WesternAnimation Season 2 Review
Okay, after boycotting this show for a long time due to how mediocre season 1 was (and how even worse were the two other Marvel shows), I finally decided to give season 2 a try. And.... I have to admit, I am surprised. And in a very good way.
While season 2 still isn't quite as good as EMH, it's still a major improvement compared to season 1. And in fact, it does come damn close to be the same level of quality. Replacing Man of Action by former EMH writers clearly was a smart move, and turned out for the best. I honestly didn't think that was possible, but I did find myself, not just tolerating, but actually enjoying this season.
Now, the show isn't really perfect; there are still flaws, including some cliché stock plots being used (the Freaky Friday plot, a character being de-aged...), main villains have a bad habit of suddenly showing up out of nowhere, and some characters, particularly Hawkeye, getting ridiculed for the sake of comedy. But unlike season 1, there is actually more to it. The plot moves forward and these cliché stock plots are used to actually develop the Avengers, giving them more depth. The villains are also better fleshed out and more effective; the Squadron Supreme, in particular, is a major highlight, being used as a dark reflection of the Avengers. Thanos started out rather weak in earlier episodes, but he does get actually fun to watch in later episodes; and Ultron was really well-used, though I wished the writers didn't shy away from saying who created him in this continuity. And I couldn't be more grateful that they finally brought back Antman, even if it's Scott Long rather Pym; as a fan of the character, I can only be happy about it.
I didn't really think that was possible, but after watching this season, I think I would actually recommand it. This show might actually end up something genuinely good after all.
WesternAnimation Ultron Arc Review. Spoilers Abound.
Okay, I'm gonna come out and say it: I like Avengers Assemble. Sure, it's nothing compared to Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but it's still a fun show in its own right, though it does have its bad episodes at times. I'm gonna do a review of the show as a whole, but in honor of the film Age Of Ultron, I decided to review the Ultron Arc.
- Pros:
- ULTRON! Let's face it, anything involving Ultron is guaranteed to be badass. And this Ultron comes off as a much better villain than Thanos, who comes off as a simplistic Generic Doomsday Villain.
- The action and fight scenes are quite impressive.
- Ant Man joining the Avengers is a delightful Mythology gag to EMH and gives me hope that we may see Black Panther and Vision in future episodes.
- Tony getting called out for his poor leadership skills by Spiderman is a delightful Take That, Scrappy! for his critics. Also Spiderman getting the cold shoulder by the Avengers can be seen as another for critics of Ultimate Spider-Man.
- Cons:
- The sheer, reckless, and relentless idiocy Tony displays throughout the arc is so staggering it's cringeworthy. Nearly all of the problems the Avengers faced could have been avoided had Tony acted like the genius he always boasts that he is. Put simply, when Spiderman, who is the goofiest incarnation of the character to date, calls out your leadership skills, you know you've fucked up.
- Ultron's voice actor, while by no means a bad actor, doesn't neccesarily come off as intimidating. It's justified in that he's possessing Arsenal and they share the same voice actor, but he sounds less like a Killer Robot and more like a grown man trying to sound young. They should have used James Spader from the film. That would have been perfect.
- Spiderman's imagine spots in "Avengers Dissembled". They worked in USM because the show focused on Spidey and his adventures. But this show is about the Avengers, who don't break the fourth wall, thus they are out of place and end up breaking up the dramatic tension.
Overall, this is one of the better arcs of the show and a good way to promote the film. Plus, if Ant Man joining the team is the show's way of saying it's trying to be better, then it's off to a good start.
WesternAnimation Season 1: 2/5 stars
After finding out that this show was on Netflix , I decided to take the plunge and finally see this Recursive Adaptation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Characterization: Tony is supposed to get the most Character Development, but he only looks more and more like a Creator's Pet over time, plus he suffers from Aesop Amnesia. Hulk finally gets some new ground to trend learning what it's like to deal with other like him. Thor and Captain America start the show in the best positions and only get better, so I like them the most. Hawkeye get's the confront the demons of his past life and Black Widow, when she's not Out of Focus, has to learn how to trust everyone. Sam is your Naïve Newcomer who eventually comes into his own.
- Plots: Most of the first season is a Whole Plot Reference to Phase 1 of the MCU, the best examples of this being "Avengers: Impossible" and the end of "The Final Showdown", as a result stuff gets really played out and uninteresting. So I've found myself enjoying episodes like "Hulk's Day Out" and "Planet Doom" for being very out there and not involved in emulating the MCU. In general I've also found myself enjoying all the Thor-centric episodes.
