I said the creators of this show changed Tony Stark so much that he was closer to Spider-Man than any version of Iron Man I’ve ever seen.

I apologize. I was wrong.

Legacy characters—that is, characters who have had more than one writer over time—have different versions. The Adam West and Christian Bale Batmen are completely different, but they are both legitimate.

Iron Man is the boozy, womanizing Robert Downey Jr. version. But he is also the driven loner of Armor Wars, the one on the verge of losing his humanity. The Tony Stark of Iron Man: Armored Adventures is closer to the Armor Wars iteration.

In that regards, he’s quite good. When Stark threatens Stane and the proprietor of the Pegasus Project, you feel the anger. (That’s a credit to the voice actor because the animation remains limited.)

“Seeing Red” has the welcome return of the Crimson Dynamo. As one of the more physically imposing villains, the presence of the Dynamo (this time paired with Stane) automatically raises the stakes.

It also forces Stark to be much more ruthless, which drives a wedge between him and Rhodey. There’s a lot of tension between the white hats in this episode and it stem from previously established characterization. (That’s a good thing, a very good thing.)

There’s still at least one teen cliché, the stealing of the other team’s mascot, but this time the characterization of the heroes is enough to overcome the episode’s weaknesses.