The Avenger's Earths Mightiest Heroes: An epic introduction to the series from our new reviewer!

Welcome to my first posting here on Jung Justice, of what will be an on-going look at Marvel's latest cartoon: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Published now for nearly 50 years, the Avengers comic has always been the perfect showcase for seeing Marvel's most enduring characters in action. Now that they’ll be appearing in animation, I'll be reviewing the series regularly here on the site mainly for fun, but also to fill a void in the surprising lack of in-depth reviews of the show on the net. So just before I get stuck into it, I'd like to do an overview of the series which I'll kick off now with a quote from Christopher Yost, the story editor and 'showrunner' for this new Avengers cartoon venture:

"It’s the Avengers. And it’s not crazy armored Avengers. Or it’s not Teen Avengers. It’s the Avengers you know and love and have always wanted to see. It’s Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant Man, Wasp, Captain America, Hawkeye. It’s the Avengers. The premise of the show is literally, Avengers, go. There isn’t any crazy twist like they’re in an alternate reality or in the Negative Zone or some bizarre thing. There is 40 years worth of Avengers’ stories, start telling them."
- Source: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20785 April 13th, 2009

Now this quote, taken from one of Chris Yost's first interviews while the show was still in production, clearly is a huge mission statement. Yost immediately heads off any fears that Marvel's characters will be mishandled, which to a Marvel fan like myself is incredibly reassuring, considering that the Avengers as a franchise has never succeeded outside the realm of Comics. Sure there's been a couple of moderately successful Direct-to-DVD animated features and live-action Hollywood blockbuster on the horizon, but there's only been one real attempt by Saban to bring the characters to TV. Thankfully, the hilarious '90s ‘Avengers: United They Stand’ lasted all of one season and are those 'crazy armored Avengers' mentioned above by Yost. As a fan it's really been a shame that all those classic Avengers tales have never been told in any other medium before, at least not successfully.

Avengers: United They Stand, it makes sense coming from the company who brought us Power Rangers.

Enter Chris Yost. Starting out as a Marvel intern, Yost moved quickly to Marvel Animation working alongside writing partner Craig Kyle for 2003's X-Men Evolution. They're two of the strongest voices overseeing Marvel's TV animated catalogue over the last decade, including the absolutely sublime Wolverine and the X-Men. Yost has also introduced brand new characters to the Avengers canon as writer of the original DVD feature Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, a brilliant animated movie featuring the future progeny of core Avengers members. This history in Marvel Animation, coupled with his great track record at writing fan-favourite episodes, makes him the perfect person Marvel has working for them to translate the Avengers to animation. Especially when he makes it clear the respect he has for the team in his interviews.

Right now the Avengers comics are so popular that Marvel publishes more than six different Avengers books each Month, a fact that honestly amazes me. You have to understand - when I was reading comics in the 90s, if that Marvel book didn't have a big X somewhere on the cover or feature angst-ridden mutants on the inside? It didn't sell. Remember this was years before Marvel’s 2005 blockbuster movie made Iron Man and Tony Stark household names. Not only were the Avengers titles not selling well against the mutant menace of the '90s, but Marvel famously canceled and rebooted the comics with fresh new artists and writers during the 'Heroes Reborn' experiment in an attempt make them relevant to readers once more. It didn't take.

The current Avengers lineup is just gigantic.

Back issues of comics also weren’t as heavily reprinted back then as they are now, so when a Marvel book referenced Avengers battles or historical character milestones, I was forced to treat it is as such - just history. Seeking out original copies of comics from the '60s and '70s was a pricey endeavor, and the few back issues I did invest in all had that pesky letter X right at the top (They're now worth millions, I assure you). As my comic collecting habit was the first sacrifice of my youth, I've still never really had a chance to go back and read all those awesome Avengers story arcs I missed out on. So I take notice when Chris Yost says something like this:

"It's very much like the comic books. We're telling Avengers stories. That's been the whole thing from the start. We basically wanted to do an animated version of the Avengers comics. The comics had so much going for them. So the feeling was, 'Why not do that?' We updated stuff, followed some of the more modern stories and changed some things for the medium. But largely we tried to stay true to the classic feel of the comics."
- Source: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=28367 September 17th, 2010

