Marvel's Avengers Assemble animated series discussion

I watched the trailer earlier and I couldn't judge to much from it. It didn't look to bad to me. I'll probably check out the free episode tomorrow.

 

Well I saw the first two episodes, it looks like it will be good.

 

Well, it's not actually bad, but I'm not entirely sold on it. It's definitely in the Ultimate Spider-Man universe (unofficially called Earth-TRN123, apparently) -- the same voice cast for the shared characters, the same look, even a J. Jonah Jameson cameo -- but is taking a relatively more serious tone, and is heavily, heavily derivative of the movie, right down to copying the film's Stark Tower design so exactly that I think they just took the same computer model and applied a more cartoony texture to its rendering. And yet it also features the same Avengers Mansion seen in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or something very close to it in design.

It feels like it's trying to set itself up in a way that it could pass to the casual viewer as a sequel to either EMH or the movie. The Avengers existed before but have broken up, and now Stark brings together the same team from the movie. But it becomes clear that the team spent more time together here than they did in the film, plus Hulk is a lot more talkative. And it doesn't fit the EMH continuity either, because the Falcon is a very different character, and because Iron Man has no history of leading the team in this version. I think I'd prefer it if it were more forthright about defining its own distinct reality, rather than trying to be this generic.

And there's a big logic hole in the central premise. Okay, so Iron Man takes on the leadership role he's ill-suited for once Cap apparently dies, and struggles to become worthy of that role. But they get Cap back before the first episode is over! Why not just pass leadership back to him? This is never addressed or justified. It just feels like Iron Man had to be in charge because he's the top dog in the Cinematic Universe, regardless of whether it made any in-story sense.

I'm not sure how I feel about the "let's all be roomies" premise. That has the potential to degenerate into reality-show-like hijinks, and isn't that what they're also planning to do with Hulk: Agents of SMASH, only even more blatantly?

 

So I just finished watching Marvel's Avengers Assemble: "The Avengers Protocol - Part 1" and to be completely honest, I wanted to turn it off at least twice before the end of the episode. Not sure I'm going to watch Part 2 now.

This show is just so... It's just sub-par.
In no way does it come close to the bar set by Avengers: EMH

I'm still bummed about that cancellation just to launch this "New" take on the Avengers in a shared universe with the Ultimate Spider-Man show (which I also don't care for) but whatever.

Green Lantern was good despite what I expected.
Young Justice was Excellent
Avengers EMH also Excellent with a nice retro/modern appreciation of comic lore thrown in.

Least I've still got Legend of Korra to look forward to.

Not sure there's anything else out there at the moment that tries to approach these sorts of characters in at least a halfway reasonable/realistic way now, save for Korra.

 

I watched the first episode, and it sucked. I barely got through it. The story was annoying, the edits (like making the screen super widescreen and stuff like that) almost made me scream by the end, and overall it just sucked. EMH was a good show, this is just bad. I'm not going to waste my time with it.

 

Yeah I couldn't get through the first episode either. The animation looked decent, but the rest just felt like generic action cartoon stuff.

I also don't see the point in using the team from the movie if you're just going to give them a bunch of generic cartoon personalities. I would have loved to have seen Ruffalo's more bemused and low-key Banner in this, or Evan's and Hemsworth much more human and likeable Cap and Thor. Hell, even Renner's grittier Hawkeye would have been kind of fun to see in a cartoon.

 

Having watched the pilot... I'll watch the series but I enjoyed EMH much, much more...

Even the animation looked cheaper than EMH! Ult Spidey looks much better than this does.

 

Damn, now I have to check this out. If hated it this much, then it's probably going to be one of my favorite shows.

 

I really could've done without Hawkeye making jokes about the Hulk's bad breath and body odor.

 

I really don't have a long review of this, and it doesn't need one. This new Avengers toon is bland. I felt nothing while watching it; I may as well have been watching E!.

 

It was *alright* I dunno - honestly I wasn't super-impressed by Avengers: EMH when it first came out. I'll bet if we go through the forum archives and look at the comments for the first batch of "micro episodes" they released in dribbles online - I'll bet people were saying the same thing. And I do recall people not liking A:EMH early on too.

And then it came into its own and people now are using it as the bar that set the standard.

The story was a bit... it wasn't the greatest. It's still pretty 'kid' focused. I do hope they'll take a few pages out of EMH's book and adapt comics storylines. Even if its more modern stuff. I'd kinda love to see a Civil War storyline adapted into the cartoon.

The 'Aveng-Jet Prime' thing at the end though... that was kinda cheesy. So what? They have a transforming 'headquarters'... ?

