Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, now that the team is fully assembled, I really hope that they don't fuck around with it too much. Maybe if one character leavers or they add in maybe one new hero or something it can be dealt with fine, but I personally like the team where its at right now. I still find Ant Man to be kind of boring but the last few episodes had him actually express more emotions than he usually did for most of the season (which I guess was sort of the point, since it seemed to be intentional on the part of his character), and Wasp is still kind of annoying, but at least I've gotten used to her. Actually, to be honest, I do think those characters still serve as a good complement to the rest of the team if that makes any sense. Like I said earlier seeing how characters interact is more interesting than any character is alone by themselves in this series, so while I don't like those characters in terms of their personalities, I do find how others react to them to be interesting enough. Also, I have to say that Hawk Eye certainly does contribute quite well to some of the series's more comedic moments, and I generally enjoy his usual banter and attitude.

In terms of plot-lines set up for season 2, I expect that they will start it out with the team actually helping out S.H.I.E.L.D. by trying to locate Nick Fury, since his disappearance was brought up a few episodes before the season finale and everyone just seemed to ignore it for the time being.

In terms of personal interests, I'd like to see them expand some more on Captain America's character, as I myself would like to learn more about his back-story and such as a casual viewer. One thing that surprised me is that Iron Man was the leader of the team. Perhaps I always had the wrong idea since I never actually read any of the Avengers comics myself, but I was always under the impression that Captain America would be the leader of the team. Perhaps its because he just seems so natural to fit the part (not even including the fact that he his superhero name actually includes the freaking title of "Captain"), being that he's a generally more well-trained, strict, and responsible person, whereas Tony Stark/Iron Man usually comes off as, well....pretty much the opposite.

Also, I hope that they don't play the "Hulk grudgingly leaves the team due to trust issues" again in season 2, even though I'm sure that they will since apparently Hulk doesn't stay an Avenger for that long in the comics. To be honest, though, I really have come to enjoy seeing him as a regular member of the team, even if its not necessarily all that faithful (but, they, its not like an adaptation has to always follow the source material 100% of the time, as some changes can be good in certain cases).

[Spark Of Spirit]

This might seem weird (or totally off since I haven't seen the whole season), but I think my problem with this show has to do with scope. They seem to have too much going on at the same time, and I guess that's unavoidable considering the vast histories behind all these characters, but even just watching all the microepisodes and the whole breakout premiere, there felt like there was just too much going on and they couldn't really get a handle on how to make it all flow together. Throwing in so many other villains probably didn't help matters, either.

I'm not really sure if this was improved as the show went on, but I would have preferred starting off with a smaller scope and building up from there. That's one of the reasons I don't think JLU would have worked as well without JL existing beforehand, and the smaller scope to develop the characters worked in favor for the bigger episodes they could handle in Unlimited.

That's just what I think, anyway.

[Avaitor]

Hank Pym in general is a fairly boring character. He mostly keeps to his work, like Ultron. It's not until around then that he starts showing some true character, like he does in the show, and the Yellow Jacket trials builds on that even further. I don't think they'll touch that in season 2, though.

Iron Man is the leader since the mansion, the equipment, Jarvis and everything all came out of Tony Stark's pocket, and he took the initiative in the beginning. Cap does take lead in the team even just when he comes back to life, but it's not until a few issues in that he becomes the more prominent leader. They touch on that here as well, and I can see him taking charge even more in the next season.

As for Hulk, I do doubt he'll stick around for the whole season, based on principal. He'll probably still be an Avenger by the end of the second season, but Bruce still has some issues to deal with before he and his alter ego can fully accept teamwork. I mean, he was a member of the Defenders for so long, and look at them.

I would like to see Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch added to the team, but since they were in Wolvie, I kind of doubt that'll happen until it's fresh out of the minds of children. To be fair though, the team is balanced enough now that they could just keep them together in season 2 without any changes and they'll still feel fresh.

I do see Vision being a major possibility, though. In fact, I'm surprised that they didn't add him in during the Ultron saga. Maybe they'll bring him back in.

[Avaitor]

This might seem weird (or totally off since I haven't seen the whole season), but I think my problem with this show has to do with scope. They seem to have too much going on at the same time, and I guess that's unavoidable considering the vast histories behind all these characters, but even just watching all the microepisodes and the whole breakout premiere, there felt like there was just too much going on and they couldn't really get a handle on how to make it all flow together. Throwing in so many other villains probably didn't help matters, either.

I'm not really sure if this was improved as the show went on, but I would have preferred starting off with a smaller scope and building up from there. That's one of the reasons I don't think JLU would have worked as well without JL existing beforehand, and the smaller scope to develop the characters worked in favor for the bigger episodes they could handle in Unlimited.

That's just what I think, anyway.

This actually doesn't change all that much, and honestly, the Avengers is more about big scope as opposed to Justice League's relatively more compressed teamwork. The Justice League had more time for a core group to form and develop before taking on so much, while the Avengers never really got that much breathing room, and has constantly been changing for years. I mentioned before that this could be both a good thing and bad thing, and I guess this is where the bad comes from- big is good, but sometimes big can be too big.

I think another thing that JL had that EMH doesn't is that two of its super heroes already had their own shows to develop the characters from, so more time could be spent building up on the other five and bringing up ties to Bats and Supes' past. Meanwhile, the Avengers have a lot more to deal with and go through, and there might just be too much to deal with.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I had a feeling it might be intentional. Well, I think I'll just wait for a season set to come out, and I'll sit down and take in the show at my own pace. The scope of it is a little hard for me to deal with even though I know most of these characters, so it might be easier to take on when I have more of a focus for it.

