic take on the Mandarin, rather than a story about magic vs. technology.  The animation was pretty sweet, and the different armours looked great in action.  What have others thought about it?

[BentonGrey]

Hmm, I will deffinetly have to get the Iron Man DVD.

[bredon7777]

I'm not sure I can get past how drastically they changed his origin.

[BentonGrey]

Really?  What's different?  They've always got to monkey with the origins :P

[crimsonquill]

Between changing the origin or modernizing it seems to be a fine line as far as movies go... say, Captain America's origin in Ultimate Avengers works perfectly because he can be kept as a World War II soldier but just wakes up in the 21st Century instead of the 20th Century - and by using the Ultimate origin they could drop The Red Skull character until later. His background story works in a short version if it's done just right and allowed to be accepted (and in some cases with a grain of salt) but other characters (i.e. Fantastic Four and Punisher) can be rejected if anything is changed or adjusted for time in a new medium.

Iron Man is a hard origin to tweak with in realistic terms because he was originally depicted as a genuis ahead of his time who gets captured after being mortally wounded and forced to make an ultimate weapon. The result is pushing himself with what low tech equipment and hardware he has to make a suit of armor to escape with but also provide a life support system. That whole core origin remains the same between both the comic and cartoon version. The change is that Stark already has expanded his technological skills as we first meet him and his growth as a character is a huge jump before he opens that secret door in his office. It's the same problem that the movie writers are going to have of keeping Tony in his 30s but still be involved with some major conflict in which he gets wounded but still have access to uber modern technology.

[spoiler]The revelation of Tony having created numberous suits of armor before his "capture scene" was just a choice the writers made to explain why he could throw a suit together so fast and a back door for giving Tony better suits to use without losing the audience to another armor building scene with a lab nobody knew about. Having Mandarin as a magical supernatural being works for me as a "Ultimate" version because most of us remember the old Iron Man cartoon with him as the Ming Wannabe mastermind villian with his lackies who included Modok.[/spoiler]

- CrimsonQuill

[Talavar]

Welll....

[spoiler]
They don't show his origin.  At the start of the movie, he's already Iron Man.  He's got the suits, and though it's not mentioned, we can infer that this is occurring after the events of the 2 Ultimate Avengers movies.

What is changed is that he's kidnapped to work for this Chinese secret society to prevent/undo the release of the Mandarin, and his heart is wounded in the kidnapping.  He builds a makeshift suit of armor with Rhody, also a prisoner, to escape/miniaturize the equipment keeping him alive.  This armor is cruder and bulkier than his others, but because he's using makeshift parts in less-than-ideal circumstances.  It works in some of the classic elements, but definitely not like the original origin of Iron Man.
[/spoiler]

I don't think it's that hard to modernize Tony's origin, say for the movie in development, they could use Warren Ellis' reboot origin of the war on terror, or they could use the Ultimate origin and just give him cancer instead of a battle injury.

[detourne_me]

i really liked the new take on it myself, and it is quite a bit better than the origin orson scott card came up for him in the ultimate universe (love card's enderverse, but ultimate tony stark was a bit too far...)

[Shogunn2517]

[spoiler]I actually really liked what they did with modernizing his orgin.  I thought it was done creatively and was believable enough for me to accept.  But like others have said the two points of the movie that didn't sit well with me was the revelation of the other armor suits and how they did the Mandarin.  My take on the origin and the suits, like I said, I liked how it started off with a rough, grey bulky Iron Man that kinda made sense to me.  But then it's revealed he has all of these other suits and the public doesn't know about Iron Man by now?  As far as the Mandarin, I don't have a problem with his magical/mythic origin.  In fact, I like it a lot better than the alien origin.  The problem was... well 'who' the Mandarin ended up being and the fact that the 'fight at the end' was much of a 'fight at the end' and more of an exorcism.

Overall, I think it started off well and tapered down towards the end, ending up in a slight letdown.[/spoiler]

I'm still curious about the Dr. Strange movie and would like to see Marval animation continue to thrive.

[Talavar]

There is no origin shown in this movie, it's like an origin fake-out.  There's nothing to suggest that the public doesn't know about Iron man, they just don't know he's Tony Stark.  It's never outright said, but it's also never contradicted, that this is the same character and continuity as in the 2 Ultimate Avengers movies.

I've enjoyed all of these DTVs that I'll definitely pick up Dr. Strange and Hellboy: Blood & Iron when they come out.