But we'll see how it goes. Honestly I don't mind Ult. Spider-Man - I guess we do have to remember WHY these shows are on as cartoons, they're not mainly on for us 'older' fans, they're on for kids. If they appeal to us as adults and adapt stories we enjoy hey that's gravy.

Although that said, I would love to actually see a tv based series or even a direct to dvd series that essentially animated classic stories and were made basically for an older audience. More akin to some of the DC Comics movies - where they'll essentially adapt one story. But I'd like to see a whole actual continuity based series, can still tie into the movies and such, but IS written for adults and maybe not so G rated.

 

My number one regret about EMH being canceled is they started leading into Civil War but never got to do it

 

Yeah that was disappointing too - although it felt like in a way, I'm kinda glad they didn't do it. Because really, Civil War should have come before Secret Invasion, I mean part of SI is that with the Civil War, they were able to slot themselves in far more easily and it was a way to get rid of other threats.

But... I wouldn't mind a more "adult animation" series that STARTED with Civil War or even just after New Avengers sort of leading up to it. Introduce a proper Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, maybe actually start with New Avengers first couple of storylines - just compressed - for the first "disc" and then maybe for the second "disc" do like the road to civil war, then in the third "disc" do the actual civil war - maybe even as a two parter - and then at the end Cap dies. Disc four sort of is the aftermath and the start of Secret Invasion, Disc Five is the actual Secret Invasion which leads into a sort of "Dark Reign".

Hell I'd be happy if they essentially did motion comics but I would rather see an animated movie - with some care taken. Plus it's been far long enough that no one will bitch about "spoilers" - since honestly, that least Season of EMH was practically like current comics - or like the previous year's stuff. At least some of it.

 

EMH's abandonded Surtur storyline is what irks me the most.

 

The Philidelphia bike club named after them must also be mad.

Great Surtur's Ghost!

 

New episode aired today.

The Avengers fighting over cookies was so bizarre. I guess this show will be more of a comedy.

 

What the hell kinda viewing schedule is this show on???

 

This week's episode was pretty weak. Man of Action's attempts at Asgardian/troll dialogue were pretty bizarre-sounding. "Where did you get such a weapon of Asgard?" Huh? All the characterizations were one-note and repetitive, and Dr. Doom was reduced to a power-mad idiot. (Plus he was played by Maurice LaMarche, and at first he managed to do a pretty good David Warner impression, but once the action started, Doom was yelling all his lines and just sounded like Maurice LaMarche yelling, and it was hard to take him seriously when he sounded so much like Calculon.) The pacing and performances weren't very good, and the animation was rather weak and unexpressive. Plus, where the heck was Black Widow?

I've never been that impressed by the Man of Action team (although I really liked its member Joe Kelly's work on Superman vs. the Elite and what I've seen of the comic it was based on), but they've done much better than this in the past.

 

Yeah it's hard to be threatened by Kiff/Morbo/Lurr...

 

I wasn't sure I wanted to watch AA this week, but I needed a distraction at 11 AM rolled around, so I turned it on. A minute or so into a sequence of the various Avengers going about everyday life -- in full costume for some reason -- there was a bit with Captain America punching a heavy bag, hitting it hard enough to break the chain, and then picking up another from a row of them.

I was annoyed enough to turn the TV off and walk away. I mean, that scene in The Avengers of Cap with all the punching bags was meaningful. It was a powerful moment that summed up Steve's frustration at being a man out of time. Its significance came from its character context, from where Steve Rogers was at that moment in his life. But here it was just an incidental bit, like we were supposed to believe this was just what Cap did every day, like it meant nothing but "Ooh, he's real strong so he breaks heavy bags." These people making the show, they just went, "Uhh, the movie had Cap do that punching-bag thing, so let's copy that." Just form and no substance, copying the surface of something from a popular movie without any regard for why it worked or what it meant. It underlined just how derivative and hollow and mercenary this show is.

I mean, yeah, it's common enough for superhero cartoons -- or even the core comics -- to do things that reflect a recent, popular film adaptation. Batman: The Animated Series had to use Tim Burtonesque designs for Catwoman and Penguin. X-Men Evolution gave Xavier an English accent. The Batman depicted a very Morgan Freeman-like Lucius Fox and gave him the same tech-support/confidante role he had in Batman Begins. But these shows had plenty of original ideas of their own, and their borrowings weren't as superficial as copying actual lines of dialogue and action beats. I don't think I've ever seen a show that was so crudely, shallowly imitative as Avengers Assemble.