Avengers: Assembled

After much buildup and a series of twenty micro-episodes (think the cel-animated Clones Wars cartoon from a couple years back), the new Marvel cartoon Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes premiered last month. Airing on Disney XD, this is the first project released after Marvel was bought by Disney late last year.

The series incorporates the "classic" Avengers team, meaning those who were on the team when it was founded back in the 60's and those who are often thought of when the name Avengers is spoken. So we're given Captain America (starting with episode "The Living Legend," though he has his own series of micro-eps), Hulk (though he quickly leaves the team because of Enchantress), Ant-Man, The Wasp, Thor, and Iron Man (who for some reason is the team leader). Black Panther joins the team a couple of episodes in and it's hinted that Hawkeye will join up at some point (he was last scene when one of the super-villain prisons exploded). Nick Fury shows up now and again to argue with the team and/or Iron Man.

I have nothing against the core lineup of heroes. No, my main concern is that Iron Man was put in charge of the Avengers. Really? I get that the character has had two successful movies in the last two and half years and because of that is immensely popular with the casual audience. But to put him in charge of the team when they have Captain America, who is a far more capable tactician and leader, is mind boggling. And it's been demonstrated that ol' Shellhead doesn't have what it takes to lead a group as, ahem, mighty as this. So maybe there'll be some resolution to this sometime in the future.

The animation is ok, if not overly "kid-friendly," meaning there are a lot of goofy and cartoony facial expressions (mostly from The Wasp and Ant-Man), but I still think Wolverine and the X-Men had better animation overall. The voice-acting is spotty with most of the characters being at least decent enough to not want to claw my ears off. The stand-outs here are the villains, with each being appropriately nasty, dramatic, and gravely. Again, my biggest problem here is Iron Man. It's clear that the producers went for someone who could pull of the same type of character as RDJ's Stark, but what we get instead is a bad Jack Black impersonator impersonating Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark (which immediately conjurs up images of RDJ yelling at Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder).

The plot actually follows the basic premise of New Avengers (which appropriately enough, the initial episodes of A:EMH are called Breakout!), in that the Avengers have assembled to collect various super-villains that are on the loose thanks to a massive breakout at the four largest prisons for super-powered beings.

My favorite episode so far was "Everything is Wonderful" due to the fact that it actually showcased not only some of the best character development of the series (Iron Man accidently pisses off Simon Williams when he was actually trying to help him), but also has Thor fighting MODOC. Hilarity ensued. No, seriously.

I'm still peeved that Wolverine and the X-Men was cancelled (though there is a reference to the show in the oft-referred to micro-episodes), but at least we get to see some Marvel characters on screen. Until, y'know, part way through making the second season when the funding mysteriously runs out...