Damn it Yost, you know how to speak directly to that long time Marvel reader in me, that little geeky kid that never really left. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes might be that chance for a lot of Marvel fans to experience actual Marvel Universe history, but in animated form. By updating and streamlining the Avengers in a modern light, it opens up Yost and his writing team one of the biggest untapped veins of Marvel story gold. This will definitely be an aspect of my reviews that I'll focus upon, seeing if the show really delivers on this premise. Maybe not so much in blatant ‘fan servicing’ per se, but more that the Avenger's voice, history and presence translates properly over from Comic to animation. These are hard characters to pin down for a writer without them coming across as one-dimensional or completely absurd which was main issue with Fox’s '90s Avengers adaptation.

For an example of Superhero animation done right, DC's brilliant Justice League Unlimited animated series is right up there as one of the best. When I got back into reading Comics a few years ago, my biggest surprise was that I could understand and appreciate the characters of DC Comics and the vast universe they all shared. Now I was never a DC Comic’s reader growing up. Their characters all seemed too perfect or similar and DC's own chaotic publishing history was a nightmare for the uninitiated. Filtered through the eyes of animator Bruce Timm however, the characters of DC came alive through his vision of the serialised animated stories of Batman and Superman. All he had to do was mirror the history and distill the essence of their comic book counterparts, but it served to free up years of excess baggage which decades of publishing history saddled them from being immediately accessible. Timm's DC Animated Universe made DC accessible like never before, and it's a success that every new Superhero cartoon would be wanting to recreate. I have to mention as well that DC's latest Young Justice series may just be giving JLU a run for its money and I highly recommend checking out our reviews page on this site for more YJ love.

So then, how do you make a cartoon about the Avengers accessible and hook those new viewers? I’ll explore the answer to this with my partner Jade who's watching the show with me. She’s only been introduced to the characters from Marvel’s live action films and by observing my own fanaticism, and she’s been surprisingly keen to find out more. I know, right? This will be handy while I'm watching the show for if shes asks me to explain what the hell just happened on screen, the show hasn't done its job in being accessible. If she asks me explain more about the characters in an effort to learn more about their motivations and general history, then the show will have succeeded in its intention.

The cast of the Avengers feature film with director Joss Whedon.

Superheroes are big business right now in Hollywood. Marvel knows this, so of course Chris Yost knows this. This type of transmedia, cross-over interest is the kind the show would be seeking to build, especially if they want to capture the ratings of fans of the Marvel feature films and increase the exposure of the characters. Of course there's also an Avengers feature film directed by Joss Whedon coming in 2012, so it will definitely be interesting to see how Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes copes with the influence from characters existing within the film's own 'Marvel Cinematic Universe'. The cartoon obviously shares some influence from the movies with the characterization of Iron Man in particular being based on Robert Downey Jr’s take on Tony Stark. It'll be interesting to see if they remain true to the original characters and overall Marvel branding while still making the characters engaging.

There's also extra pressure to succeed on the show from Marvel’s publishing arm to consider, hoping to translate that Cartoon audience into new readers. Well, lets be clear here: younger readers. New readers just aren't biting. The Comic biz isn’t what it used to be. In the last decade the average age of the typical Comic book reader has shifted to somewhere in the mid-20s and this has coincided with comic sales also dropping, with the biggest titles selling just under a hundred thousand copies per month. This is a far, far cry from the millions which sold regularly back in the early ‘90s.

It's a big enough issue that Marvel Publishing even had to cancel its all-ages Comic line due to low sales, proving that Comics really aren't for kids anymore. TV animation like DC's Young Justice and Marvel's Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes represent the best chance for both of the publishing giants to survive the future by making a lasting impact on the minds their books were targeted and written for. With the youth cash cow jumping over to greener pastures like the ‘Ben 10’ juggernaut, the stakes have never been higher for both Marvel and DC to capture those new readers.

