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!

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.

Episode Review: Young Justice "Schooled" : Episode 1.05

'If dislike is the opposite of like, is disaster the opposite of aster?' - Robin

Well, to paraphrase Superboy in this weeks episode, 'I am totally feeling the 'aster'.

I think it's safe to say that Young Justice has already done things with the team superhero format that neither Teen Titans or Justice League ever did. There's a richness to the character dynamics between Super Heroes that usually plays out solely in the realm of the costumed escapades. Unless your name is Smallville, in which case the costumes are an afterthought. My memory of Justice League may be a little hazy, but I don't recall them ever exploring what these people are like out of costume. That sort of stuff was kept for shows about the individuals. You didn't want to see Bruce Wayne hanging out at Watchtower, you want to see Batman. Teen Titans always had our heroes 'in character' and in costume, whether they were in the field or watching movies in their ridiculous T shaped headquarters.

Young Justice says, 'we've written that before and you guys have seen it before'. So by episode five, a series centred around the teenage heroes indulges in a quiet moment between Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent in a diner (in civvies), discussing the complex paternal relationship that needs to form between Kent and his clone, Superboy. In another show, this conversation would have happened on a rooftop, and in costume. For the first time I realise how absurd it is for these Gods amongst men to make every little conversation more melodramatic than it needs to be; in outer space, or in a hollowed out mountain, or a Bat-cave. It makes so much more sense for this intimate moment to take place between the two real people, as opposed to their public personas. They're all friends after all right? The exchange itself is superb, succinctly defining the two characters and their differing approach to the dilemma of a perpetually pissed off Superboy (with a cute gag involving Clark and Bruce ordering Apple Pie and Devils Food Cake, respectively) The banner at the top of the review may say Young Justice but I'm certain this series will encompass as much (maybe more) of the DC Universe as any one series before it.

Episode Review: Young Justice "Drop Zone" : Episode 1.04

It may be early in the show's run, but I'm going to go ahead and make it official anyway.

Young Justice is my favourite DC animated series.

I'll explain why shortly, but I'll start by saying that I absolutely loved "Drop Zone". It had the best version of Bane I've ever seen in any of the Batman media (voiced by Trejo no less!), it had one of the coolest 'Men on a Mission' scenarios I've seen in a while, it had compelling character moments wrapped up in a cocoon of exceedingly well animated action scenes and tied in bow of mythology. This is only episode four; I can only imagine what the show runners have in store for us.

Episode Review : Young Justice “Welcome To Happy Harbour” : Episode 1.03)

Well it’s been a pretty long break; between episodes of my favourite toons airing as well as an entry into the blog. I knew this was going to take a while before I got into the swing of it… not to mention got good at it.

So, in order to get the ball really rolling, the next few entries may be somewhat lacking, but then again, I love reading those reviews of Outlaw Vern that end in, ‘why didn’t I finish this review?”. Also, the format will be different to last time, but I’ll figure it all out eventually.

“Welcome to Happy Harbor” starts off in Star City with our Young Justice team dropping in on Speedy to try and convince him to join the team. Speedy just so happens to be in the middle of dealing with Brick at the Dockyards (in quite the dynamic action scene to boot), which is indicative of the way Young Justice does business. It’s not content to do one thing at a time, and I mean that in the best way.

Episode Review: Generator Rex, Episode 101, "The Day That Everything Changed"

I'm going to be doing something a little different to most sites in that a lot of these reviews are going to be written with the benefit of having seen more of the series. This is only because I have such a huge backlog of series and films to review, I'm sure eventually it'll be a lot more real-time. As a result, this first burst of reviews will probably be more prone to spoilers (SPOILERS! YAY!) and less prone to speculation.

'Generator Rex' is 20 episodes old at the time of the this review, but you all deserve a recap anyway. 'Generator Rex' is the new series from 'Man Of Action', the collective of writers who brought you Ben 10 and Ben 10 Alien Force. Here's the plot according to Wikipedia

Episode Review: Young Justice "Independence Day" (Pilot)

Friday saw the premiere of the new DC animated series 'Young Justice' and while we wont be seeing it again till January, you'll want to add this to your must-watch list for 2011. That is, if you love your super heroics-in-animated-form as much as I do... and doubly so if you are as disappointed in the Avengers series as I am.

I'm still figuring out a format for how I'm going to write these, and exactly how much detail I'll go into, but here we go....

--RECAP

'Young Justice' hits the ground running, introducing our young heroes (teen titans, if you will) in a series of fun, and very well animated action scenes. In the space of 5 minutes we've seen Robin (Jesse McCartney), Speedy (Crispin Freeman), Kid Flash (Jason Spisak), Aqualad (Khary Payton) as well as Justice Leaguers; Batman (Bruce Greenwood), Superman (Nolan North), Green Arrow (Alan Tudyk), Aquaman (Phil LaMarr), Martian Manhunter (Kevin Michael Richardson), Flash (George Eads), Zatarra  and Red Tornado. Phew! Then there's the quartet of ice-based villains the Sidekicks all take down; Freeze, Icicle, Captain Cold and .... some other one (c'mon, DC just have so many ice villains!).