Iron Man: Armored Adventures/Headscratchers


 * What if someone were to find a Makluan Temple, but not have anyone with them who could read Chinese? How would they start the test, or even know what the ring was?
 * They wouldn't do either of them. What's the problem here?
 * Say they went into the temple and picked up the ring, the test was activated, but they couldn't read anything in the temple. Then what?
 * They die.
 * Or get a pretty trinket, the series shows several times Tony just grabbing the ring. It's always Gene with the Blood of Khan who has to activate them. Which leads me to my own Just Bugs me.
 * Ok so we see, heck Tony just about says it that even if a ring is active unless your a Khan it doesn't do anything so...what was the point in the Manderin making the tests if someone proves worthy they can activate it but only a Khan, who might just steal the ring and not actually DO the test, gets it's powers
 * First of all, where did they say being a Khan was necessary to activate the rings? It never seemed that way to me. Second of all, do you know just how many descendants Genghis Khan has? Current estimates state that roughly 0.5% of the men in the world have a Y-chromosome from Genghis Khan.
 * Tony mentions the rings not working for him offhand after getting the red one.
 * It could just be that Tony doesn't know how to activate them. How Gene does it is never explained, so it could be something as simple as directing it correctly with your mind. Or, as one fanfic stated, it could be something like using chi flow to activate the ring or something one needs to know how the ring works to use.
 * As I recall, Zhang tried and couldn't do it, either, which implies a blood relative needs to be the one using it. Zhang's never shown to be able to use the teleport, much less the other rings.


 * Had Gene just grabbed the Rings, hidden them on himself and said they were destroyed inside Fin Fang Foom, he could have been free to kill Tony and friends in their sleep. Why did he announce his betrayal to them when he could've justed grabbed the Rings and teleported away, letting them think he'd died so they'd be unprepared to face him later on? For that matter, after he made up his mind to betray them, why didn't he then grab The Load - I mean, Pepper, and threaten her? Really, he dropped the ball all over the place on this one. Why did he do this so poorly?
 * Pepper is, in spite of his best intentions, his friend. He really doesn't want her to get hurt, hence attempting to sacrifice his life for her five minutes earlier.
 * Because he didn't want to kill them. Not in their sleep, not facing them head on. It seemed to me that he was really hoping that revealing himself to them would make them want to kill him, or start a serious fight, or something. Really, anything to force his hand so that he didn't have to make that choice.


 * Gene is Mongolian. The name Khan is Mongolian. Even assuming he's from Inner Mongolia, why are all the tests/insides of the temples/symbols on the Rings Chinese? Mongolia had its own ancient script in place, shouldn't everything be written in that?
 * There's actually no one single Chinese language, but rather a family of dialects; there's Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan, and probably at least one other based somewhat on Mongolian, so Gene may just be fluent in a number of them.
 * Then who taught him? Zhang? Tutors?
 * So then, did the original Mandarin speak multiple languages as well?
 * On that note, is Gene Chinese, Mongolian, both, or what?
 * Just a wild guess, but maybe he's an uber-distant descendant of Ghengis Khan, which could potentially make him both.
 * Going by comic canon, he is.
 * In the first season, Tony is trying to get Stane imprisioned with proof of how he killed his father or something along those lines. Yet he never bothered with informing the police Stane was involved with the second Crimson Dynamo, the damage involved, or the hit. Neither do the police seem to get that information out of the man they did arrest. What happened with that? He technically hired someone to kidnap a person. And was an accomplise. Pretty illegal, if you ask me.
 * Unfortunately, in this cartoon, Police Are Useless.
 * The temple where Howard got his Makulan ring is said to be in New Jersey. They show an abandoned, desert-like area. New Jersey is the most densly populated stated, and what land isn't built on is either a park, a farm, or part of the Pine Barrens. If they wanted to, they could have set it where the temple was somewhere that actually had dry land like that. Why did they have to set a desert temple in New Jersey?
 * The Rings were hidden around a thousand years ago. New Jersey was different back then. It could've been forested and then industrialized and made barren while in the past being part of the Barrens.
 * Why did the sentient armor let Tony out of the suit when it had apparently killed Whiplash and Mr. Fix? It sounds like it already decided that Tony was to be kept in the suit forever, so why did it let him out? Story-wise, I understand, but in-universe there seems to be no explanation.
 * It hadn't decided to keep Tony in the suit until he allowed Rhodey to try and wipe its memory. At that point, Tony became a threat to his own safety in the armor's mind.
 * Whatever happened to Gene's dad, Whitney's mom, Tony's mom and Pepper's mom?
 * I seem to recall Tony's mother being dead, but I'm not sure. As for Pepper's mom, maybe she's just not important enough to show up.
 * Tony's mom is almost certainly dead, given how Howard speaks of her. Pepper's mom is mentioned offhand. Gene's biological dad is probably dead, since it seems doubtful he left. Whitney's mom I would bet just left, since Stane is a jackass.
 * What's with how they keep saying that Stane and Hammer having the armor specs is perfectly legal because Tony never copyrighted them? They still hired a guy to break in to the armory and physically steal the designs.
 * Because it is legal for them to use the designs. Copyrights/patents specify a given work as intellectual property belonging to a person. Without having filed a patent, Tony can't contest the use of the designs, nor can he prove they were stolen from him without revealing his identity/hideout.
 * Well the part I found strange was treating the hiring of Ghost like something they could get away with perfectly scot-free, legally. But it's been resolved as of 'Heavy Mettle' I guess, kinda.
 * Having them is perfectly legal. How they got them was not. He couldn't legally prove the hiring of Ghost, the most he could prove is that they have them.
 * What's with the whole "weapons are evil and wrong" thing? I mean, it's obviously a case of Writer on Board, but I mean, c'mon, this is way past the Guns are Evil attitude. The Iron Man suits are weapons, the police use weapons, and almost anything could be used as a "weapon" (like, say, Bullseye could pick up a spoon...). Anyhow, it seems pretty hypocritical of Tony, who specifically made weapon to use against Stane, who he was calling out for weaponizing the Earthmovers. And by the way, what kind of government who could afford the thing wouldn't jump at the opportunity to purchase huge, giant, walking towers that shoot lasers at people? What's more, Rhodey's dad is stated to be in the military; you'd think he'd be the type to call address this issue with Tony.
 * Aside from the fact that this is a major aspect of Tony's character no matter what media he's in, it's not weapons in general that Tony has a problem with. What Tony has a problem with is the sale and proliferation of weapons as an end to itself. Stane and Hammer are treated as evil because they are arms suppliers; specifically, corrupt and double-dealing ones.
 * How come the Ghost didn't kill Tony in his first appearance? Yeah, Tony did give him a lot of money not to, but he could've killed him afterwards and collect even more money from his employer. It's not like he's stopped by some code of honour.
 * Whitney's the one who paid him off, and she paid him a lot more than Tony's life was worth to him. Ghost hadn't had that much luck killing Tony up to that point. Better to take the payoff and leave.


 * "Unnatural act of Nature!"...Really?! kelly didn't notice anything wrong with that statement? neither him or his speech writers