Iron Man Cartoon Stuff: Robot Vs. Robot

One of the rather comically amusing things about the Iron Man cartoon from the '90s is that there was a perpetual rivalry between Stark Industries and Justin Hammer's company (whatever it was named-I can't be bothered to look it up at the moment), even though anytime the two's products were compared, the Stark product blew the other out of the water, and even though Stark Industries had to be rebuilt from scratch every third episode.

During the episode "Silence My Companion, Death My Destination," the fundamental nature of this rivalry is highlighted in truly spectacular (and amusing) fashion.

Here's Hammer's design for his bid for the US arms contract that they're competing over this time, the Invincible Guardian:

It has pop-out weapons.

Here's the Stark Industries competitor, the Watchman.

To be honest, these screenshots rather distort their relative sizes-they're actually mostly similar in size.

Those are Justin Hammer, James Rhodes, and a two-star general who apparently lost an arm in some war.

Despite the fact that it'd make more sense to 1) evaluate these robots doing their job, which is guarding stuff from outside interference, and 2) that there should be a costs/benefits analysis between the two machines, the test consists of the two robotic vehicles attacking each other until only one survives. Hmm...

The Invincible Guardian comes out, guns blazing, as the Watchman sends out its weird little triangles to spin around it with apparent intent to block weapons fire.

Hammer prematurely declares victory, but the weird countermeasures deployed by the Watchman are apparently impervious to both cannons and missiles, and it is unharmed.

And capable of doing something that only a cartoon military vehicle would do.

And the Invincible Guardian apparently is so surprised...

...that it doesn't know how to react to that. Not that I would either.

And it falls to little pieces after being zapped.

Hammer remarked a short while later that $40 million had gone down the drain... which sounds kind of low for developing and building a tank type robot, really.

Of course, it turned out that it was all part of the Mandarin's plan to give the Watchmen a computer virus which would cause them to destroy the stuff they were supposed to protect...

Oh, yeah, happy New Year's Eve 'n' stuff.

-Signing off.