Thor: The Might Avenger, one of the most fun Thor comics ever,
canceled when Marvel dropped it's all-ages line.

In 2009 Marvel Entertainment was famously bought out by the Walt Disney Company, which had a direct effect on the destinies of two of the best Marvel animated shows airing at the time. Greg Weisman’s superb Spectacular Spiderman and Chris Yost and Craig Kyle’s own Wolverine and the X-Men both found the sharp end of the Mouse House's axe, while still riding high on critical and commercial success. Granted this worked out well as Weisman moved over to produce Young Justice, Kyle became a producer on the Thor feature film an Yost of course when into developing Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Now the animation studio behind the Avengers might not be Disney in-house, but the marketing behind the show is certainly backed by Walt's money, with Disney’s own XD channel promoting the series heavily in the lead up to its premiere. It’s interesting how greatly this huge marketing campaign affected the shows release with Disney/Marvel debuting online a 20 part 'Micro-series' of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes shorts, streaming free at Marvel.com and DisneyXD.com. Released daily these mini-episodes focused on introducing new Avengers members and the world they all shared together. They worked well being essentially Avenger’s ‘vignettes’ and were fairly effective at building excitement amongst fans before the show had even begun airing. I certainly was hooked. They had Clancy Brown voicing Odin, how could I not be?




Airing as a complete Avengers 'Mini-movie' immediately before the 2-part TV premiere of ‘Break Out’ last October, I couldn’t help but notice that by presenting the Micro-series in the same sequence it was released online, it didn’t flow all that well. By jumping focus from each character arc every five minutes it was a serviceable introduction with some great action, but it made for a very disjointed viewing experience.Supervising Producer of the show, Joshua Fine explains the possible cause of this in a post made on the Toonzone forums:

"For the initial roll-out we wanted to give everyone a taste of a different hero each day, without making you wait too long to see the resolution of any one storyline. For future re-runs, they'll be combined into the full episodes as listed above. Tomorrow night we'll all get to see episode 006 'Breakout Part One' and episode 007 'Breakout Part Two' which are what I refer to as the 'true pilot' for the show."
- Source: http://www.toonzone.net/forums/showpost.php?p=3717357&postcount=144 October 19, 2012

Due to this somewhat muddled release, I’ll be strictly following the actual series production order by starting my reviews with these five prequel episodes mentioned by Josh in his post. Each of these episodes should effectively stand on their own as they spotlight only two or three Avengers members per episode, and I'm thinking this could make for a more satisfying narrative and clearer focus to start the series off with, and it's another reason why I'm doing these reviews to see if I'm right in thinking this. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to follow the actual production order as well and I can only pray that this will be the order used when the show makes it to DVD and Blu-Ray. By also reviewing each episode on it's own merits, it's also fairer on the writers, animators and directors of each single episode than solely reviewing the Micro-series by itself.

So beginning with the first episode “Iron Man is Born” and continuing on to “Thor the Mighty” and so on, you’ll see my thoughts on each episode posted here weekly on Jung Justice. I’ll be looking at how the show affects me as a fan, if it’s successful in translating the voice of the distinct voice of the Comics and also if they really make that slice of the Marvel Universe come alive. Yost has promised over 130 named Marvel characters in the first 26 episodes alone which should make for a textured Marvel continuity within the show which will be fun exploring week in, week out. The history of the Avengers comics is absolutely huge so any new Avengers history created within the cartoon should also reflect the source material.

All in all, I’m hoping the show delivers on kick-ass, epic story lines filled with all the classic Avengers heroes and villains that I’d always hoped to read about. Classic confrontations with Kang the Conqueror, the origins of Ultron and the internal conflict faced by the Avengers members are just some aspects I hope to see the show cover. Hell, if there’s even the remotest chance I’ll get to see a classic Thor Vs Hercules fight or just the Incredible Herc himself, you've got my attention.So it this sounds like a show you’re interested in, and really no-one would make it to the end of this post if they weren’t, click right over to the reviews page now to see if it manages to live up to expectations.