This particular tale is actually a blend of two of Iron Man’s storylines in the comic series; Technovore and the crazy revenge-filled kid, Ezekiel Stane. Just as Tony Stark/Iron Man (Matthew Mercer) prepares to launch a new surveillance satellite, he and his facility fall under attack. It seems someone doesn’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. to have this new tech. The assault team is led by a person in a strange new form of armored suit.
While War Machine faces off against a majority of the assailants, Iron Man takes on their leader. Stark soon realizes that his enemy’s suit is very advanced and appears to have techno-organic properties that allow its user to completely control the suit even better than Stark controls the Iron Man Armor.
Unfortunately, the battle leaves the entire complex destroyed with War Machine somewhere in the rubble and nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, .S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to have a word with Stark, but he feels he can better use his time hunting down the new enemy. So, of course, Nick Fury sends his two top-agents after Stark, Black Widow and Hawkeye.
Stark’s trail leads him to the black-market company A.I.M where he runs into The Punisher (Norman Reedus) and learns that Stark’s new enemy is Ezekiel Stane, the son of one of Stark’s old enemies, Iron Monger.
Iron Man: Rise of Technovore has a couple of special features including a large art gallery and two featuettes. One focuses on S.H.I.E.L.D. and its role in the Marvel Universe, while the other is about how this film came about.
I was rather impressed by how well Madhouse was able to take the standard Iron Man world and add some obvious Anime influences, and I mean more than just changing the art style of the people. Specifically, the look and feel of Ezekiel’s armor reminds me of many Anime I’ve seen in the past, and when Technovore makes its presence known, I couldn’t help but think of Tetsuo’s transformation in Akira. A result of this though, is that it might actually turn off some typical Iron Man fans. If you don’t already enjoy Anime then the times that that influence comes out won’t appeal to you. It’s that simple.