[BentonGrey]

Ohh yeah, I'm gonna' get any and all of the Hellboy dvd's they put out!

[Shogunn2517]

I thought I heard them say on UA2, Iron Man was a different continunity.

[Talavar]

Well, someone may have said that, but when it has the same voice actors, the same animation style, uses an established hero without giving an origin, and does nothing to contradict the events of the other stories, I'm going say they're in the same continuity.

[starlock]

iron man was definetly before the ultimates 1 & 2 and i believe it is an origin,rhodey never says anything he gets mad that tony is hiding the suits and plans for them,i think he would have said somthing about it so i will infer that it is before the ultimates movies
in the scene in ultimate avengers 2 tony is hiking with his company or executives in the mountains and has to replace his heart battery that is a giveaway right there

Hellboy was awesome BTW

[Dweomer Knight]

The ending of Iron Man was anti-climatic, I thought.

DK

[Panther_Gunn]

Whilst reading the latest Shortpacked strip today (no link provided due to language), I scrolled down & read a bit of his blog.  One section was so good, I had to share.

So we watched that animated Iron Man movie on Cartoon Network tonight. Let me provide a summary.

Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Emo Tony closeup
Talk talk talk
Emo Tony closeup in shower
Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Emo Tony closeup
Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Iron Man gets beat up
Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Talk talk talk
Emo Tony closeup
Iron Man gets beat up
Talk talk talk

Something interesting may have happened at some point. Maybe. I'm not sure.

God, Marvel can't do animation.

[Glitch Girl]

REMINDER: Hellboy - Blood and Iron will be airing on CN this coming Saturday.

[BentonGrey]

Can't WAIT to see that!

[bredon7777]

It was great! Way better than the last one.

[BentonGrey]

Once again, I managed to miss the first thirty minutes of it, but I caught the rest.  I felt like it jumped over a few plot points, but upon further reflection, I think that was because of what I missed.  I REALLY enjoyed it, I thought it was really great. 

[Glitch Girl]

It was very good, and I admit it would help if you saw it from the begining Benton: the flashback retelling of previous events was in reverse so you probably missed some key points.  There were a few plot bobbles, but I too liked it better than the first.  Plus I love the extra team members they've been introducing: first the precog in the first movie, and now the human metal detector. The team on this has really gotten it together, and after the Iron Man and Mosaic movies, this seemed evern more solid.  I hope they do more.

[BentonGrey]

Did anybody else catch the Lobster Johnson bit at the end?  What was that about?

[Glitch Girl]

Not sure-  maybe it's their next movie?

[bredon7777]

NO! I missed it. Spoil it for us?

[quiet]

I haven't seen the hellboy movies but with ironman I thought they did an ok job. According to the writers the reason they had him already have a bunch of armors already made was they thought it was unrealalistic for him to just make a super power suit out of left over parts without already of having some experience with making suits with all the technology available.

Overall I think marvel is doing ok with their animation and they will probably get better.  They have stated that unless the movies are not in continuity with each other unless specificly stateted (ie ultimate avengers 1&2).  Dr strange lookes promising, but after that they are doing a "kid friendly" teen avengers, not the young avengers, but teen avengers. That may be bad news.

my problem with ultimate avengers 2 and iron man is why do they have to come up with an original story when they have 50 years of stories to choose from, even in modernized form?  I would like to see them fight villains on screen or hydra or the hand or the masters of evil, etc.  not the ultimate version of the skrulls for two movies and elementals representing ironman foes from the comics.

I enjoy comics from marvel more than dc, but I think dc's Timmerverse or DCAU or whatever you want to call it is the best of what comic properties turned into animation should be. complete with a tight continuity as well.

[lugaru]

Im with quiet...

Marvel comics > DC Animation > Marvel Animation > DC Comics. If you include the live action movies they would be sandwiched in there somewhere.

BUT Ironman was a great improvement over the avengers movies and even my pet peeve (the way they handled mandarin) was not terrible, all in all promising but Marvel has had it's Elektras and DC has had it's Catwoman's so I wouldent be too shocked if one of the upcoming animated features is terrible.

[Talavar]

Oh, there's no comparison between Marvel's current crop of cartoons to the Bruce Timm DC cartoons, the Timm ones are so much better it isn't funny.  If you compare Teen Titans and THE Batman, well, then things don't look quite so rosy.

[BentonGrey]

LOL, very true.