Ant-Man: "Actually we're 'defending' more than 'avenging'."
Iron Man: "Shut up, Pym"
So I watched, and then re-watched, the first two episodes of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes “Breakout” Parts 1 & 2 (Although technically its episodes 6 and 7 as 1 through 5 are actually the prologue shorts I mentioned before put together). I can’t do a full review because I’d need to watch the whole season, but I figured with all my talk about this show the past few weeks I had to say something. So here are some random notes and thoughts I jotted down while watching:
-I know it’s supposed to be Robert Downey, Jr. inspired but the portrayal of Tony Stark is starting to bug me. He’s so smarmy and contradictory but lacks the charm from the Iron Man films. He just seems like a cocky jerk…which may or may not be true in the comic, I guess.
-How does S.H.I.E.L.D. expect to recruit any of the superheroes running around when their answers to even the simplest questions is “Sorry, that’s classified”? I mean superheroes by nature tend to be solitary creatures dissatisfied with the powers that be (Otherwise why would they take the law into their own hands) so they're already suspicious of authority figures; why make it worse by holding out on info?
-If Incompetent Scientist Supreme Hank Pym is so hesitant about being a superhero why does he call himself “Ant-Man”?
-Thor is awesome. That is all.
-There are so many cameos and nods to characters from the comics it’s not even funny. Hell yes The Red Ghost and his Super Apes! There’s even hint that Doctor Doom may be showing up sometime. Sweet! That said I only recognized about 65-75% of the characters on screen. My Fanboy powers must be relatively weak indeed.
-Special mention to Jeffery Combs as The Leader. Holy God, his delivery was downright chilling. Even though he only appeared for a few minutes (Less?) he was easily my favorite character shown. I eagerly await his return.
-Intellectually I’m aware that the theme song isn’t very good but for some reason I can’t get enough of it. Especially the instrumental version in the ending credits. It’s way catchier than Avengers: United They Stand.
-Graviton is hilarious! Fred Tatasciore has the character overEMPHASIZING (By screaming) some WORDS over others so HE sounds KINDA like THIS.
-The best way of attracting the Hulk is to yell out “I’m the strongest one there is”; he’ll almost immediately arrive to prove you wrong by pounding you into a fine paste.
-Speaking of Graviton his origin differs from the comic books but works well for the story the show sets up. Very well, in fact. Frankly the producers are going to have to make such changes with many characters and concepts since much of it is from dated source material. As long as they resemble and retain the spirit of their comic counterparts it shouldn’t be a problem.
-The final battle between the five heroes and Graviton was AWESOME! A giant slugfest that turned entire sections of New York City into a warzone; it was amazingly fun to watch! If this ends up being a regular occurrence this show will be a winner in my book.
-Its weird seeing Iron Man and the others standing up for the Hulk. Once in the comics Iron Man and some others (Not these gents) shot the Hulk into space to rid the Earth of his trouble making. We’ll see what happens by the end of the season.
-Though its mostly not a problem it’s still clear that, unless you watched the prequel shorts, you won’t get as much from this show. For example the shorts explain why Hawkeye and the Hulk were in prison, explain the specifics behind three of the four prisons, introduces the Black Widow (Who shows up here but has no lines in), and serve as better introductions for the characters in general. Iron Man and Thor come off pretty good and everyone looks badass and all, but there just wasn’t time to showcase everyone’s personality in-depth (Otherwise we’d have to cut into the fight with Graviton. Screw that noise). The shorts do a great job of doing this but if you missed it than you’re out of luck.
So bottom line I thought these first two episodes were really fun. Perhaps the scenario for the teams formation was not as epic as the three-part first episode of Justice League but it certainly worked well enough. And I think I prefer the big fight here. In conjunction with the shorts this was a strong opener for the series and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Hopefully once the season ends I’ll have a better idea about the overall product, but so far so good.
The next post will be my 50th blog entry (Not counting an early entry that just announced that I was sick) so expect something big. And by “big” I mean long. And by “long” I mean probably a rant of some sort. Here's a one word hint of the topic: SNIKT.
I'm glad I checked back in with your site here, I would never have checked out this cartoon on my own- but it surprisingly has turned out to be one of the best animated Marvel adaptations ever. I don't know if you've read the original 1963 Avengers (like, the first ten comics or so), but considering that those were written about 50 years ago, the fidelity to the source material is actually really impressive. My major caveat is that they changed the antagonists of WWII, which is sort of egregious. That, and the Hulk is way too smart, but I can understand the change, since in the comic he runs away from the team really early. Anyway, making the first episode into an epic fight with Graviton was nice, since Graviton is just about the most powerful throwaway villain in the rogue's gallery, and because the original story about Loki causing everything was sort of stupid and insufficiently epic.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I'm looking forward to the next post.
I've read the early issues through about the time Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch joined a about six years ago in college and I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI understand your feelings about the Nazis, but as I understand it the writers were given a choice by Disney: either have Nazis and have everyone use weird laser weapons much like in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (Which always looked dumb in that cartoon) OR have fairly realistic looking guns and edit the Nazis out. They chose the guns, probably because most of the series wouldn't take place during WW II. I'm not sure how true this is but it's such a weird decree that it's probably true.