Customer Reviews

The Invincible Iron Man - The Death of Tony Stark & The Crimson Dynamo [VHS]

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I wish more Marvel fans demanded the old classics like this one. These cartoons may be primative by present standards. However, the stories are lifted straight from the comics. Gene Colon and Jack Kirby's orginal art work come to life on screen with this semi-animated feature. I wish the classic Ralph Baski Spider-Man cartoons were available in this format. To date, nothing has come close to the orginal comics as these videos have. I hope somone at Marvel will release a complete DVD collection of all the 60's cartoons if you're listening.......

Watching THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN was like slipping back into childhood. The video features two episodes of the original cartoon series and has a (hilarious in it's own right) short intoduction by Stan Lee. This series, launched by Marvel Comics in 1966, used the original Jack Kirby panels from the comics and set them in motion. All of the attention is applied to detailed still cells, such as that given to the Crimson Dynamo (in the episode of the same name), that often have some post kirby work (such as eye and lip movement) added to create movement. This may sound like a boring animation technique, but when the original art Jack Kirby, the result is incredible. It has a real vintage feel, like a weighty old tube radio. Add this video to your collection so you and your children can watch animation the Marvel way.

This is a blast from the past. It's amazing what parts of culture are recorded in film, even in cartoOns. Yes, the USA had a cold war era. Ironman brings this out. He's a pure American.

John Vernon is great voicing Tony Stark. Sure the animation is basic, but the story sort of makes up for it. Before 'Dr.Evil', there was The Mandarin! Yea, he's a bit exaggerated, especially when he says he's a Karate' master (altho him being Chinese, I would think the Mandarin would say 'Kung Fu Master' instead.)

Iron man was charging up 'energy' anywhere he could with wires, LONG before USB cables. heh heh

My first exposure to IRON MAN were these 6-minute episodes, part of the syndicated MARVEL SUPER-HEROES SHOW. Done by Grantray-Lawrence, they featured extremely limited animation that utilized many actual comic-book panels from the original comic-books!

The cartoons on this tape, "The Crimson Dynamo" and "The Death Of Tony Stark", were adapted from the stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE #46 (Oct'63) and #61-62 (Jan-Feb'65). These can be found reprinted in ESSENTIAL IRON MAN Vol.1 (in B&W) or IRON MAN Masterworks Vols.1 & 2 (in color), for anyone wanting to compare the 2 versions. The latter story, in particular, is a major highlight of the early career of Iron Man, as he faces off against his #1 arch-enemy, the would-be world-conqueror and Fu Manchu-wannabe, The Mandarin. All the art on these episodes was done by DON HECK, who was, to my eyes, the "definitive" I.M. artist (even though Jack Kirby tended to do the covers).

Voices were supplied by John Vernon as Tony Stark (later famous for such films as DIRTY HARRY, THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES and especially ANIMAL HOUSE) as well as Peg Dixon as Pepper Potts & Paul Soles as Happy Hogan. Dixon & Soles would later supply the voices of Betty Brant & Peter Parker (among others) when G-L did the SPIDER-MAN series in 1967, and continue in those roles when Krantz Films (with Ralph Bakshi) took over in '68 after G-L went bankrupt.

Personally, for such short cartoons, I'd have thought they could have fit the ENTIRE Iron Man series on one tape!