Episode Review: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes : Episode 101 : "Iron Man is Born"

Just before into to the actual episode, I can’t go any further without at first talking about the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes opening title sequence:




Thor throws his mighty hammer, Cap’s shield zips around, Hulk smashes things ... Cool. It's definitely the Avengers I recognise from the Comics. They’re heavily stylised with some of the heroes appearing very angular, but overall they're visually safe character designs and it’s obviously them. No D-list members clogging up the ranks, no unbearably cute sidekicks and thankfully, no ridiculous battle armour!


What’s not so cute though is the opening theme. The song Fight as One by Bad City is suitably heavy enough to match the action in a cheesy enough way which I actually don't mind, but what the hell is up with those whiny American-teen vocals? The music rocks, so couldn’t they have found a vocalist whose balls have dropped at least to match those heavy riffs? I might be a bit harsh saying that, but the singing makes me long to adjust the equalizer on my home theatre and EQ those vocals into oblivion. The target demographic is 6 – 19 year old males so the theme is obviously geared for their ears and not mine, but even a tiny pitch shift down would decrease how grating the vocalist is to anyone over 20. Don’t get me wrong, the lyrics themselves are admittedly kind of catchy and I completely believe that these costumed heroes really, really do love assembling to fight things all the time, but I’m praying for a remix of the theme at least if there’s a second season of the show.

Onto the episode itself, we open on our first glimpse of the world through the camera lens of a random bystander who just happens to be recording as a bonafide Giant Robot appears. This is a nice way to open the series by showing us the sense of danger from the general population’s perspective. It also grounds the action right from the get-go. Which I believe is important for a Marvel show of this magnitude to establish early on, as the Comics range from ‘street level’ superheroics to fantastic, cosmic epics and everything in between. It's a part of what makes the Marvel Universe so diverse and enthralling. "This is for real dude" the camera man even shouts at one stage as debris falls all around him. Iron Man appears from above, zooming in to save the camera man from the falling head of the now destroyed Giant Robot just before meeting a PG-13 rated fate.

The animation for this sequence, and honestly the rest of the episode, definitely has an old school ‘Saturday morning cartoon’ vibe to it. The simple line work and lacklustre backgrounds coupled with those stylized designs really aren’t as fluid compared to Marvel’s recent Cartoon work. As Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes effectively replaced both Spectacular Spiderman and Wolverine and the X-Men which featured much better animation, this is a somewhat disappointing step backwards. Iron Man’s face plate in particular looks at times almost triangular and off model depending on the angle it’s viewed. The CGI vehicles used in a later sequence featuring Tony Stark and Rhodey driving in Tony's car look almost embarrassingly out of place. Still this is the first episode of the series so the animators may be settling into animating the world but it’s something that really needs to improve as the show continues. Throw some money at this thing Marvel, the characters deserve it.

It’s nice to see that this episode is named after the first comic appearance of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense issue #39, a nod to the character's first ever story, but this episode doesn't go so far to even include a rehash of Iron Man's origin story here. The creators instead take a lead from Favreau’s 2005 Iron Man film with the hero featuring both Robert Downey Jr’s voice rhythms and token nervous banter. Except the voice actor cast for the cartoon initially sounds more Kevin Smith than Tony Stark. Pepper Potts, future War Machine Rhodey and even the computerized butler JARVIS are also based on the cinematic universe of the first film. It’s a safe move as it also keeps a congruity between the Cinematic universe and the Marvel Comic’s Iron Man which has also come to resemble the design of the films at times. The show also jumps into the story without needing an origin sequence for Iron Man and his supporting cast by assuming audiences are already up to speed. It’s all remains distinctly ‘Marvel’ and still manages to honour the very first Avengers comic which had each hero already established each in their own comic book titles.

After an anime-style armour formation sequence where we get a better look at the Mark VI Armour design used in the episode, Iron Man rockets off to deal with the terrorist organisation HYDRA attacking New York. Featuring the same HYDRA Octo-bot ships that also appear in the opening sequence and even more HYDRA agents attacking from the ground, it’s here we get our first proper look at the show in action. Stark banters with suit computer JARVIS, coming off more whiny than heroic as he attempts to work out what his armour can and can’t do . That Iron Man’s suit isn’t at full power due to discharging his Uni-Beam as he arrived should increase the tension of the battle, but it really only results in a fairly underwhelming use of the Iron Man armour.

