The threat of virus to technology based heroes is definitely their weakest link.
What They Say:
Technical Difficulties – A Zodiac computer virus infects the Arc Station and then spreads to the city’s systems.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
At the halfway mark of the series, Iron Man really only runs into one problem with me and that’s the lack of a truly clearly defined opponent. Zodiac as an organization of some sort that’s out to cause problems with Tony and his company is one that makes sense and I do like the fact that it employs a variety of ways to go after him, but with nobody that we can actually latch onto as the main problem, it lacks a certain connect and threat that’s consistent from episode to episode. Often that ends up being done in a corny way, so avoiding here does work. And tying a lot of it alongside the use of the Arc Stations has been interesting as well.
This episode again goes rather faceless when you get down to it as a virus hits the Arc Station that Tony’s working out of and it puts a lot of problems for him to deal with, from rogue robots in the station to the temperature and security controls making it very dangerous. But it doesn’t just stop there either as it gets out into the city, screwing with transportation and more, including causing all the ATM’s to start spitting money out like crazy. It’s not exactly a feeding frenzy of people going after it, but there’s a real celebration over the fact that there’s free money for the moment. With the threat that Zodiac is making, going on about how Tony and what he’s doing is the main threat to the world, it’s no surprise that they manage to infect the Iron Man suit itself and put Tony through the wringer.
The background for the episode is actually fun to watch as it goes back a ways to introduce us to Sho, a young boy whose mother kept him from going out much in the cooler weather because of how easily he catches colds and gets sick. His mother wasn’t bad about it, just concerned, and she introduced him to the concept of computer viruses as that’s something she worked on in a preventative manner herself. Over the years, he gained her expertise and took it to the next level and then became heavily influenced and monied by Zodiac for their goals of taking down Stark Industries. It shows a bit of their manipulation of others and also shows that even though Stark has changed his company and mission, it doesn’t wipe the slate for many, even if they believe you have changed.
In Summary:
Iron Man has a bit more of a personal episode here from the villain’s point of view and that does help, though the character isn’t exactly the real threat in the end and is just a dupe. But it does let us connect with the other side in a way we haven’t been able to prior to this and that’s a big step up from the large, faceless and robotic threats that we’ve largely faced. And that they managed to pull this off by using a virus as the means to do it is rather amusing since that’s one of the biggest faceless threats there is these days, especially to a character like Tony and his high use of technology. Sho gives this some balance and it’s fun to watch Tony struggle with some of this but even the connection we do get with Sho only serves to reinforce how little we know about the other side and how it’s minimizing their impact.
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.
