What They Say:
A Twist Of Memory, A Turn Of The Mind – When Zodiac tries to kill Tony at a racing event, another hero saves him.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While Tony’s life changed significantly when he became Iron Man, just in what he does as a hero and in actions around the world, he also made huge changes to his business life that never went over well. The big arms supplier and weapons inventor created a lot of business, a lot of jobs and a lot of opportunity. His attempts to change all of that through the Arc Reactors definitely allows him a chance to make amends, but it’s something that’s hard to convince others with. This episode spends some time working through his modern day origin, which uses a variation of the first movie as well that’s familiar but with enough tweaks to be its own as well. The familiar is fun and the mild twists gives it enough reason to pay attention.
Having read the comics over the years, watching the variations on the origin has been fun since they’ve had to adapted to the times by making it modern and fitting into the political and war aspect. For his origin here, there aren’t that many changes overall, just in that instead of a Humvee being blown up, he was in a helicopter, and the man who helped him stay alive while in captivity was a bit more outgoing and angry with him. It’s good to see him talking openly about what he went through with Dr. Tanaka, since it does help to soften their relationship a bit, and it plays in contrast to the race car driver that got taken out in the race last episode with his legs being injured. Like a lot of potential villains, he’s someone who has lost a lot in his life and will take and deal in order to get back to what he once was, never mind something more.
While a lot of the episode focuses on the past, the material in the present has an interesting twist when Wolverine shows up just as Tony is being attacked by the racer who gained a new lease on life. There’s something else to all of it, and it’s not like Tony and Logan have a great relationship in general, but it’s enough to get Tony to pay attention and figure out what’s really going on. With the manipulations going on by Zodiac with various people in order to take on Tony, it’s another piece in the puzzle in that whole monster of the week kind of perspective, but it’s decently done and well tied to telling Tony’s origin story as Iron Man without making it the sole focus of the episode.
In Summary:
While a lot of fans can’t stand origin stories, I’ve been reading comics and seeing various adaptations into other media for over thirty years now. They can get tiresome, but within the context of a TV series like this, having one is useful even if everyone knows his story now due to the theatrical movies. I like how much they took from the movies in design and structure but also changed it up to make it their own as well for the series. The addition of Wolverine here isn’t really critical but it’s a nice tie to his own series as well which followed this one in Japan. Tony’s more serious side comes through here and a bit of reflection on the past helps to show why he is the way he is now and makes it easier for the original audience of this work in Japan to get to know the character. It is an origin story, but it’s nicely told and doesn’t dominate here, which is a big plus.
Content Grade: B
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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