[Avaitor]

Funny thing is, I kind of agree with you. It's a lot to handle considering how much it tackles on.

I'll probably wait for the season set myself, but I already feel like I need to give it a rewatch to better post my reflections on the show. I'm trying to stop myself from not buying the volume releases now.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Actually, to be honest, while I initially felt exactly like Desensitized did, I kind of got used to the large scope of the team, and surprisingly enough by the 2nd half of the series I began to prefer the series being that way. In terms of having too much going on at once, it was really only the first half of the season where I felt they started bringing up a bunch of different plot-points. By the second half of the season they were going in a more episodic format, and solving or addressing problems brought up earlier in the series one at a time, episode by episode, which ended up being a decent payoff for all of the initial build-up, IMO. I do think the scope kind of hurts it on an initial viewing, but to be quite frank I think this series needed to start out with a big scope, and probably works out better in the end for it. While I myself prefer starting things small like Justice League did, like Avaitor said JL simply just had more time to flesh out its characters, and had the advantage of having 2 extremely popular superheroes who already had their own canon animated series that many people were familiar with. To Avenger's credit, though, it really does a good job of being able to introduce the heroes just well enough to the point of still feeling welcoming to newcomers like me, as I would easily be alienated by this series if it didn't keep casual viewers in mind.

Ultimately, though, I think most of the problems if this series could just boil down to the fact that it probably needed more time. Obviously they wanted to get things off the ground as quickly as possible since younger audiences watching the show might get bored quickly, so the beginning of the season felt really rushed. While I can't really blame them for that in the 1st season, now that they have had ample time to set things up enough, they should be able to make the 2nd season much better than the 1st without an excuse.

Other than that, the only other thing I would say that this series needs to improve on is the more minor issues, such as avoiding villains following those impractical traditional tendencies that they use so much in this series (i.e. talking needless exposition when they should be trying to kill the heroes) and making sure that they already solve most of the plot points that they currently have circulating before adding in brand new ones (well, to be fair they mostly just hint at new ones, but it feels out of place when there is already so much else going on). As it stands, though, season 1 leaves off at the perfect place for them to start off strong in season 2 (even though I still hate the fact that they had to end season 1 on a cliffhanger to get that setup going).

Oh, BTW, what's your input on the ending scene of season 1, Avaitor? Being that you're more familiar with the comics, I assume you actually have some idea what was going on in that scene, or what its alluding to, whereas to someone like me who hasn't read any of the comics it comes off as rather mysterious (though, no doubt it relates to one of the plot-points hinted at earlier in the series).

[Avaitor]

Oh, BTW, what's your input on the ending scene of season 1, Avaitor? Being that you're more familiar with the comics, I assume you actually have some idea what was going on in that scene, or what its alluding to, whereas to someone like me who hasn't read any of the comics it comes off as rather mysterious (though, no doubt it relates to one of the plot-points hinted at earlier in the series).

Spoiler

Oh, you mean how a Skrull transformed into Captain America and knocked out the real Cap? That seems like an obvious tie to the Kree-Skrull War which was a major storyarc in the comics and was alluded to earlier in the season. I'd suggest reading a synopsis online about it or finding the original comic arc if you want to know more about it, since I don't think I could cap it down for you myself.

[close]

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh, it seems Canada got a TB&TB style season one part one release. I'll try to check that one out!

[Avaitor]

Yep, you lucky bastards.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Seeing as how season 1 is only 26 episodes (which seems to be the standard season length for almost any animated TV series these days), I'm not sure why they didn't just wait until they could release a complete season set. Well, I just kind of find the whole trend of releasing the seasons in parts to be a bit odd. I can understand it for series that have extremely long seasons, like how FUNimation does that with the One Piece releases (being that each season is around 60+ episodes a piece), and I believe TMNT 2K3 had some long seasons (though apparently they never finished releasing the series on DVD past season 2, since they just randomly stopped), but with something like Avengers that has a clean and straightforward 26-episode season, releasing it as one-set seems more convenient to me (maybe releasing it in parts really does bring in more sales and money, though, I guess).

Oh, and Desensitized, keep in mind that the first half of the season is notably a bit weaker than the second half (at least IMO). To me it really got things together and picked up its pace once the entire team was assembled after episode 14, so make sure to give it a chance until at least a little past that point before making any final conclusions on its quality. That's just my personal recommendation, though.

[Avaitor]

Bumping for the sake of the list.

Disney XD has been airing the rest of the season, and is just about done now. Meanwhile, the first half is on DVD, and the whole season will be on Netflix before long. So take this chance to talk about the show and/or your hopes for season 2 while you can.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've already given my thoughts on the first season and what I want to see in the 2nd season, but one thing that I will say aside from what I've already said is how much I appreciate the writers of this series fitting in all of the back-story necessary for this show to work without alienating people like myself who have never read any of the comics. I can still perfectly follow the story as they don't throw references to the pasts or backgrounds of other heroes right over your head, and it becomes really engaging to see how the characters in this series develop and grow bonds with each other over time. In that regard, I view this much more as a character-driven show than an action or story-driven series.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

I've been rewatching this show on Netflix and I realized its a lot better than I initially thought. It really is a little less superheroic than other shows, and fits more as a character driven show. Marathoning it was a lot more beneficial to my viewing pleasure than seeing an episode once a week. It's harder to keep track of everything going on with such a huge cast with those long stretches of episodes.

Plus, the opening kicks ass. Rivals Spectacular Spider-Man's glorious theme song.

[Sketch]

I like the opening and when they changed it so you barely hear the song I was pretty bummed.