Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes

I remember hearing about this series back in 2010, just thinking, "great, just another big budget movie ad for the kids." In any case, I was definitely gonna watch, considering my obsession with animation at the time, plus I'd been getting more into The Avenger's books during Dark Reign. I didn't expect much though, looking at the blocky animation style, and there was no way it could top Spectacular Spider-Man season 2. In any case, it had to be better than the original Avengers cartoon they had back in the day.

Just from the theme song, I was instantly hooked on the first episode. I don't even know why really. The lyrics pretty cliche, but the tune was really catchy. Of course a theme song's not gonna make the show, but it an important first impression. Now for the episode. Awesome. Just awesome. Pretty nice twist to the origin story. I never read the original story Stan Lee did, but Joe Casey did an origins series early that year, which I'm pretty sure stays fairly true to the original, but with a lot extra. The original team was there and everything, and of course Loki was the cause of all the trouble, but instead of having The Hulk being the center of all their attention, it was a whole bunch of villains who escaped from a bunch of different prisons, especially one in particular who was made for the show that could control gravity.

After all that's done and taken care of, they'gotta catch the rest of the villains, revive Captain America, and recruit the rest of the team. The season then ends with the revelation of the Skrull's. That, mixed with the little brush-in with the Kree, naturally you've gotta suspect a Secret Wars storyline coming in next season, right? Nope. Jump about 20 years, and we have Secret Invasion. That was actually quite the surprise, considering it was such a recent story, and it was pretty well played out, possibly even better than Bendis' version. Quite a bit of other big jumps in the story came about as well, like the Ant-Man/Giant-Man mantle being passed on, Yellowjacket being introduced, (Minus the woman abuse of course. Still is something of a kids show after all.) bunch of cameos, even from that of Luke Cage. (Much better than their Ultimate Spider-Man counterparts.)

Now, more recently we got the Kree invasion, which is pretty good for those, reading Avengers vs X-Men, trying to get up to speed about them, and the Supreme Intelligence. Biggest surprise was the introduction of the New Avengers, who were lead by Spider-Man, who actually didn't look like a total fool within a team for once. Finally the season ends in a one-parter with Galactus. Seemed rather out of place for me, since I feel he should only be left to the Fantastic Four 4, but seeing as Marvel vs Capcom 3 broke that rule, it's fine. Another off thing though was the fact that Silver Surfer wasn't his herald, instead he just used four elemental beings. Ah well. This forced a massive team-up of practically every character introduced in the show, including the Fantastic Four. Of course the geniuses, Iron-Man, Mr. Fantastic, and Black Panther took care of him, and the earth was saved! The only thing missing though, were the X-Men, but I guess they were too busy off on their little island, trying to fight for mutant rights, and making a name for themselves.

Obviously this series far exceeded my expectations, and I really hope it gets a third season. It's definitely on the level of the 90's X-Men cartoon, and Spectacular Spider-Man. It should probably focus on the Infinity Gauntlet, introduce the fans to Thanos a little,  before the next Avengers movie comes out. We need to see Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, along with Wonderman and Spider-Woman. Heck, with the rate they're going, they should even bring in Sentry! Come on guys, let Marvel know that this is what we want, instead of that mediocre Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon that just got cleared for another season.

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