Today in obscure Marvel cartoons, I present – Shell Games from the Fantastic Four World’s Greatest Heroes.
Tony says hi!
Shell Games is episode 22, season 1 – you can find it on youtube. The cartoon came out in 2006 – it’s standard definition and there were interesting coloring choices.
The cartoon is also before MCU so we get a very 616 Tony here – black hair, blue eyes, tall, sarcastic but not quippy, cares about his employees at Stark Enterprises, and all that. It’s pre-Avengers. And there’s an interesting plot point that Iron Man is known to be Tony’s bodyguard.
I bet this happens so many times during Stark Enterprises Board Meetings that it’s an agenda item (1 pm – Attack by supervillain or ally; 1:30 – R&D reports; 2:30 Break and medical check)
The episode is standard in that the Fantastic Four are attacked by Iron Man armors commanded by Dr. Doom. They need Tony’s help; Tony wants to retrieve his armor alone; they have to team up and beat Dr. Doom and Tony sees that working with a team is good thing. Hooray. Featuring: Johnny saying that Tony is coward for running away in a fight (to get the Iron Man armor), a really terrific Dr. Doom, and Herbie going on strike.
Does this have armor porn? Of course!
(They show All The Armors and an empty armory too!)
Reed of course finds out that Tony is in fact Iron Man because he’s Reed and it actually makes sense.
Most of the back half of the episode is FF and Tony fighting and beating Dr. Doom in front of his gothic Latverian castle/skyscraper.
Since it’s pre-MCU, we don’t get the HDU display and we have this eye-burning confusion with Tony trying to control the armor.
It all ends well and Tony goes off to continue being Iron Man and Reed goes off to work on Herbie.
Here, have a happy Tony in the Iron Man armor, since Tony is the rockstar of this episode!
Captain Neverever 