Any doubt that Disney’s purchase of Marvel would ultimately be beneficial to the development of future projects should be dispelled immediately in the face of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Marvel’s first truly worthy response to the Bruce Timm era of DC cartoons. While not quite an equal to The Justice League, it’s miles ahead of the Marvel cartoons from the 90s and manages to edge out the short-lived Wolverine and the X-Men, the style of which was an obvious precursor for this series. Finally, Marvel has a series featuring a dynamic team with mutli-episodic arches that do genuine credit to their comic book roots. This is the TV show every Marvel fan should make an effort to watch.
Taking its cues from a mixture of the Silver Age Avengers comics and the new film franchises, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes starts with each of the individual heroes and gradually ties them together into the titular unit – but it takes its sweet time getting there, and the ride is quite fun. In fact, it takes 8 episodes before the team is assembled in the Avengers mansion, and even then the team isn’t complete until an episode later when they finally revive Captain America. Save for the larger SHIELD prison break storyline that dominates the opening 7 episodes, you could easily watch this cartoon and then walk into the Avengers film feeling pretty confident of your knowledge of the characters and the team dynamic. Really though, you’ll have a lot more fun with the cartoon as it includes a few characters the film world hasn’t embraced yet like Black Panther and Ant Man.
Volume 1
Starting with the basic introductions to Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Captain America, and Bruce Banner/Hulk, the series shows them following independent threads that all lead them to SHIELD just as the four prisons holding the world’s supervillains short out, releasing them all, and with them Graviton. In an epic fight, the heroes form an impromptu team to take him down. It’s the kind of big, huge fight that pretty much everyone is hoping will be the crowning achievement of the live-action film.
Episodes: “Iron Man is Born”, “Thor the Mighty”, “Hulk Versus the World”, “Meet Captain America”, “The Man in the Ant Hill”, “Breakout, Part 1”, and “Breakout Part 2”.
Volume 2
With their first victory under their belt, and seventy-some supervillains on the loose, the Avengers set about to clean up the mess, only to discover Captain America frozen in an icecap and the Black Panther sneaking about their mansion. As Captain America gets acquainted with the modern world (and vice versa), various classic villains are introduced laying the groundwork for plenty of future showdowns. Volume 2 doesn’t have quite the same epic finish as the first, but the big gamma beast battle has its moments.
Episodes: “Some Assembly Required”, “Living Legend”, “Everything is Wonderful”, “Panther’s Quest”, “Gamma World, Part 1”, and “Gamma World, Part 2”
Going in the show’s favor is it’s beautiful high-definition animation and its unquestionable sense of humor. Where the show falters is in its voice cast which takes a little bit of getting used to, and it’s overly theatrical nature. Though some might find this charming, instead of playing it straight, the show is prone to closing with dramatic reveals that mirror the typical last page of a comic book: a villain stepping out of the shadows or standing posed in a spotlight in a dark room. It’s entertaining, it’s fun, and once you get past a few flaws it proves to be one of the more entertaining comic book cartoons out there. One note, the punk rock theme song might make you long for the days of the 90s X-Men’s awesome orchestral intro.
The voice cast's regulars include Rick D. Wasserman, Wally Wingert, Fred Tatasciore, Brian Bloom, Chris Cox, James C. Mathis III, Phil LaMarr, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, and Eric Loomis with the occasional appearance by such veterans as Jim Ward, Nolan North, Lance Henriksen, Tom Kane, Clancy Brown, and Mark Hamill.
DVD Extra features:
In each volume there’s a lone behind-the-scenes feature, “New Looks, New Heroes” (Volume 1) and “New Stories, New Threats” (Volume 2), that explore the new animation style and design takes on the heroes and the plotlines and threads laid out for future seasons, respectively.
Again, this is the best series yet to come along for Marvel fans, and like The Justice League it has its moments of levity sprinkled throughout the retelling of some great Marvel stories. The series easily surpasses the Avengers animated features Marvel put out previously.
"The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - Volumes 1 & 2" is on sale April 26, 2011 and is not rated. Action, Adventure, Animation. Directed by Ciro Nieli, Vinton Heuck, Sebastian Montes. Written by Joshua Fine, Brandon Auman, Kevin Burke, Chris Wyatt. Starring Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, Wally Wingert, Eric Loomis, Colleen Oshaughnessey, Rick D Wasserman, Brian Bloom, Chris Cox, James C Mathis Iii.