- Continuity: "Molecule Kid" includes a flashback using character designs from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes , needlessly creating a Continuity Snarl on top of Pandering to the Base.
- Cast: The movie 6(now 7 because of Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't anything to write home about here, so I'll just focus on the characters I did find highlight-able. Any non-MCU hero or villain, really. I mean Ulik the Troll, Super Apatiod, Glorian, Attuma? That's a great use of the comic's cast right there.
- Final Verdict: Ultimately not better than Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.. Don't expect this be go as good as Earth's Mightiest Heroes if you plan on watching from start to finish.
WesternAnimation You Maniacs! You blew it up!
Alot of people will call me a pissed off fanboy when they comment on this review...And I am, but that doesn't stop this show from sucking. Any show that would come after Earth's Mightiest Heroes would have a tough act to follow, and in AA's case it certainly wasn't helped that EMH was cancelled solely to put this shit on the air.
So EMH was cancelled in order to bring in this show with worse animation, worse character designs, worse voice actors, worse plots and missing some of the most loved characters of the last show like Wasp. Oh but it's okay, this show has the Falcon...Oh, fucking joy. One of the main weaknesses this has compared to it's predecessor is that it focuses almost entirely on the cinematic universe and elements like it. And while I do really enjoy the Avengers movie, EMH kicked ass because it was able to draw on 70+ years of storylines and characters, and even pay homage to classic stories by the likes of Jack Kirby.
Also the series does seem to draw influence from the Ultimate Comics as well, which is a real pet peeve of mine. Seriously, fuck the Ultimate comics, they're a cancer that's spreading into all the good parts of the Marvel universe.
So, the heroes are a bunch of dickbags to each other, they all fill typical archetypes, the plot twists were pretty damn predictable. Animation is more or less the exact same thing you'd see in Ultimate Spiderman, which isn't a strong point trust me.
Honestly it's just a really bad show, and a huge insult to the fans of EMH. Hell, I'd even say it's an insult to the people who preferred the cinematic universe. This show lacks the awesome effort and acting that made the movie so good. This is just your typical Saturday morning cartoon shit, with no depth or complexity to it in the slightest. Avengers United They Stand is on par with this garbage.
Fuck this show and the people who greenlit it. Marvel animation is going straight down the toilet again.
WesternAnimation Actually Worse then Ultimate Spider-Man
Know hear me out. I am one of 50 people in the world who actually likes the cartoon Ultimate Spider-Man, although it does have major issues. However, in it’s pilot, it quickly established what we needed to know. The show is non serious, Spider-Man’s character is established, and the show is not meant to be consistent with anything before it, seeing how Spider-Man has never joined SHEILD.
However, with Avengers Assemble, we aren’t introduced to the character in any memorable way, and the writers have to assume we already know the characters. But thanks to inconsistencies, there is no way the show can be a continuation of the movie, EMH, or even USM. So it has to be judged on its own, and on it’s own, there isn’t anything established about the character or the tone. We barley meet the characters, and it’s hard to tell if the tone is meant to be serious, because of the Disney Deaths and plot twists, or silly, because of all the corny quips.
All in all, Avengers Assemble has a disappointing pilot, one that shows to be inferior to bother Earth’s Mightiest Heroes AND Ultimate Spider-Man.
WesternAnimation Avengers Assemble, my first impressions
I believe it's still too soon to judge this show fairly, since by the time I write this, only seven episodes have been up. I'll write a more elaborated review later if I have time. But for now, here are my first impressions of this show.
First, the good points: this show, I'll admit, has quite a few good concepts that still had yet to be adapted in a show. I am especially found of their version of Dracula, and think the way they integrated him to Cap's backstory was kinda clever (though I wish they found a better justification to motivate him as a villain). The art is good and well-detailed, if a bit generic at time and with the characters being far too muscular to my taste (seriously, they all look like if they were from the 90s).
Now, the bad points.