The crux used here could just be part of the story arc however, introducing the threat HYDRA poses as enemy Dreadnought robots sporting Tony’s own weapons technology offer some resistance to the hero. The idea of Tony Stark’s stolen technology being used for villainy is a common theme of the character throughout his published history. This early on in the show it could be also that the apparent inexperience shown by Iron Man here is part of the character’s on-going story arc, possibly showing that he’ll need some assistance to become a better hero. The battle wasn’t all bad and had some nice flourishes, such as seeing the suprisingly comical, yet gruesomely melted face of a HYDRA Dreadnought dispatched by Iron Man's boot rockets.

We also get our first introduction to the cartoons take on Nick Fury and the SHIELD organisation during this battle, with the Helicarrier base looking suitably enormous and the SHIELD uniforms appearing exactly like in the Marvel comics. I also love that they’ve kept the massive observation deck and window on the Helicarrier intact from the books, as it’s a brilliant set piece for staging classic confrontations with Nick Fury. The show sets up this conflict with Fury early on with Tony paying the Helicarrier a visit, shortly after learning SHIELD has also been using his tech after saving their agents from HYDRA. Fury’s offsider, Maria Hill, is also introduced being particularly badass protecting an unflinching Nick Fury from Stark’s bravado over his compromised tech. This conflict sets up a great precedent in the show and feels like a moment that could easily happen in the universe of the Marvel comics, so kudos to the writers for pretty much nailing Fury’s characterisation.

With SHIELD firmly established it also sets up the last part of the episode focusing on the transfer of captured HYDRA agents to a SHIELD prison called the Vault, specialising in detaining tech-based criminals. We see a quick cameo of classic Iron Man archenemy the Crimson Dynamo while taking a tour of the cells, showing that the cartoon is already treading paths the Iron Man sequel was too afraid to go down, and also a brief glimpse of MODOC looking like some kind of Jack Kirby-esque nightmare. There's also a sinister introduction to Baron Von Strucker, leader of HYDRA, one of those old school Marvel villains I’ve always seen referenced in the Comics but never had a chance to read about. Here he makes for an absolute classic villain with every word spoken dripping with venom.

Nothing screams 'evil villain' like a monocle.

The Grim Reaper makes his first appearance in a great extended action sequence soon after this, which kinetic action puts the rest of the episode to shame. Sure there’s an overuse of impact flashes whenever someones connects a punch or goes for a slash at the screen, but it's almost as if the episode was saving the best for the last as the action is far more engaging here. Now I'm vaguely familiar with the Grim Reaper in the comics, but here he’s definitely made memorable due to excellent voice work by Lance Henrikson. He brings a calm menace to the character so it's fantastic voice casting. Coupled with some great action as the episode kicks it up a notch as the Reaper stages an exhilarating prison escape to free Strucker from the Vault.

Now keeping in mind that this segment of the episode was originally aired as part 9 of the online Micro-series, airing a couple of days after the earlier Iron Man scenes. Watched in sequence as a complete episode however, it makes far more sense from a narrative point of view to keep the scenes with Fury and SHIELD so close after their introduction. To me it both cements the familiarity of the characters with the viewer and keeps the connecting story thread of the captured HYDRA agents fresh in the audiences mind.

There’s also a brilliant cap off to the whole episode when Baron Von Strucker attacks Fury, Shang Tsung-style with his Satan Claw arm weapon, in the process turning the the sides of Fury's hair white. This is a very cool moment and also a nice way of a honouring the classic, comic-book Nick Fury while still keeping the familiar skin tone that both the Nick Fury of the live action Movies and the Ultimate Avengers comic share. Nice work whoever came up with incorporating both iterations into the one character as it works really well in the show. Fury also has another cool moment here, flying to safety from an exploding hovercar, deploying wings that appear out of his SHIELD uniform in classic super-spy fashion, striking a classical pose as he lands.

This entire Vault sequence feels like a pitch perfect, animated Marvel Comic. It serves to gives the episode some success overall, even if the actual Iron Man scenes weren’t all that impressive. As a whole, it would work as a good first episode to it's own Iron Man cartoon series. So albeit a fairly flat introduction for the hero, it's a great introduction for Chris Yost's Marvel Universe within the show. Here’s hoping Tony Stark and his suit of armour get some shine as the series progresses.

...Oh and that opening theme music? I actually caught my partner singing it about an hour after we watched the episode... and I couldn’t help singing it along with her. At least it’s catchy...



"Iron Man is Born" was directed by Vinton Heuck and written by Brandon Auman