For now, let's talk about this premiere of this new Avengers cartoon and see if it's a worthy successor to Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
The Plot:
Episode 1: "Avengers Protocol Part 1"
After so many years of life outside, Red Skull is dying due to his imperfect Super Soldier Serum. To remedy this, he kidnaps Captain America to transfer minds to a more fit body with the help of MODOK, who is also upgrading HYDRA's technology. After his defeat by a reassembled team of Avengers, Red Skull takes Iron Man's armor for its life support system, leaving Tony for dead.
Episode 2: "Avengers Protocol Part 2"
MODOK and Red Skull steal Tony Stark's armor, which forces the Avengers to put aside their differences and galvanize the team to stop the evil duo from destroying New York City. The Avengers get Stark to a new armor, but Red Skull attacks them at the mansion and is again defeated. Skull plans to take away everything the Avengers hold dear from their lives to their country by trying to have them hated by the people for failing to save the day. To even the playing field, The Red Skull brings together his team of power giants: The Cabal. The Avengers intercept a transmission, and remain together to battle the Skull and his new allies. To stay close, after the mansion blew up, they set up their base in Avengers Tower. -- via Wikipedia
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| My thoughts exactly, Hulk. |
The Verdict:
If this premiere was any clue on how the rest of the series is going to play out then I'm not impressed.
Man of Action (creative team behind Ben 10, Generator Rex, Ultimate Spider-Man, etc.) has stated that this cartoon isn't a reboot but a vague continuation of the events from EMH. You can barely tell at this stage. Ironman is the leader? Whoa, get the fuck out of here with that. As long as Captain America is alive and kicking you need to have him calling the shots on the battlefield, not the reckless billionaire playboy. Captain America as leader is where he truly shines. Thor and Hulk's rivalry was never this competitive as it's borderline hatred in this show. Black Widow didn't sign onto full-time Avenger status in EMH as she was still Fury's resident spy, so what's the story there? Hawkeye's appearance has vastly changed since EMH, now sporting shades instead of his traditional costume.
Gone are Black Panther (T'Challa), The Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Ant-Man/Yellowjacket (Henry Pym), Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), and The Vision but they swapped off those awesome members out for the so-called "eyes of the viewers" in The Falcon. I'm sorry but his inclusion in this show is as lame as the D and F-tier heroes with Spider-Man in Ultimate Spider-Man. I can understand that Marvel is trying to gain him some popularity before his appearance in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier film, but he should have a cameo role, not a full time role on the Avengers. This is the same lame duck "affirmative action" bullshit that the comics pulled to get him included on the team in the first place in the comics. I'm black and I find him to be one of Marvel's worst heroes ever created. If they want African-Americans to identify with someone at least have War Machine (Jim Rhodes) or Black Panther as a regular member, not this loser.
At this rate, this show is bound to be just as lame as this Avengers cartoon...
Let's talk about the two episodes in depth, shall we?
Episode 1 starts off with Ironman keeping tabs on everyone as he informs the viewing audience that the Avengers have been disbanded for some time and have all gone their separate directions. He rushes into battle to assist Captain America who seems to be in over his head facing the Red Skull. When Ironman arrives, Skull vaporizes CapAm and Start vows for revenge as Skull makes a hasty escape with his newfound allies, MODOK and the Advanced Idea Mechanic (AIM). To "avenge" Captain America, Stark assembles the Avengers once again. Stark then uncharacteristically leads them into battle without a plan or idea take down Red Skull and MODOK and the Avengers are quickly in over their heads until Black Widow and The Falcon show up as back-up.
In a cheap shot at the live-action films, JARVIS suggests to Sam (Falcon's alter ego) that Stark suggested that he don the War Machine armor to assist them in battle. This moron turns it down for a cheap pair of flight wings.
Once again, Stark races off, chasing Skull's vital signs, while leaving the other Avengers to fend for themselves. Stark is then shocked to find Captain America to be still alive, but his body is being controlled by Red Skull while the real CapAm is inhabiting Red Skull's dying one. Once again, the Avengers come to Stark's aid, making quick work of Skull and getting both Cap and Skull back into their rightful bodies. Before making his escape, Red Skull proves to have one last trick up his sleeves as MODOK strips Stark's armor from his body, along with Arc Reactor, and gives it to Skull to function as his own life support system. This episode ends with the cliffhanger that Stark is quickly dying without the Arc Reactor nor his armor keeping him alive.
Episode 2 starts off with the Avengers racing Tony Stark back to the Avengers' mansion where JARVIS outfits him with the Mark 50 armor. This proves to be incomplete as JARVIS notes that there's a few glitches in to be worked out. Meanwhile, the other Avengers are around the compound battling each other in random fits of rage due to the nano-machines they are breathing in created by MODOK. Stark manages to finish tweaking his new armor and devise a cure for the other Avengers' conditions. Red Skull battles the Avengers wearing Stark's old armor and quickly falls to them, due to Stark's command over the team, which allowed him and JARVIS to study and gather data on Skull's improvements over the armor. Before leaving in defeat, Skull promises to even the odds in their future conflicts. The episode ends with SHIELD intercepting Skull's recruiting message for all of the villains of the world for his own sinister version of the Avengers, he dubbed The Cabal. The Avengers agree to stay banded together to defeat the Cabal and anything else Skull has up his sleeve.
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| There's something wrong with this show too... |
My number one issue with this show is that is it takes itself as serious as Ultimate Spider-Man does. There's no breaking the 4th wall here, but the way that everyone has to make a wise crack joke about everything or throw out silly banter between each other is just stupid. It seems like the team takes nothing seriously, even when they are at death's doorstep. I have come to expect Spider-Man to make wise cracks and jokes until the moment he dies, but the Avengers? I expect them to be more "mature" than that. Even Stark's live-action persona knows when to shut off the humor and take things seriously.
I will admit that I am intrigued at the concept of The Cabal in this series. I hope that is the focal point of this first season as they teased Doctor Doom being a member of this modern age version of the Masters of Evil. I wonder who else that Red Skull would recruit? MODOK and Dr. Doom could make that armor he stole from Stark even more deadly, but also apply Stark's technology to their own as well. Skull is going to have to recruit some heavy hitters to counter Hulk and Thor as well. So I don't expect Mole Man or Stilt-Man to get any recruitment letters...
One thing I don't get is why didn't Captain America take back leadership of this team. Instead, he hands leadership over to Stark completely even though Stark isn't too keen on the idea himself. Oh well, I guess Cap can only blame himself if this bites him in the ass later.
If Skull has Stark's armor then why doesn't he have MODOK just hack JARVIS and screws up Stark's OS for all of his technology and armors? Instead this idiot allows Stark to analyze and study his armor without much of a fight. I was thinking that since he had MODOK backing him up they would be doing that to Ironman from here on out. Boy did I think wrong on that one.
You would think that once Skull had Cap captured his Plan B should have been to take a sample of his DNA and cook up a refined Super Soldier formula to repair his own damaged DNA. Once again, I think I'm thinking with a better mind for this stuff than the creators of the show.
The thing that Man of Action and Disney XD need to realize is that for this show to succeed is to let it be it's own entity. Don't shove comedy down our throats like Ultimate Spider-Man and don't attempt to recreate the success of the live-action films in this cartoon. Earth's Mightiest Heroes was great because it was faithful to the source material and it managed to strive to do things in its own fashion. Here, this show seems to be rehashing the Whedonverse and spitting it back out onto another blank canvas, hoping for the same end result.
As it stands, I give this a 2.75 out of 5. This show has a long way to go before I can call this a worthy successor to Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Let's see if the rest of the season improves upon on this lackluster debut.
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