The episode opens with a man in a space suit flying close to the sun’s surface. He talks about how he misses his family. Then, a solar flare seemingly kills him. (But we, being the savvy fans we are, recognize the Crimson Dynamo armor and know the man isn’t dead.)

Immediately, we think, “Oh, it’s a villain who misses his family. This must be the sympathetic villain episode.”

Then, we see James Rhodes and Pepper Potts waiting for Tony Stark so they can begin their science project, but he’s busy doing some superheroing.

Now, we think, “OK, in episode four, Tony let down Rhodey. In the next episode, he let down Pepper. This must be the episode where he lets them both down.”

But you’re wrong on both counts, sorta. The villain is sympathetic and Stark never helps with the science project, but neither description describes the episode properly.

“Crimson Dynamo” is actually the episode in which Iron Man repeatedly gets his butt kicked by an unstoppable juggernaut. Think “The Return” from Justice League Unlimited or any X-Men episode involving the Juggernaut.

The suspense builds nicely each time the Dynamo defeats Iron Man. The voice actors for the heroic leads (Tony, Pepper and Rhodey) do a good job of selling the tension. They argue and fret and joke like soldiers in the fox hole.

This series as a whole has impediments—the plotting lacks originality, the animation is often stiff—but this episode works on almost every level.