The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes takes some of your favorite characters and reinvents them for its own use. Also reinvented are some characters who are probably not your favorites. Come on, let’s face it, Antman and Wasp are perennial second-tier. You will also get to see S.H.I.E.L.D. as jerks and the Black Widow as cold and mean.
Agent Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. Also an uber jerk.
Can’t you two just… get along? (And Pymm, what is with that sack? Are you running away from home in the 1930’s?)
The show has some decent ideas but was victim of a misguided launch. We just spent time crafting a paragraph to describe the chronologically confusing hijinks involved. Forget it. Boring. We will say it simply: The first half of this season is messed up and you may not know where you stand regarding the characters, chronology and/or story arc. It served the show poorly. Fortunately the second half got stronger and the end was solid.
We are not going to do a one sentence synopsis because we would have to bend time and space to try to coalesce the fractured plots. We will say it was the beneficiary and also the victim of its own writing. Perhaps some episodes tried to be too edgy and just ended up unfun. Black Panther’s father murdered in front of numbskull tribal dorks; Antman and Wasp arguing again; oh and remember, as a team we don’t really get along…
The Enchantress is a woman scorned. Is that what turned her evil?
Apparently Thor has a crush on a mere mortal, the paramedic Jane Foster. (Maybe it is her perky hair.)
The show also had the unfortunate habit of stepping on its own endings. This is one of our larger issues. You have no time to rest in the resolution of an episode before it is interrupted with a 30 second tacked on downer. This was consistently done and a poor format choice. This was especially unhelpful considering many of the main plots already had weak endings where the bad guys did not get just comeuppance. You can only delay proper comeuppance so long.
The mighty forges of the Asgardian dwarves. (But are they eco-friendly?)
It wasn’t a happy season for Captain America. Nothing seemed to go his way. Oh, and about that indestructible one-of-a-kind shield…
The final Asgardian and Ultron arcs were strong, and did a pretty good job of making us forget how disjointed the first half of the season was. Ultron the classic and somewhat creepy ‘machines are taking over’ story also tied in to Antman’s personality issues.
Ultron: After all, how could a robot that looks this benign go bad?
Thor is a character with great potential who needs strong foes. In fact the Avengers are the heavyweights of the Marvel universe and really require the most powerful enemies. Asgard can and did provide them.
Thor’s occasional girlfriend Cif (when he’s not eying up the mortals) and the warriors three. (…maybe it’s her attitude.)
The take on the Hulk was the most fun. There was little of the Bruce Banner persona. They pretty much played Hulk up as the ultra-strong, often misunderstood reluctant hero. It was gratifying to see what happened when an enemy made the mistake of claiming they were stronger.
Okay, the Hulk is supposed to be a little irritable, but what is everyone else’s excuse?
The artwork was good, but the quality and appeal varied from subject to subject. Iron man’s armor looked cool and was handled well though not with much variety. Regular looking men like Capt. America and Hawkeye were treated well. Better still were the large humanoids like Hulk, Thor and some baddies. The females could have been handled better in our opinion, and their appeal was underwhelming.
We in the fortress were grateful for the round unibeam.
Okay… So the ice armor had an octagonal unibeam.
While we are at it, why not make some armor out of magical Asgardian metal?
Is the first half of the season worth watching? No. Is the second half of the season worth watching? Yes. We hope season two gets it right from the start.
Loki, Loki, Loki… When will you learn. If only he would use his devious brains for good.
Check out our Takes on All Seasons
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Season 1
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Season 2
Check out related takes:
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow [2008]
Hulk Vs Thor [2009]
Thor: Tales of Asgard [2011]
Iron Man (anime) [2011] Season 1
Iron Man: Armored Adventures [2008] Season 1
F o r t r e s s T a k e s 
Apparently, aside from the 2-part premier, most of the first half of the season was a slew of animated shorts glued together to fill out a half hour time slot. Hence the very disjointed feel.
Although I did like how from the beginning, small seeds were planted (loki’s banishment, etc.) to lead into the rest of the season, I felt they took too long to execute them. While the final 9 episodes were a fun ride, it went by too quickly wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it could have been. The Ultron arc was something id been looking forward too since episode 7, but it just flew by and that was that.
Still, I’m very much looking forward to season 2 and all the hijinks those crazy Skrulls are going to get into.
We thought going from the premiere two-parter into those glued together shorts was a real narrative breaker. Good point about the Ultron two-parter. It did feel a little rushed. We thought they took their time (a little more) with the Asgardian arc.
Season 2, a full season from the start without the disjointed episodes, may indeed be stronger. Certainly they will have more time. We hope they use it wisely.
PS – Oh those crazy Skrulls. You just never know who they will be next.
I understand if you like this program but it’s not my kind of series. One of the reasons is that it’s too intense for me. Another reason is the Hulk, who happens to be my least favorite hero of Marvel Comics because he reminds me too much of my least monster that’s gigantic: King Kong. And I hate that gorilla (Greek for “wild hairy person”) so much because of what he did to my favorite kinds of animals: reptiles.
Hulk is not our favorite either. Hulk shows that focus largely on Dr. Banner and less on the hulk are generally easier to tolerate on our opinion. Take for example the classic Bill Bixby Hulk show from back in the day, or even the Saturday morning hulk show that went along with Spider-man and his amazing friends.