Monsters of Television

With Young Justice‘s extended hiatus, I haven’t had any superhero television to review for a while. Admittedly, I stopped writing about Young Justice because it was increasingly uninteresting (How bad was the Doctor Fate episode? And, really, boom tubes already? Sigh.), but I was watching it nonetheless.

I did not think, however, that I would miss Young Justice as much as I did while I was watching the Marvel anime series tonight. Animated at Madhouse, a terrific animation studio by the by, and with stories by Warren Ellis, you’d think that Iron Man  and Wolverine would be a bit livelier, but they’re both fairly uninspired affairs from the start. At least Wolverine a has a bit more of a pulse than Iron Man. 

We’ll start with Iron Man, and a slight disclosure. I’ve seen a nice chunk of the Iron Man anime already, and if you didn’t like this episode, I’d encourage you not to continue. It doesn’t improve. However, if you’re mildly intrigued by the series, then, by all means, continue. I’ll probably keep writing it out of relative boredom.

Iron Man finds Tony Stark (voiced by Adrian Pasdar in the dub here) retiring as Iron Man and building an arc station to give Japan free and clean energy (I guess the U.S. government balked at this idea?). To replace him, he’s developed a blue-and-gray suit of armor called Dio that will be piloted by an elite group, and he’s testing the suit in Japan. As you do.

Since it’s just the first episode, we’re introduced to a couple of characters very quickly, including the cold-as-ice Dr. Tanaka who runs Lab 23 where the arc station is located; Kuroda, the Defense Minister of Japan; and (most annoyingly) Nanami, an “intrepid reporter” at a third-rate newspaper who is obsessed with getting a story with Tony.

Along with the characters, the general framework of a conspiracy is mapped out. While testing the Dio armor, the system is hacked and goes ballistic, killing two of the pilots. Tony, despite being retired, of course suits up and stops the armor in a quick battle. But to add a bit of intrigue, he’s also attacked by (what else?) a mecha of a scorpion. The show offers a bit of comic book geek fanservice here as Tony will face off against mechas inspired by the Zodiac, a team of criminals from the comics. Scorpio is quickly dispatched but the suit is gone, and the mystery is afoot.

If only the show had energy maybe I’d care. Despite the glossy look of the animation, it’s a staid episode, and Pasdar’s line delivery doesn’t help. It’s monotone, and he doesn’t seem comfortable with the dialog (which is clunky) or the dubbing process. And when you’re in every scene, it helps if you have a little bit of energy and conviction behind it, and Pasdar simply doesn’t.

Not helping is that this Tony is very clearly modeled on the easy charm of Robert Downey, Jr.’s performance from the film franchise, and none of that comes through here. I vaguely recall it playing better in the original Japanese, but don’t want to swear to that. So while the episode comes alive a bit more when the Iron Men duel, it’s an all too quick fight, and the energy levels just aren’t consistent.

Wolverine, on the other hand, has a slightly different set of problems than Iron Man. Logan has a history with Japan, so there’s plenty of material to draw inspiration from here, and the anime decides to draw its inspiration from, well, the 1980s and yakuza. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means, as it at least feels more fully developed than Iron Man, but it’s also not anything completely new.

Logan (voiced by Milo Ventimiglia (and yes, this means the Petrelli brothers are both voicing Marvel characters, and yes, Wolverine makes a guest appearance in Iron Man, so they are reunited. Ready your crack BroYay fanfics, folks)) is on the hunt for his girlfriend, Mariko, who has been kidnapped by her father, Shingen Yashida, and sold off as the bride to the young and sadistic head of the major crime syndicate in Japan named Hideki Kurohagi. Logan, of course, doesn’t take well to this, teams up with an old friend of his, Tesshin, and decides to go and get her back.

The first episode moves through all of this pretty quickly, with Logan confronting Shingen in a bokken fight. Despite his superior strength, speed, agility, and general badassness, Logan gets his butt kicked (admittedly, Shingen is a master swordsman, but still, really?). Hideki shows up and shoots Logan with a poisoned dart which, of course, seems to trigger a little bit of Logan’s beserker mentality, and the episode ends here.

But at least the episode is a little more interesting than Iron Man, though perhaps this just means there’s more action, and there is. There’s not much space between action sequences, whether it’s Logan shielding Mariko from jetpack assassins, saving Tessen from assassins with cloaking devices, dispatching a bunch of henchmen, or the aforementioned bokken fight. Indeed, most of the episode is action sequences, which does keep the episode moving far quicker than Iron Man.

The voice work is also better here. Despite not thinking he would be suited to it, Ventimiglia is a better fit for Logan than Pasdar for Tony, and shifts back and forth from being the considerate, loving Logan to the dangerous and out for blood Wolverine with relative ease. And given that this Wolverine is more bishonen pretty boy (even with mullet and muttonchops) than grizzled cage fighter, it generally works.

And there’s, I’m pretty sure, Crispin Freeman as Tessen. And you guys know how much I love Crispin Freeman.

I didn’t see any of Wolverine earlier, but this episode at least has me a bit more intrigued by where the series intends to go than even Iron Man did when I gave it a go earlier. But you can expect reviews on both, like this, every week.