Episode Review: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! : Episode 103 : "Hulk Vs the World"

The Incredible Hulk smashes into his first appearance on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes in a great episode scripted by Chris Yost and producer Josh Fine. Titled 'Hulk Vs the World' it also happens to be a surprising introduction for the Green Goliath as he's not alone with 'The World' including the series' introduction to both Hawkeye and the Black Widow. So there's a lot going on in this episode that isn't Hulk just breaking stuff for 22 minutes as you might expect, because there's also a lot more Avengers world-building going here AND Hulk breaking stuff!

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!

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.