Review: Iron Man: The Animated Series Episode 2

Iron Man the Animated Series, Episode 2: “Rejoice! I Am Ultimo Thy Deliverer.” It starts out with Mandarin guiding a tanker through a thunderstorm. He pulls into a hidden base on an island where he meets MODOK and Justin Hammer, a wealthy weapons developer. The ship opens and inside contains the robotic alien behemoth, Ultimo. Or as far as it appears, Seth from Street Fighter 4.

Seth & Ultimo

Mandarin attempts to awaken Ultimo using his magic rings, which is pretty much the totality of Mandarin's powers. It has no effect and MODOK and Hammer cry about all the time and money they wasted. Oh, and MODOK is finally addressed by his NAME in this episode. In Episode 1, it was not mentioned. I just happened to know who he was. Hammer settles for making Ultimo scrap metal and sends some robots to dice up the phenom. But antagonizing the monster makes it become aware as this huge, metal, silver giant puts quick work to the robots using its...nose lasers. Yes, Ultimo is attacking with purple lasers from its nostrils. Then the thing speaks. “Rejoice! I Am Ultimo Thy Deliverer!” I had to pause and laugh. Ultimo's speaking is a combination of three voice overs: the Budweiser frog, random emotionless voice actor #27 and Bender from Futurama. And that's all Ultimo says. The same line over and over. I keep waiting to hear, “I am Bender, please insert girder.” Mandarin attempts to halt Ultimo by shooting his own arsenal of lasers...which Ultimo just opens his mouth and eats the lasers. Wow. Ultimo then blasts a hole to outside and continues to stomp away

We then cut to Tony and Rhodey at a party, and based on the random Spanish that made me check my fucking language audio, I'm left to assume they are in Mexico? James pulls Stark aside and shows him footage of Ultimo stomping through Baja, California. Tony notices a cloud following Ultimo which he reveals as Mandarin's, get this, “Sky Saucer.” LAME! Tony suits up and leaves James to make small talk with the party. What does Rhodes say? “How bout them Cowboys?”

STOP.

FUCK THE COWBOYS!

CONTINUE.

Mandarin and MODOK catch up to Ultimo and plan to take control of it by using what appears to be a gigantic digital watch. Apparently, this 70 foot monstrosity has a weakness for a nice Rolex. Iron Man appears and engages Ultimo and gets his Iron'd ass kicked. Bitch slapped, viced and crushed to the ground, Ultimo lifts his megaton foot to crush our hero...Mandarin makes him stop and has Ultimo put him in the Sky Saucer? What the FUCK?! This show is only on the second episode, another gigantic enemy has Iron Man beat, and Mandarin REFUSES to Iron Man killed. WORST. VILLAIN. EVER!!

"This will look good with his nostril lasers."

Cut to Iron Man's HQ while Rhodes and the gang watch a news update of Ultimo heading towards “Dark Enterprises.” Um, Dark Enterprises...ok? James then states that if Ultimo destroys the armory there that it could blast a hole in the Earth destroying everything. Which I fucking doubt he's going to do. Mandarin is controlling it. Why would he destroy the world? That makes no sense. James gears up into War Machine, whose mouth got fixed in this episodes(YAY!) and takes off with his clan. And Hawkeye flies out on his rocket powered motorcycle. Which is totally...bad ass.

Awesome!

Back to the Sky Saucer where Mandarin is torturing Iron Man. Mandarin claims that he find out the secrets to Iron Man and he will find out who he is.......WHAT?! Iron Man's identity is SECRET in this show?! That is total bullshit! One of the unique aspects of Tony Stark is that he is totally open about his identity of being Iron Man! This is RUINING one of the most important staples of Tony Stark. HE IS IRON MAN! Marvel, how can you fuck up your own character?! So, War Machine and friends attack Ultimo. He blasts of the control Rolex device and Ultimo wanders off. Our villains catch wind of this and decide to abandon Iron Man to follow Ultimo. How does Mandarin do this? By blasting the ground where Iron Man is laying and just leaving him there. FACEPALM. Why do bad guys just leave their opponents assuming their dead? Seriously, Mandarin should be casted as the next Bond villain. Century finds Iron Man and heals him causing him to fall unconscious. Iron Man scoops up his ally and takes him back to base.

Iron Man and company figure out that Ultimo must have an “ON/OFF switch” and need to find a way to shut it down. Tony tells War Machine and the others to stall Ultimo while him and the Scarlet Witch – HALT! What the fuck now? The Scarlet Witch? Back in episode one I discussed how some random hero morphed into a zombie and beat another zombie with a club. Apparently she was the Scarlet Witch? I don't remember the daughter of Magneto looking like a butch Russian swimmer. So to recap, here is Iron Man's gang: War Machine, Hawkeye, Century, the Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Woman.

Scarlet Witch

We get back to Ultimo's rerunned “Rejoice!” rampage where it reaches its destination. It then proceeds to tap into the Earth's core to draw out the planet's energy which can crumble the world. Our heroes arrive and Century tosses his battle axe. That bounces off Ultimo and into his hand. He then proclaims, “His power is limitless!” Because when some weapon dinks off of metal giant that is obviously far superior to mere bladed axe, it's power MUST be limitless. SHUT THE FUCK UP, CENTURY! While the fight happens, Tony discovers that Ultimo's power must be in another dimension. The Scarlet Witch uses her “Hex” powers to crack the mystery. She then begins her chant: “Shalalalala, lalalala.” What? Then she begins to purr. Yes, the epic combo of “Shalalas” and purring will crack all the secrets of the universe. She finds the opening to the other dimension and Tony constructs a weapon to fire into it, destroying Ultimo's core. Iron Man arrives at the battle, gives Hawkeye the weapon and asks War Machine to run a distraction with him. But War Machine is sad. He feels he would be a bad partner since he couldn't stop Ultimo before. GOD DAMMIT! Why is War Machine so FUCKING emo?! He bitches through out the whole episode that he's not good enough to help Iron Man. Thanks for pussyfying an awesome character, Marvel!

War Machine cry

Iron Man reassures War Machine that he would want anyone else to help him with this task. Distraction is run, Hawkeye fires and Ultimo is down. Mandarin escapes claiming victory another day, yada yada yada, end of episode. Now, I did enjoy this episode more than the first. At least I got all of Iron Man's friends down, which should have been obvious in THE FIRST EPISODE. My synopsis so far is that Mandarin is a shitty and absolutely RETARDED villain. But it is only the second episode. I'm sure him and MODOK have plenty of opportunities to kill Iron Man to FUCK UP.