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The most Avengery Avengers out there right now are the ones in the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes TV series. I’ve been favourably impressed with how well the creators seem to understand the characters – personalities, motivations, visuals, and movement styles. I’ve been dazzled by seeing such faithful representations of so many weird and wonderful Marvel characters.
And now the series is back. Herein are spoilers for episodes up to #24 “This Hostage Earth†(that sounds familiar). I’ve yet to watch the other two episodes recently broadcast in the UK.
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One of the nice things about the animated series is that it’s not afraid to mine quite diverse eras of the comic’s history and to draw in a few unexpected surprises from elsewhere. Hence “The Casket of Ancient Winters†should have really had a Walt Simonson credit somewhere. Although the original storyline did include the Avengers and even crossed over into their book for one issue it mostly played out in Thor’s title. I don’t think Maleketh the Dark Elf even appeared in Avengers. Still, this mystical threat serves to allow some good interaction between Thor and Iron Man, and their episode-long arc is about them coming to a grudging respect and understanding of each other. The Panther continues to be the diplomat/politician of the group. Nice to see brief cameos of Torch and Thing.
“Hail Hydra!†is the first episode I felt perhaps relied too much on knowledge of backstory. In very short order a new or casual viewer needed to be filled in on Hydra (who were the enemy in World War 2, since Nazis still can’t be depicted in any show that the studios hope to sell to German TV stations), on AIM, on the defection/betrayal of the Black Widow, on Cap’s world war 2 status, on Bucky, on SHIELD, Nick Fury, and Maria Hill, and on the cosmic cube. At least. Even then, the shock ending – the cube snatching Bucky to the present day? – didn’t really make clear what had happened or who this person was. However, Cap’s interactions in this episode were excellent, from his confidence in Hawkeye’s ability to make impossible shots to his comments to the Hulk: “In my day we had a word for what you are: hero.†And weakened Cap was properly indefatigable against Baron Struker. Special mention goes to Hawkeye’s classic Ant-Man delivery arrow.
“Ultron-5†and “The Ultron Imperative†were the payoff on the long-running Ultron plotline. This story was actually set up better than the comics original; a benefit of hindsight. Ultron had already been built up as formidable in previous adventures. All beats were right, including Hank’s angst, Ultron’s reactions to Jan, and the growing threat of a rapidly-evolving and very personal menace to the team. That said there seemed to be one beat absent. Why bother guest-starring Jane Foster early in the story if you’re not going to show her reaction to Thor’s apparent death? Maria Hill was just as annoying in this episode as she is in the comics, a mixture of arrogance and ignorance supposedly justified by told-not-shown tuff-girl competence, so I guess they got that characterisation right too. The good stuff far outweighed the not-so-good though, and Thor even got to say “Ultron, we would have words with thee.â€Â
And so to “This Hostage Earthâ€Â, in which Loki’s plans seem to be finally panning out. I’m hoping this is the arc that will reveal that Loki was behinds the breakouts in the first episode. The best things in this episode were the villains. Each was well characterised, each had a moment, and none were underplayed. This is the way to go; the Masters of Evil are the varsity of baddies and they should be a threat. I’m unclear where Grey Gargoyle went after the pre-credits sequence but the rest really got their licks in. Zemo was scheming at his Nicieza best, planning to double-cross gods when it was convenient and prepared with the kit to do it. The map of the nine worlds was a nice touch. The only downside of this episode was that it was more a Justice League-style “team split up on solo quests for the seven maguffins†scenario that a typical Avengers plot (ignoring for now the Avengers/Defenders war), so we didn’t get as much inter-team interaction as we usually enjoy.
Best things about the series so far are: Cap, inspiring, commanding, and straight from Lee/Kirby; Hawkeye, brash, bigmouthed and brilliant; Jan’s dialogue, ranging quite properly from ditzy to heroic. Worst thing about the series so far: Lack of the real flesh-and-blood Jarvis.
IW
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