First of all, the pacing is absolutely HORRIBLE. Things tend to happen far too fast, without taking time to explain much or develop characters. Whenever they need to explain something, they do it in one line or three, without real details. Falcon is one of the biggest exemples of this: his inclusion to the team and establishment as a new character is far too quick, we barely get to learn anything about him. Which leads me to my next point: the cast isn't diversified enough. Seriously, we have three members who have exactly the same backstory (former SHIELD agent), the only difference being their gimmicks. I know that worked in the movie with Hawkeey and Black Widow, but that was needed for a movie due to the limits they had; we are in a cartoon, take advantage on it for more variety, damn it! The plot also tend to be a bit cliché, and, if not horrible, at least without any depht and forgettable. Characters get no real development (especially irritating how they removed Banner altogether and left the Hulk like a mere Dumb Muscle) and the humor, like the dialogue, tend to be a bit cheap. I am not really a fan of chosing Red Skull as the main villain either, neither am I of the idea to give him an Iron Man suit. Finally, not only is Black Widow the only female, but she manages to be even more of a Faux Action Girl than Wasp, being absent in half the episodes and doing near nothing in the others, even being a Damsel In Distress at some point.
Overall, the show mostly is "meh" to me. Far less obnoxious or dislikable than Ultimate Spider Man, but not exactly memorable or great either.
WesternAnimation Premiere: Actually pretty decent
While there may be a strong contingent of people who may dislike the show, on the grounds that its being in the shadow of both the Previous series and the movie that came last year. I for one actually like the premiere, mostly on it being so good in my preferences, and that it served as an okay starting point for the series, The Red Skull as the first big bad while yes it's a move to show the villains that already appeared in the big screen, he still makes for an enjoyable watch in my case, Liam O'Brien's voice doing the performance probably helped, also at the end his plans to gather a cabal of villains featuring Attuma,Dr Doom, Dracula to name a few got me interested,
For the voice casting i'm still not sure if Adrian Pasdar as Tony Stark is good cast or not but ill get used to him eventually . Travis Willingham as Thor was satisfying ,Roger Craig Smith as Cap is spot on,Troy Baker as Hawkeye is pretty good,Laura Bailey as Black Widow is great, David Kaye as JARVIS was surprising but nice.
So yeah in the end the premiere is a pretty good for me thus the series starts on a very promising note and hopefully the series will improve and step out of the shadow of the previous show and movie, and develop and identity of its own in the future episodes to come.
WesternAnimation Thunderbolts story arc: a terrible adaptation of an awesome comic
So, I had somewhat regained faith in Avengers Assemble after it managed to deliver a decent and enjoyable, if still flawed, second season. Unfortunately, while season 3 still is at its beginning at the time I write this, it has already managed to be so underwhelming that I feel like giving up on the show again. Especially after they attempted, and spectacularly failed, at adapting one of my favourite storylines from the comics (warning: Spoiler ahead).
For those who don't know and don't care about being spoiled, the Thunderbolts story arc is about Baron Zemo's super-villain team, the Masters of Evil, taking advantage on the disappearance of the Avengers and Fantastic Four to pose as superheroes. Their initial goal is to win the public's trust, so they can get the informations they require to further their plan; However, many of them end up realizing they actually enjoy being heroes, leading to a rebellion when Zemo tries to pull his scheme. It's a great story about redemption and second chances, full of Character Development for characters who until then had been CList Fodders.
So, naturally, Avengers Assemble took that awesome potential and pretty much stripped it of all the things that made it great in the first place.
In the comic, T-bolts being the Masters of Evil was revealed right at the end of the first issues, and was considered one of the greatest twist in history. Here, they try to keep it hidden until the last episode. They also remove all the context that justified nobody recognizing the Thunderbolts, making it so obvious you end up scratching your head wondering how the Avengers can't see this coming a mile away. Not only that, but because of this plus the arc being condensed to two episodes, the Character Development is minimal at best, and none of the Bolts get any of the Hidden Depths they had in the comic to justify their Heel–Face Turn; as such, when they do turn here, it feels forced, and you get the impression they do it just because Zemo is a dick.
Speaking of Zemo, the stupidity this incarnation displays in this arc is jarring. After going through the troubles of stealing a high-tech holographic device to disguise his team as heroes (instead of, you know, just changing their costumes), his sole plan here apparently is to just pull a cliché Sucksessor scheme on the Avengers. When this fails and his own team turns on him because he pointlessly was an asshole to them, he decides to leave them both with a death trap like a classic Bond villain, before making an announcement to the public that he now is a the only Superhero in the World. I guess Spidey, the Agents of SMASH, the FF and the Guardians of the Galaxy don't count, somehow.
Overall, a terrible disappointment.